Real Estate Investment Proposal Template: Free PDF Download

A real estate investment proposal template gives you a ready-made structure for asking a lender or partner to fund one specific deal. It lays out the property, the numbers, the exit, and your plan if things go wrong, so the person with the money can say yes quickly.

I’ve sat on the borrowing side of that table a lot of times. The proposals lenders fund are the ones that answer the lender’s questions before the lender has to ask.

Whether you’re flipping, holding rentals, or wholesaling real estate and need a partner to fund the close, the money person wants the same things answered. Below you’ll find a free fillable template, a filled-in example from a flip I pitched, and the red flags that make lenders pass.

Free Real Estate Investment Proposal Template (Fillable PDF Download)

You can download the template as a free, fillable PDF. Type your answers straight into the boxes on screen, or print it and fill it in by hand.

Each box has a short gray note under its label that tells you what goes there. You don’t need to fill in every section. A loan request uses Section 5 and skips Section 6, and an equity or JV pitch does the opposite.

Lenders read three sections first: the Executive Summary, the Financing Request, and the Projected Returns. Make those three airtight before you polish anything else.

Put your backup documents behind the proposal as attachments. That means comps, contractor bids, photos, and proof of funds. The checklist in Section 11 keeps you from forgetting one.

Here’s what each section of the template has to prove to the person reading it:

Section	What it proves
1. Executive Summary	The deal makes sense in six lines
2. Property Details	You know exactly what you’re buying
3. Market Analysis and Comps	Your ARV is real
4. Rehab Budget and Timeline	Your costs and schedule hold up
5. Financing Request (loans)	The loan is safe
6. Deal Structure (equity and JV)	The split is fair and clear
7. Sources and Uses	Every dollar is accounted for
8. Projected Returns	The deal works even if things go wrong
9. Exit Strategy and Risk Plan	You have a Plan B and a Plan C
10. Team and Track Record	You can finish the job
11. Attachments	You can back up every number
12. Next Steps	The reader knows what to do next

What Should a Real Estate Investment Proposal Include?

A real estate investment proposal should include an executive summary, property details, comps, a rehab budget, your financing request or deal structure, sources and uses, projected returns, an exit plan, and your team. Each section answers one question the lender will ask anyway.

Here’s how I think about each one, in the order the template uses.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is a six-line snapshot of the whole deal: the ask, the property, the strategy, why the deal works, the return, and the timeline. Write it last, after you’ve worked through every number.

Say where the deal came from. Off-market leads bought below value explain your margin better than any adjective can. “Inherited property, heirs out of state, bought direct” tells a lender more than “great opportunity” ever will.

Property Details and As-Is Value

This section covers the address, size, condition, purchase price, and contract status. Lenders also want the as-is value, which is what the property is worth today, in its current condition, before you fix anything.

The as-is value matters because many lenders cap the purchase part of the loan at a percentage of it. If you buy at $132,000 and the as-is value is $145,000, you’re starting with equity, and the lender sees it right away.

Your purchase price is the first number a lender checks, and a well-structured offer to a motivated seller is where most of the margin gets made. Use the “Seller situation” box to explain why the seller took your price. Add your contingency deadlines too, so the reader knows how much time you have to close.

Market Analysis and Comps

Your comps decide your ARV (after-repair value), the price the property should sell for once the rehab is done. Use closed sales only, from the same neighborhood, in the last three to six months, finished to the level you plan to finish.

The template has a $/sq ft column for a reason. Average the price per square foot of your best three or four comps, multiply by your square footage, and you have an ARV a lender can check in two minutes.

An inflated ARV kills more proposals than anything else I’ve seen. If your number sits above every comp you listed, the lender stops trusting the rest of your numbers too.

Rehab Budget and Timeline

Your rehab budget is really a scope of work: a line-item list of every repair, organized by trade, with a cost and a source for each. Lenders use it to release rehab money in stages, called draws, as the work gets done. A vague budget means slow draws.

Note the material quality too. “LVP flooring, quartz counters” tells an appraiser and a lender what finished product to expect. Then add a contingency of 10% to 15% on top, because something always comes up behind a wall.

Be realistic about time. The typical flip took 161 days from purchase to resale in the second quarter of 2026 (ATTOM, 2026). Experienced flippers estimate that rehab and other expenses run 20% to 33% of the property’s after-repair value (ATTOM, 2026). If your budget comes in far below that range, explain why.

