Comparison

DealIntel vs spreadsheets

A spreadsheet is a great place to record assumptions. It is a bad place to run them. Here is where Excel / Google Sheets fix & flip underwriting breaks — and what an institutional deal intelligence platform replaces it with.

The core problem with spreadsheet underwriting

Almost every fix & flip operator starts with a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is fast to set up, infinitely flexible, and costs nothing. It is also why most operators eventually mispriced a deal: the comps are stale, the financing assumption is wrong, the kill list lives in the investor's head, and the stress-test is whatever the user remembered to type into a data table that morning.

DealIntel is built around the inverse premise. Every deal is evaluated against the same 25-point kill list, the same six-strategy engine, the same Monte-Carlo financial model, the same confidence-weighted comp set, and the same financing comparison — automatically, on every deal, identically across every user.

Side by side

Capability

Excel / Google Sheets

DealIntel

Comparable sales (comps) freshness

Manually entered, instantly stale. Refresh requires a separate MLS or Zillow lookup, then re-typing values.

Live, confidence-weighted comp engine with recency / distance / size / renovation parity filters. Every ARV carries a confidence score.

Deal-breaker screening

No native concept. The investor has to remember every red flag — zoning, title, exit absorption, comp thinness — and manually check each.

25-point Kill List runs on every deal across structural, market, financing, legal, and exit risk. Critical flags trigger a Pass verdict before strategy work begins.

Strategy comparison

Usually a single strategy per workbook (Fix & Flip or BRRRR). Multi-strategy comparison requires multiple files or sheets that drift out of sync.

Six strategies evaluated simultaneously per property — Fix & Flip, ADU, Addition, Multi-Unit Conversion, Ground-Up, and BRRRR — each with its own playbook and capital stack.

Stress testing / sensitivity

Manual data-table or one-variable goal seek. Two-variable sensitivity is possible; full Monte-Carlo is not practical without VBA.

Built-in Monte-Carlo engine runs 1,000+ simulations per deal, surfacing P10 / P50 / P90 outcomes under rate, rehab, and absorption shocks.

Financing scenarios

One financing assumption per workbook. Comparing hard money vs DSCR vs construction loan vs conventional means duplicating sheets.

Hard money, DSCR, construction loan, and conventional financing compared side-by-side with full draw schedules, interest reserves, points, and total cost-of-capital math.

Zoning / FAR / setback constraints

Not modeled. The investor checks the municipal portal separately and may or may not encode the result.

Zoning, FAR, setback, and parking rules pulled per jurisdiction. ADU / Addition / Multi-Unit feasibility gates check these automatically.

Visual rehab planning

None. Scope is a line-item budget — never an image.

AI Renovation Vision generates photoreal interior and exterior post-rehab visualizations from the strategy and scope, suitable for capital pitches and buyer prep.

Output for partners / lenders

PDF export of a workbook tab. Legible, but not formatted for institutional review.

Committee-ready Investment Memorandum (PDF) — verdict, Kill List, strategy comparison, financial model, financing, and offer letter in one shareable document.

Speed per deal

20–60 minutes per property, longer when comps are pulled fresh.

Address-in to verdict-out in under a minute for the base evaluation. Memorandum PDF generation runs in the background.

Auditability and consistency

Every investor's workbook is slightly different. Assumptions drift; formula errors are common; review is hard.

One institutional standard applied to every deal. The verdict logic, comp filters, and strategy assumptions are versioned and uniform across users.

When a spreadsheet is still the right tool

Spreadsheets remain unbeatable for one-off, novel models — a unique capital stack, a complex partnership waterfall, a scenario the platform doesn't ship. DealIntel doesn't replace Excel for those. It replaces Excel for the repeatable, high-volume part of the workflow: should I even keep looking at this deal.

See it on a real deal

Run a single property through DealIntel and compare the output to your current workbook.

Start free →

Frequently asked questions

Why not just use Excel or Google Sheets for fix & flip underwriting?

Spreadsheets are great for storing assumptions and bad at keeping them current. Comps go stale immediately, the kill list lives in the investor's head, the financing scenario is one number deep, and the stress test is whatever the user remembered to type into a data table that morning. A platform applies the same institutional standard to every deal automatically — that consistency is the unlock spreadsheets cannot match.

What can DealIntel do that a spreadsheet cannot?

Run a 25-point Kill List on every deal, compare six strategies in parallel, run Monte-Carlo simulations (1,000+) with P10/P50/P90 outcomes, compare hard money / DSCR / construction / conventional financing side-by-side, generate photoreal AI renovation visualizations, and export a committee-ready institutional Investment Memorandum — all from an address input, in under a minute.

When is a spreadsheet still the right tool?

Spreadsheets remain unbeatable for one-off, novel models — a unique capital stack, a complex partnership waterfall, a scenario the platform does not ship. DealIntel does not replace Excel for those. It replaces Excel for the repeatable, high-volume part of the workflow: should I even keep looking at this deal.

Is DealIntel faster than a spreadsheet?

Materially. A careful spreadsheet underwrite typically takes 20–60 minutes per property, longer when comps are pulled fresh. DealIntel produces the base verdict in under a minute and the institutional Memorandum PDF runs in the background. Across 20 deals that is hours of savings — and the platform applies the same standard every time.

Is my data safer in a spreadsheet?

Spreadsheets feel private but they fragment institutional knowledge across files and users. DealIntel data is encrypted at rest and in transit and managed in a single account — easier to audit, easier to share with partners or lenders, harder to lose. For collaborative or institutional contexts, the platform wins on auditability.