Gross Lease
Gross Lease is a real estate term investors use to assess operating economics, lease risk, recurring costs, tenant allocation of expenses, and how cleanly income converts to owner cash flow.
Why it matters
Gross Lease matters because it changes NOI durability, tenant friction, recoverable costs, vacancy risk, and the quality of the income stream. The mistake is treating lease wording as boilerplate when it is really deal math.
Formula
Gross lease owner NOI = rent collected - owner-paid taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities, CAM, management, vacancy, and reserves.Worked example
An investor reviewing a Canadian property tags gross lease as a diligence item, links it to the lease or management contract, and reruns the model if it changes rent, recoveries, fees, downtime, capex, or exit value.
How investors read it
Use gross lease as a decision filter: if the cost allocation, fee drag, recoveries, or responsibilities cannot be verified, price the uncertainty with a larger reserve, tighter condition, lower offer, or walk-away.
Common mistakes
- · Treating a lease or operating contract as admin instead of underwriting evidence.
- · Using broker, seller, or manager assumptions without source documents and date-stamped terms.
- · Ignoring downtime, fee leakage, recoveries, exclusions, reserves, and downside scenarios because the base-case spreadsheet looks good.
Educational Canadian investor content only. Verify current municipal, provincial, federal, lender, insurer, tax, accounting, and legal rules before relying on it in a transaction.