Financing Request and Terms

Fill in this section when you’re asking for a loan. Spell out the amount, rate, points, term, payment structure, and lien position. Then show the three leverage numbers lenders calculate anyway:

• Loan-to-as-is value: the purchase part of the loan divided by the as-is value.
• Loan-to-cost (LTC): the total loan divided by purchase price plus rehab.
• Loan-to-ARV: the total loan divided by the after-repair value.

Price your request against the real market. Non-bank hard money lenders charged a median rate of 10.25% on short-term investor loans in 2025, with the middle half of loans between 9.5% and 11% (CrowdfundedWealth, 2026). The median combined loan-to-value sat at 70%, and 68.6% of these loans ran exactly 12 months (CrowdfundedWealth, 2026).

If you ask for 6% money at 90% of ARV, an experienced lender will assume you don’t know the market.

Deal Structure for Equity Partners

Fill in Section 6 instead of Section 5 when a partner is putting in equity rather than lending. An equity partner shares the risk and the upside, so they need different answers than a lender does.

Lay out the partner’s capital and yours, any preferred return (a percentage the partner earns before you split profits), the profit split after that, and when distributions get paid. Then cover the parts people fight about later: who makes which decisions, who covers cost overruns, what fees you take, and how often you report.

Write those answers down now. A handshake split turns into an argument the first time the rehab runs over.

Sources and Uses of Funds

A sources and uses table shows where every dollar comes from and where every dollar goes. Both totals have to match. It’s the fastest way for a lender to see how much of your own money is at risk.

Projected Returns

Show the lender’s or partner’s return and your own profit separately. Then add a downside case. I use a sale price 10% lower than my ARV plus two extra months of holding costs.

The downside case matters more now than it did a few years ago. The typical flip earned a 21.5% gross margin in the second quarter of 2026, down from 27.6% a year earlier, on a typical gross profit of $60,526 (ATTOM, 2026). Lenders read those numbers too, and they expect your projections to survive a bad quarter.

Exit Strategy and Risk Plan

Your exit strategy is how the loan gets repaid. Plan A might be a retail sale. Plan B might be renting the property and refinancing. Plan C is the last resort, usually selling as-is to a cash buyer at a price that still covers the loan.

If your fallback is to wholesale the property, show that you already have a list of cash buyers who close fast. Then fill in the risk table: low resale price, budget overruns, timeline slips, hidden structural issues, and rate changes, each with what you’d do about it.

Team and Track Record

Lenders fund people as much as properties. Start with your borrower profile: the borrowing entity, the personal guarantor, your approximate credit score, your cash reserves after closing, and how many projects you’ve completed in the last 36 months.

Back up your experience with documents. Many lenders ask for a schedule of real estate owned (SREO) and the settlement statements from past deals, along with two to three months of bank statements as proof of funds.

No track record yet? List your contractor’s completed projects or bring in a partner who has done this before, and say so plainly. Lenders forgive inexperience far faster than they forgive spin.

Real Estate Investment Proposal Example

Here’s a real estate investment proposal example from a flip I pitched to a private lender: a 1958 ranch in a Columbus, Ohio suburb. Three beds, 1.5 baths, 1,380 square feet. The heirs who inherited it lived out of state and wanted a fast, as-is sale, and I bought it off-market.

The purchase price landed in a good band. Homes bought for $100,000 to $200,000 posted the strongest typical flip margin in the second quarter of 2026, at 28% (ATTOM, 2026).

Executive Summary

This is how the Executive Summary read:

Field	What I wrote
The ask	$163,000 first-position loan, 12 months, 10.25% interest-only, 2 points
The property	3 bed, 1.5 bath ranch, 1,380 sq ft, dated but solid
The strategy	Fix and flip
Why the deal works	Bought at $132,000 against a $255,000 ARV
Return to the lender	$10,920 in interest and points, first lien
Timeline and exit	5.5 months to sale; Plan B is rent and refinance

The ARV came from four closed comps averaging about $185 per square foot. At 1,380 square feet, that’s $255,000. The as-is value came in at $145,000.

