Which of the following would be considered a main sheet in a real estate financial model?

• A. Inputs
• B. Engine
• C. Historical financials
• D. Argus outputs

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is where the values that drive the model live. In a real estate financial model, the inputs sheet is the primary hub for entering the driving assumptions—things like rents, vacancy, operating expenses, capital expenditures, financing terms, and growth rates. These inputs feed the engine, which performs all the calculations to generate cash flows, leverage, equity returns, and other metrics. Keeping these driving assumptions on a single inputs sheet makes scenario analysis easy: change the inputs and the engine recomputes the results. Historical financials are useful for benchmarking against past performance, but they don’t drive the current calculations, and Argus outputs are external results, not the source of the model’s calculations. So the inputs sheet is the main sheet.