For office, retail and industrial acquisitions, evaluate Moraine when you need broker documents turned into a source-linked DCF, editable assumptions and scenarios, and Excel outputs at published monthly prices. If your lender, partner or committee requires a native ARGUS file or a particular house workbook, confirm that deliverable first and test the alternatives against the same known deal.
Published by Moraine. This is a buying framework, not an independent speed or accuracy benchmark. Feature descriptions come from the linked vendors; the trial should establish fit for your team.
Which software should an acquisitions team buy?
Buy for the job your team needs to complete: a property cash-flow model, document intake, or a deal pipeline. A pipeline tracker does not automatically underwrite a property, and extracted tables still need a model and review. Moraine is an option for office, retail and industrial teams that need to turn an OM, rent roll and operating statements into a source-linked DCF, compare scenarios, and export XLSX outputs.
For a fair evaluation, use a closed deal your reviewer understands. Check the source behind material inputs, change a leasing assumption, compare the cash flows, and open the actual export. The downloadable example below lets you inspect a small fictional case before testing your own documents.
Which ARGUS workflow are you replacing?
“ARGUS” can mean different products and workflows. An acquisition model, a development feasibility model and portfolio valuation reporting are different jobs. Confirm the product, edition and deliverable your colleagues mean. Altus currently describes the ARGUS Intelligence Platform alongside its ARGUS Enterprise materials. Check the current vendor offering rather than assuming an older comparison describes today’s features.
Then separate the inconvenience you want to remove from the capability you need to retain. If the problem is copying broker numbers into a working model, document intake may solve it without replacing downstream reporting. If the problem is maintaining scenarios, test editing and version review. If the problem is a required native file, an XLSX export alone does not solve it.
Compare alternatives by the job
| Option | Workflow worth testing | Important boundary | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moraine | Office/retail/industrial acquisition DCF, scenarios and linked diligence | XLSX exports; no promised native ARGUS round trip or multifamily underwriting | Fit and limits |
| Rockport VAL | Property and portfolio cash-flow valuation | Confirm report, import and review requirements in a demonstration | Rockport VAL |
| Apers | Document processing and Excel modeling | Test the workbook structure and outputs your committee requires | Apers |
| AcquiOS | Existing-template acquisition workflow | Confirm model mapping and the required final deliverables | AcquiOS CRE |
| PropRise Primer | Acquisition inputs mapped into a house workbook | Agree on template configuration, review responsibilities and onboarding | Primer |
| Existing Excel model | Familiar formulas and internal reporting conventions | Your team retains maintenance, source reconciliation and review controls | Your approved model and procedures |
For a focused comparison, read Moraine vs ARGUS Enterprise, Moraine vs Rockport VAL or Moraine vs Apers.
ARGUS or Excel-based underwriting: which fits?
Keep the required ARGUS workflow if a lender, appraiser, client or committee requires its native output. Ask the recipient exactly which file and report they need. “Excel compatible,” importing an ARGUS report and producing a native ARGUS file are separate claims.
Moraine imports ARGUS Enterprise Excel report exports. An export may not preserve all underlying assumptions, relationships or conventions from the original model. Review mapped and unmapped inputs explicitly. Similar IRRs do not establish model equivalence; offsetting errors can produce similar headline returns.
A migration test that finds important differences
Use a closed deal whose source documents and approved cash flows your team understands. Match the hold period, valuation date, units and timing convention before comparing outputs.
| Check | Office example | Retail example | Industrial example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening income | Contractual rent versus broker market rent | Base rent separated from percentage rent | Contractual steps and free-rent periods |
| Rollover | Expirations, downtime, TI and leasing commissions | Anchor exposure, renewal assumptions and tenant costs | Large-tenant expiration concentration |
| Recoveries | Expense stops, base years and gross-up assumptions | CAM pools, caps and exclusions | NNN obligations versus owner costs |
| Exit and financing | Same debt and sale assumptions across models | Same reserve and recovery treatment | Same exit NOI period and capital assumptions |
Inspect tenant-level and property-level cash flows before comparing returns. Record each input difference, correction and unresolved question. Have the reviewer confirm that the exported exhibits still support the investment case after a material assumption changes.
Which ARGUS alternative has predictable licensing costs?
Moraine publishes the following plan terms. Compare these with a current written proposal from each shortlisted vendor rather than relying on an old comparison’s price estimate.
| Plan | Published price | Included scope |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | $300/month, one user | Unlimited underwriting models, scenarios, Excel exports, report catalog and modeling agent |
| Team | From $1,500/month, five users | Shared underwriting, firm assumptions, centralized billing and standard onboarding |
| Property diligence | $3,000/property, separately priced | Full diligence module suite; additional documents and reruns on the same property included |
The free evaluation lasts 14 days from the first usable model, with no card required and no automatic charge. Institutional and Enterprise scope is on the pricing page.
Include onboarding, workbook configuration, migration, reviewer training and any incumbent license your counterparties still require in the comparison. Test one known deal, record preparation and review work separately, and decide whether the resulting model meets your requirements.
Which software offers editable Excel deliverables?
Check the actual workbook rather than assuming that every XLSX export is a complete formula-driven model. Moraine lets you edit assumptions and scenarios in its modeling workspace and export XLSX reports covering cash flows, returns, debt, waterfalls, rent rolls, recoveries, assumptions and source lineage.
The example below contains calculated report values. Its rent-downside case was recalculated in Moraine’s engine and exported as a second workbook. It does not demonstrate that changing an exported cell reruns the model in Excel. If your workflow needs an independently recalculating house workbook, validate that specific deliverable in the evaluation.
Moraine can also import ARGUS Enterprise Excel report exports and provide XLSX outputs for your existing workflow. An imported report, a native ARGUS file and an editable Excel model are separate deliverables; establish which one the recipient expects.
Download a matched source-to-workbook example
Fictional office property; manually mapped inputs. This example demonstrates calculations and the XLSX export. It is not a customer result, a document-extraction benchmark, or a test of every lease and recovery structure.
- Read the sample source packet: an OM excerpt, rent roll, operating statement and explicit buyer assumptions.
- Open the base-case workbook. In Cash Flow Projections, Year 1 scheduled rent is in B9 and NOI is in B21.
- Compare the rent-downside workbook. The only changed input is annual rent per SF, reduced by 10%; the lower rent is a hypothetical buyer stress, not a new lease fact.
| Item | Base case | Rent downside | Where to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rentable area | 10,000 SF | 10,000 SF | Source packet, page 1 |
| Annual rent assumption | $30/SF | $27/SF | Source packet, pages 2 and 5 |
| Year 1 scheduled rent | $300,000 | $270,000 | Cash Flow Projections, B9 |
| Year 1 operating expenses | $100,000 | $100,000 | Cash Flow Projections, B19, displayed as a deduction |
| Year 1 NOI | $200,000 | $170,000 | Cash Flow Projections, B21 |
The $30,000 NOI reduction follows the $30,000 annual rent reduction because every other input is held constant. Both workbooks were produced with Moraine’s production calculation and export functions. The reproduction evidence records the engine inputs, checked worksheet cells, source revision and file hashes. The source values were mapped manually; no OCR or AI extraction was run.
For the review sequence and interface illustrations, read OM to DCF software. Then start a Moraine evaluation with a representative deal and the exact output your team needs.