Deal Structure

The deal numbers:

Line item	Amount
Purchase price	$132,000
Rehab (line items)	$45,000
Contingency (10%)	$4,500
ARV	$255,000
Loan amount	$163,000
Loan-to-as-is value	78.3%
Loan-to-cost	89.8%
Loan-to-ARV	63.9%
My cash in the deal	$34,920

Rehab Budget

The scope of work broke down like this:

Item	Cost
Kitchen	$14,500
Baths	$9,800
Flooring (LVP)	$6,200
Interior paint	$4,300
Sewer line spot repair	$3,800
Electrical panel	$3,200
Exterior	$3,200
Total rehab	$45,000

That sewer line wasn’t in my first draft. My original proposal showed the rehab as one lump number. The lender sent it back and asked two things: break it out by trade, and had I scoped the sewer line on a house that old?

I hadn’t. A camera inspection found a cracked section, which added $3,800. I sent the proposal back with bids attached and a line item for the sewer. That revision is the version you see here.

Sources and uses balanced at $197,920. On the sources side: the $163,000 loan plus my $34,920. On the uses side: the purchase, $49,500 in rehab with contingency, $3,000 in closing costs, $2,500 in holding costs, $7,660 in interest, and $3,260 in points. I ran interest on the full loan balance for the whole hold, which overstates it a little, because I’d rather show a lender a conservative number.

Projected Returns

Then the returns, with the downside case:

Line item	Base case	Downside
Sale price	$255,000	$229,500
Selling costs (7%)	$17,850	$16,065
Interest	$7,660	$10,442
Holding costs	$2,500	$3,375
Net profit	$39,230	$11,858
Lender return	$10,920	$13,702
Lender’s annualized return	14.6%	13.4%

The downside column got me the yes. Even with a 10% lower sale price and two extra months, the sale still cleared the loan by about $50,000. The lender could see their money came back either way.

Section 6 stayed blank, since this was a loan, not an equity deal. The attachments went in as one PDF behind the proposal.

How Do You Write an Investment Proposal for Real Estate?

You write an investment proposal by locking up the deal first, building the numbers next, and writing the summary last. Here’s the order I follow:

1. Get the property under contract. Get the property under a signed purchase agreement before you send a single proposal.
2. Pull comps and set the ARV. Closed sales only.
3. Build the scope of work. Get at least one contractor bid.
4. Run the numbers. Fill in financing or deal structure, sources and uses, and both return cases.
5. Write the exit and risk plan.
6. Write the executive summary.
7. Gather the attachments, send, and follow up.

How Long Should a Real Estate Investment Proposal Be?

Keep the part a lender reads first to about two pages, then attach the backup. On a $250,000 flip, a 30-page deck reads like you’re hiding something behind design. A short proposal with solid attachments shows you know which numbers matter.

How Do You Shop a Deal Without Losing It?

Share the property address only after a lender or partner shows real interest. Have the deal under contract before you shop it, so nobody can go around you to the seller.

Ask for an NDA when it’s realistic, which usually means larger deals and new relationships. Most established private lenders won’t steal your deal, because doing it once would cost them every future borrower.

How Should You Send the Proposal?

Send a single PDF by email, with the proposal on top and every attachment behind it. Name the file with the property address. Tell the lender when you need an answer, tie that date to your closing, and follow up two business days later if you haven’t heard back.

What Do Private Lenders Look For in a Proposal?

Private lenders look for reasons to say yes, and they pass at the first serious red flag. Most of those red flags show up in the same handful of places:

Red flag	What fixes it
ARV above every comp	Closed, nearby, recent comps with $/sq ft
Rehab as one lump sum	Line-item scope of work with bids
No contractor named	Contractor name, license, past jobs
No proof of funds	Two to three months of bank statements
No backup plan	A Plan B and Plan C with numbers
Too many open projects	Your SREO and cash reserves

The pattern is simple. Every claim in your proposal needs a document behind it. When a lender can verify your ARV, your budget, and your cash in under 20 minutes, you move to the top of their pile.

Real Estate Proposal Templates by Deal Type

The same real estate proposal template works for different deals, but the numbers that matter change with the strategy. A flip lender cares about ARV. A rental lender cares about rent. A JV partner cares about the split.

