Hi Everyone,
I've been working with some like-minded folks on an Open Source Argus alternative. Frankly, we feel that we RE investors would really benefit from great quality open source tools that everyone can use. A lot of what is out there is painful and commercial use only (expensive, black box, can't be improved by the community).
We have an initial prototype - and would love to hear from any active RE analysts that are interested in this goal and would be willing to spend 45 minutes with us to see what we have and provide feedback. It's an open-source product, so we have nothing to sell you - we just want to build something great that will be useful across the industry. We are hoping to get something released in Q1 2022.
If you are too busy, it would be great to hear any pain points/things you love about the modelling software you are using (e.g. Argus, Fuel, Assess+RE, rDCF).
Thanks,
Great idea and have thought about doing it myself in the past!
Will drop you a PM.
Best of luck! Ambitious project, but would be awesome if you accomplish it.
My biggest issue with Argus is the difficulty in partitioning out different categories of the Revenue. For example, how much revenue is tied to contract rents, renewal assumptions, new leasing activity, etc. Effectively & quickly being able to break down a deal quickly to see what's there, and what I'm assuming would be there, would be immensely valuable. Maybe there's a way to do this already, but haven't figured it out yet.
Thanks for this, very helpful.
We have been working on something that lets you specify your own groupings of cashflows, exactly like you describe. Do you think the output should just be in a raw table format (a bit like a pivot table, but with each row being one of the "items of interest" you have specified), or you want to see it presented in something more like a returns bridge?
Raw data format is my preference. I can then extract that raw data and plug it into my own chart/summary for an OM.
Having the capacity to dynamically adjust the cash flow categories would be enormous. So in addition to the 'Lease Status' that I mentioned in my prior post, having an 'Industry Classification' category would be helpful, particularly for retail owners & brokers. Whether it's NAICS-style codes or something more akin to 'Healthcare & Beauty' or 'Clothing Stores', etc... Probably already thought of that, but just my $0.02
Happy to help--dropped you a PM!
Thanks, look forward to connecting!
wishlist:
-ability to get data out easily to excel. we currently use Argus's XL4ADW connection to excel, but it isnt great (time consuming and data can come out weird)
-ability to pull MLAs to excel easily. Argus's leasing assumption report is okay, but try running it on an entire portfolio when you want to compare all your MLAs
-debt that calculates interest correctly. Actual/360, 30/360, Actual/365 as drop down selections
-reserves. the ability to pay into a reserve "bucket" then use money from that bucket to offset a cost on a specified line. (capital, TI/LC)
-waterfall calcs
-the ability to model a development project. the tabs in argus are very logical; it would be great to add a Dev tab where you could forecast costs with built in spending curves (using a start and end date, spend $X over an S-curve, bell curve, straight line, or specific dates)
-the ability to bring in actual data (argus can do this, but would be great if your product could to)
-the ability to roll-up cash flows from multiple properties
Thanks, this is a great list!
I of these, I particularly like the development model and the excel link. Very nice ideas. We have implemented a pretty useful way of integration with the excel. Rather than clicking ribbon buttons, we primarily use cell formula and arrays to do the data interface so the model behaves dynamically (when you change a linked input, the cashflows automatically refresh).
If I could ask:
i. Do you see any of these as a "killer feature" where, if it was implemented it would be enough for you to consider switching (assuming the rest of the software is on point)?
ii. Roughly, what percentage of the time do you get the Argus file from the broker vs. you are creating the Argus yourself from the SOT?
Thanks again for the great suggestions.
the unfortunate answer is you wont kill Argus until you get market adoption. I'm in asset management, but help out with acquisitions from time to time - we are 90% of the time taking broker argus, scrubbing, and adjusting assumptions. When i go to get a loan - they ask for the argus; when i get an appraisal - they ask for the argus; when i sell - the broker asks for the argus
with that being said, i would love if a more open competitor comes in and can do everything argus can plus fixes their problems. argus needs a real competitor and i hope it can be you.
and to give you a direct answer, if you incorporate the development piece, we would buy it just for that
I'd love a demo personally.
Nice, ill drop you a message!
Same, would love a demo.
Great, thanks will send you a private message!
Hi, I've run out of private messages - if you can please drop me a message and we can a demo organized.
