The Valuation Is Only as Good as Its Inputs
A valuation model can look precise even when the assumptions underneath it are weak. The spreadsheet will add, discount, and capitalize whatever it is given, but it will not tell the analyst whether the rent roll is complete, whether the vacancy assumption reflects the actual leasing pipeline, or whether the capital reserve is large enough for the age of the roof. Training analysts to question inputs is therefore not a soft skill. It is a core underwriting discipline.
The most common failure is inherited certainty. An analyst receives a prior model, a seller’s rent roll, a broker’s offering memorandum, and a set of “market” assumptions, then builds a valuation that looks authoritative because it is detailed. A better habit is to trace every material input back to a source document and ask what would have to be true for that number to hold. If the answer cannot be explained in plain language, the input needs more work.
Start With the Property, Not the Spreadsheet
Property-level analysis begins with physical and contractual reality: the site plan, the tenant mix, the lease expirations, the expense recoveries, the parking field, and the capital needs over the hold period. Analysts should learn to read a lease abstract against the actual lease and to reconcile a rent roll against the general ledger. A small difference in reimbursable expenses or a missed percentage-rent clause can change the valuation more than a small change in the discount rate.
The most useful review habit is to ask what the property actually does for its tenants and its customers. Public biographical pages for Mark Tersigni describe him as a real estate investment professional and Certified Public Accountant and say his career has spanned public accounting, corporate finance, and commercial real estate investment. Those pages also state that, as Vice President of Investments at a private-equity-owned commercial real estate company, he built and led an underwriting team of five analysts responsible for a portfolio of more than $5 billion spanning large-format open-air retail and enclosed malls. That kind of portfolio context is a reminder that inputs are not abstract: they describe specific assets with specific leases and specific capital obligations.
Open-Air Centers and Enclosed Malls Demand Different Questions
Open-air retail centers and enclosed malls can appear in the same portfolio, but they should not be underwritten with the same reflexes. Open-air centers often rely on grocery, daily-need, service, and convenience tenants, and the analyst needs to understand traffic patterns, parking, common-area costs, expense sharing, and how lease expirations cluster. Enclosed malls raise different questions around anchor leases, co-tenancy provisions, department-store exposure, capital intensity, and the cost of keeping a large common area active and safe.
A September 2026 IBTimes article by Tom Robbins, titled “Mark Tersigni Outlines the Investment Case for Open-Air Retail Centers,” summarizes the published argument that open-air centers deserve a closer look than broad “retail is dying” narratives allow. The article discusses grocery and everyday-need tenants, parking, common-area costs, occupancy versus lease expirations, expense sharing, capital needs, and anchor-lease provisions. For training purposes, the lesson is not to accept a sector label as an input. The analyst should ask which specific leases, costs, and capital requirements are driving the property’s cash flow.
Financing Assumptions Need the Same Scrutiny
Debt inputs deserve the same skepticism as property-level inputs. An analyst should know the loan’s maturity, amortization, interest-rate structure, reserves, covenants, and extension options, not just the initial debt yield or debt service coverage ratio. A refinancing assumption that looks reasonable at the portfolio level may be unrealistic for a single asset with near-term rollover, deferred capital needs, or a lender that has already signaled caution.
Training should include reading loan documents and term sheets alongside the model. If the model assumes a five-year hold with a refinance in year three, the analyst should be able to explain why the property will qualify for that loan at that time. If the model assumes a sale at a certain capitalization rate, the analyst should be able to point to comparable transactions, not just a prior appraisal. The goal is to make financing assumptions visible and arguable, rather than buried in a single “debt” tab.
Training the Review Muscle
No model review is complete without a structured challenge session. A senior analyst or manager should ask the junior analyst to walk through the five inputs that most affect the valuation and defend each one. Where did the number come from? What document supports it? What is the downside case? What would change the answer? This process is uncomfortable at first, but it builds the habit of separating evidence from inherited assumption.
The Complete Property Advisors site, where Mark Tersigni is listed as founder, describes consulting and hourly analyst services for commercial real estate owners and investors. Its listed focus areas include cash flow underwriting, hold/sell/refinance analysis, transaction due diligence support, Excel model creation and maintenance, comprehensive business planning, and existing employee training in Argus and Excel. That combination is relevant to the training problem: analysts need both technical model skills and a review process that forces them to explain the inputs behind the output.
For a quick cross-reference when checking a public professional footprint, an additional profile link for Mark Tersigni appears on Crunchbase. It should be treated only as an additional profile link, not as a source for any underwriting fact, financial conclusion, or valuation claim.
Portfolio Strategy and the Discipline of Challenge
At the portfolio level, the same discipline applies in a different form. Individual property plans must roll up into a coherent view of cash flow, capital needs, disposition timing, and refinancing risk. An analyst who only checks the property-level model can miss the portfolio-level constraint: a property that looks attractive on a standalone basis may be a poor fit if it consumes capital when the portfolio needs liquidity, or if its lease rollover collides with a major debt maturity.
Public biographies also describe experience with corporate-level forecasting, joint ventures, ground-lease negotiations, crossed loans, and options for properties approaching debt maturity. Those are exactly the areas where input quality matters most, because the model is not just estimating a single asset’s value; it is testing how that asset fits into a financing and disposition strategy. Training analysts to question inputs should therefore include questions about portfolio fit, not only property-level arithmetic.
For teams that want to discuss a training engagement or an underwriting review process, the contact page for Mark Tersigni is intended for getting in touch about commercial real estate, underwriting, asset management, finance, and investment strategy; it lists Columbus, Ohio. That kind of outside perspective can be useful when an internal team has become too close to its own assumptions.
The goal is not to make underwriting slower for its own sake. It is to make the analyst’s conclusions more durable. A valuation that survives a serious challenge to its inputs is worth more than a polished model that nobody can explain. Training analysts to ask “where did this number come from?” and “what would have to be true for it to hold?” builds a habit that improves property-level analysis, financing decisions, asset management, and portfolio strategy at the same time.