Deal type	Numbers that matter most	Who usually funds it
Fix and flip	ARV, rehab budget, timeline	Hard money, private lenders
Rental or BRRRR	Rent, DSCR, refinance amount	Private lenders, then a long-term lender
Wholesale JV	Assignment fee, buyer demand	JV partners
Commercial	NOI, cap rate, leases	Banks, equity partners
Development	Hard and soft costs, feasibility	Construction lenders, equity

Fix-and-Flip Proposal

Most flip proposals start with buying a distressed property, so lenders want to see that the rehab budget accounts for what’s behind the walls. Lead with the ARV, the scope of work, and the timeline. A lender funding several of your deals a year will also want the fix and flip business plan behind them: your buy box, deal flow, and 12-month numbers.

Rental and BRRRR Proposal

For a rental, show rent comps and monthly cash flow. For BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat), show the refinance amount and the DSCR, the debt service coverage ratio, which compares the rent to the new loan payment. The short-term lender wants to know the refinance will pay them off in full, so fill in the BRRRR row in the returns table.

Wholesale JV Proposal

A wholesale JV pitch is lighter. You’re usually asking a partner to fund earnest money or a double close, not a full rehab. A JV partner will ask to see your wholesale contract with the seller, including the assignment clause. Show the spread, your buyer demand, and how fast the partner gets their money back.

Commercial Real Estate Proposal

A commercial real estate proposal centers on NOI (net operating income), cap rate, and the current leases. On commercial deals, a letter of intent usually comes first, since it pins down price and terms with the seller before anyone writes a proposal. Expect lenders to ask for the rent roll and operating statements.

Real Estate Development Proposal

A real estate development proposal is the heaviest version. It needs a feasibility study, a list of consultants (architect, engineer, general contractor), permit status, and a split between hard costs (land, materials, labor) and soft costs (design, permits, legal, financing).

Developers often control the land with an option contract while they run the feasibility study. That lets you pitch partners before you own the dirt, without risking a full purchase price on approvals you haven’t gotten yet.

Investor Proposal vs. Lender Proposal: What’s the Difference?

A lender proposal sells safety, and an investor proposal sells upside. A lender wants collateral, low leverage, and a fixed return. An equity investor accepts more risk in exchange for a share of the profit, so they care more about the split, control, and reporting.

That’s why the template has separate sections for each. Use Section 5 for a loan and Section 6 for equity. The legal side changes too.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Raise Money From Investors?

Yes, if you’re pooling money from passive investors. Selling passive equity can count as a securities offering, even on a single house.

Most small raises rely on an exemption called Rule 506 of Regulation D. Under Rule 506(b), you can’t advertise the offering, and you can sell to unlimited accredited investors plus up to 35 other purchasers (U.S. SEC, n.d.). Rule 506(c) lets you advertise, but every investor must be accredited, and you have to take reasonable steps to verify their status (U.S. SEC, n.d.). Either way, you file a Form D with the SEC after your first sale (U.S. SEC, n.d.).

A single private lender who holds a note and a deed of trust is a different situation. Still, talk to a securities attorney before you email a proposal to a list of people.

Real Estate Pitch Deck vs. Proposal vs. Offering Memorandum

A proposal pitches one deal to one lender or partner. A real estate pitch deck is a slide version for presenting live. An offering memorandum is a long legal disclosure document for raising money from several investors.

Document	When to use it	Typical length
Investment proposal	One deal, one lender or partner	2 pages plus attachments
Pitch deck	Live meetings, larger raises	10 to 20 slides
Offering memorandum	Raising from several investors	30 pages or more

Final Thoughts

A good proposal can’t save a bad deal. Lenders fund margin, and margin comes from buying right. The template handles the presentation, but the number that matters most is the price you paid.

Verified motivated seller leads give you deals with enough margin to pitch. On the UndervaluedX Exchange, you pick your counties, set a max bid, and receive off-market leads that get verified before they reach you. Find the deal first, and the proposal gets a lot easier to write.

References

1. ATTOM, 2026. Home Flipping Profits Continue Gradual Two-Year Decline (Q2 2026 U.S. Home Flipping Report).
2. CrowdfundedWealth, 2026. Hard Money Loan Rates 2026: What 68,319 Investor Loans Actually Paid (Federal HMDA Data).
3. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, n.d. Rule 506 of Regulation D. Investor.gov.