Same here, let me know if you hear back from them
You mention you're developing this open-source. Are there any means by which you're monetizing? Nonetheless, I'm learning python and later in 2022 full-stack and might be interested in contributing to gain more experience!
Yes, we want the product to be fully open source, but that doesn't mean there isn't the ability to build a business over time (IF like Workemail mentioned we build something good enough that it gets widespread adoption).
The usual route is to offer hosting for the product - basically people can download and run the program themselves (for free) or if they want simplicity/a more powerful computer than their laptop they can access an online version that they pay for the compute resources on.
If you'd like to connect more, drop me a private message. The codebase is in Python and VueJS, and one of the features we actually think is quite useful is that you can work with the cashflow model either in excel, through a browser tool, or via a Jupyter notebook (for those that want to do more python/data science stuff).
Why not go with the RHEL path and monetize the support/maintenance, implementation professional services or tailored trainings?
Would love a demo and am happy to provide feedback
Perfect, do you mind dropping me a direct message so we can get a call on the calendar?
Would love a demo.
Thanks, have sent you a private message!
Hey what’s up let me know if you hear back from them.
Thanks
Hi,
Just wanted to loop back and thank you all for the feedback so far. One of the key messages that came through our one
on one discussions and the forum was that a lot of you want to see a development module that can be easily linked into the
main cashflow.
So, over the weekend we did an informal hackathon to get a prototype up and running for you guys - so we can get some feedback
if this is along the right lines for your feature idea.
You see the video of what we built here:
https://biteable.com/watch/3403721/6cd8a7d8e14ed28424d4cb375911be75
This is an initial prototype and the output is very basic, but we would love to get your feedback on -
1. Is this what you had in mind for the development module?
2. Any features this needs to be usable for you?
3. Most importantly - does anyone have a pro-forma development cashflow summary table / chart that we could use
and add to the module? The current chart and table is quite lacking - it just present the numbers raw.
Thanks again, and special thank you to "workeemail" and the others who first suggested this idea.
We will be looking to work on some of the other features that have been suggested over the coming weeks.
Cheers,
I can send one to you if you haven’t gotten it already.
Biggest concern would be reversibility. If a broker sends me an Argus model and I can’t somehow dump that onto your software than your software is useless to me as I don’t have the time or capacity to be building Argus models from scratch for every deal I look at.
Yeah this is a very valid point. Assuming you are referring here primarily to the Cashflow models rather than the development model the others had suggested?
We had few solutions to this:
- We have been speaking with brokers about pre-creating a model for them that they can stick in the data room, so that you would get an Open Source model format as part of the data room materials. Of course, we have to sign NDAs to do this and delete all the data after we create the model, but it's probably the most user friendly option. We would be happy to turn this around for any markets/brokers you commonly work with. Because the format is Open Source, any future tools (built by anyone) can leverage the open format.
- A parser from the Argus input summary reports, so you can directly load them into the tool
- An email service, so we do the above for you in ~15 minutes
Yeah you got it exactly. I’d imagine there could be some way to export rent roll, mla, cash flows, etc data to excel from Argus and then if we could upload the excel sheets to your program and it puts together the mode automatically that would more or less solve the issue. Or it’d be more likely the brokers do this since they’d be the ones auditing this anyways as I wouldn’t really have the time in my day to audit every model I put together.
Only thing I actually want out of Argus is 3-D modelling of the asset in conjunction with the data. The ability to visualize the financials of a master planned community would be tight. This will help in explaining things to folks in meetings where 2-D pdf renderings often take a while to parse through
I am a current student and just finished up an Argus Modeling course. Would love to look at a demo and be able to compare and continue to practice with an Argus like software, as I don't have access to the program anymore. Also love the project idea as Argus, for its price and status, is a pretty buggy and non user friendly program even though its straight forward. Thank you!
Late to the party, but it would be nice if there was a way to set tenant's reimbursement percentage shares to be based upon their respective proportion of the total rental income instead of their share of the building area. For example if a retail tenant is paying 20% of of the overall building rent but only occupies 10% of the building area
Thanks, appreciated. We have been making good progress and are hoping to have an initial release end Feb. This should be fairly simple for us to incorporate. If its okay, will check in with you once this is implemented to verify the logic?
My apologies - I meant to respond sooner, but I got caught up with work. Yes, feel free to message me once you are further along.
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