What Is a Rent Roll for an Apartment Building? Definition, a 12-Unit Example and the Columns Lenders Check

What is a rent roll for an apartment building?

A rent roll is a list of every unit in an apartment building. For one date it shows who rents each unit, the lease dates, the rent charged, the deposit held and any balance owed.

A tenant list is not enough. A rent roll has every unit on one dated sheet, the vacant ones too, with what each unit was charged, what was given away, what is held and what is owed. The rent roll is the starting record for the income side of apartment building bookkeeping.

What is included in an apartment building's rent roll?

One line per unit with 10 columns: unit, tenant, lease start, lease end, market rent, rent charged, concession, deposit held, balance owed and days late. A totals row closes it.

• Unit, tenant, lease start and lease end. A vacant unit says Vacant in the tenant column and has no lease dates.
• Market rent and rent charged. The first is what the unit could rent for, the second is what this lease bills.
• Concession, deposit held, balance owed and days late. These 4 are the columns most samples leave out.
• The totals row: units rented, rent if full and rent charged. Deposits held and balance owed are totalled too.

The roll is dated. It shows one day, and a new one is kept for the end of each month.

What does an apartment rent roll look like? A 12-unit example

Oak St has 12 units at $1,450, so rent if full is $17,400. One unit is vacant, one tenant owes $1,450 and one new lease has a $300 move-in special.

Oak St rent roll, Oct 31, 2026, invented data

3 lines carry the whole story of the month.

• Unit 4 is vacant. It still has a line, with its market rent of $1,450, so the roll shows what the empty unit costs. No rent charged, no deposit held.
• Unit 7 paid nothing this month. Its balance owed is $1,450 and it is 30 days late.
• Unit 10 is a new lease with a $300 move-in special. Rent charged is $1,450, the concession is $300, and the tenant paid $1,150, so the balance owed is $0.

11 rented units at $1,450 is $15,950 of rent charged. Less the $1,450 owed by Unit 7 and the $300 special, $14,200 reached the bank.

What does each column of an apartment rent roll mean?

Market rent is what the unit could rent for. Rent charged is what this lease bills. Concession is rent given away. Deposit held is owed back. Balance owed and days late show who is behind.

The deposit column is the building's deposit list, kept as described in security deposit accounting for apartment buildings. At Oak St it totals $8,250: 11 units at $750.

How do you get a rent roll for an apartment building?

Print it from the property software, or build it from the leases and the tenant balances. Date it, and keep one for the end of every month.

• From the property software. Most programs print a rent roll for any date. Check that every unit is on it and that the vacant units show.
• From the leases and the tenant balances. One line per unit, the dates and rents from each lease, the balance owed and days late from each tenant ledger.

A blank copy with these columns, and 2 more for the month's payments, is the apartment rent roll template.

How does a lender read an apartment building's rent roll?

A lender checks 4 things: how many units are rented, when the leases end, how rent charged compares with market rent, and which tenants are behind. Then it compares the totals with your income statement.

• Units rented. At Oak St, 11 of 12.
• Lease end dates. How many leases end in the next few months, and whether they bunch up.
• Rent charged against market rent. At Oak St every rented unit is charged $1,450, the market rent, so no lease sits below market.
• Who is behind. At Oak St, Unit 7 owes $1,450 and is 30 days late.

Then the lender adds up the roll and compares it with your income statement for the same month. The 2 should tell the same story. A lender may ask for a signed or certified rent roll on its own form; what signing it commits you to is a question for your attorney.

What else a lender asks for after closing is in the lender reporting package.

How does an apartment rent roll tie to the bank?

The rent roll shows rent due. The bank shows rent received. Each month the two are compared, and every dollar of the difference is named: vacancy, late rent or a special.

Oak St, the 3 totals, invented data

At Oak St the $3,200 is the vacant unit, the late unit and the move-in special. Finding the difference each month is the subject of rent roll vs bank statement.

What is the difference between an apartment rent roll and a T12?

A rent roll shows one date, unit by unit. A T12 shows 12 months of income and costs for the whole building, month by month. Lenders often ask for both.

A T12 is a trailing 12 months statement: the building's income and costs for the last 12 months, one column per month.

How the 12-month report is built is in T12 statement for an apartment building.