BRAVE Fields for Office Properties

Office Properties and Structured Appraisal Data

Office properties present unique challenges for the BRAVE standard. Unlike multifamily, where leases are short-term and relatively uniform, office buildings feature long-term leases with complex structures — base rent escalations, tenant improvement allowances, free rent periods, and expense reimbursement provisions. Capturing this complexity accurately in BRAVE fields is essential for lender underwriting of commercial property.

This guide covers the BRAVE fields most critical for office property appraisals and highlights where appraisers most commonly make errors.

Property Identification for Office

BRAVE organizes its 99 fields into five categories (Job, Property, Income, Value, Appraiser). For office property appraisals, pay special attention to:

• Property.Type: Set to "Office". Distinguish between CBD, suburban, and medical office in the Property.Subtype field.
• Property.Subtype: Further classification (e.g., CBD Class A, suburban, medical office).
• Property.BuildingClass: Class A, B, or C classification. Lenders use this to benchmark your conclusions against market data.

Building and Site Fields

Key office-specific Property fields:

• Property.GrossBuildingArea: Total building area including common spaces, lobbies, and mechanical rooms (Decimal).
• Property.NetRentableArea: The rentable square footage used to calculate rents. For multi-tenant office, this includes each tenant's pro-rata share of common areas (Decimal).
• Property.FloorsCount: Important for distinguishing low-rise, mid-rise, and high-rise office buildings (Int32).
• Property.ParkingType and Property.ParkingSpacesCount: Parking configuration and total spaces. Parking ratio significantly impacts value in suburban markets.
• Property.NumTenantsCount: Number of tenants (Int32).

Income Approach Fields

The income approach for office properties is more nuanced than for multifamily. BRAVE captures 16 Income fields:

• Income.RentalIncome: Based on contract rents for occupied space and market rents for vacant space.
• Income.OtherIncome: Non-rental income sources.
• Income.PotentialGrossIncome: Total PGI at full occupancy.
• Income.VacancyLoss: Vacancy and collection loss. Beyond general vacancy, office appraisals should account for structural vacancy due to lease rollover.
• Income.EffectiveGrossIncome: PGI minus vacancy loss.
• Income.OperatingExpenses: Total operating expenses (BRAVE captures this as a single total).
• Income.Reserves: Replacement reserves. Set Income.ReservesIncluded to indicate whether reserves are in the expense total.
• Income.NetOperatingIncome: EGI minus total operating expenses.

Note: BRAVE captures total operating expenses in a single field. Line-item detail (real estate taxes, insurance, management, TI/LC, etc.) remains in the PDF report.

For more on income fields, see our BRAVE Income & NOI Fields guide.

Capitalization and Valuation

• Value.CapRate (Overall Cap Rate): Office cap rates vary widely by class and location. The BRAVE validator enforces a 0-20% range.
• Value.DiscountRate: Office appraisals frequently use DCF analysis. If you performed a DCF, populate this field.
• Value.TerminalCapRate: Used in DCF analysis for the reversion value calculation.
• Value.CashFlowValue: The DCF value conclusion.

See our BRAVE Cap Rate Fields Explained guide for detailed formatting requirements.

Common Office BRAVE Errors

Gross vs. net area confusion. Ensure Property.GrossBuildingArea and Property.NetRentableArea are both populated correctly and reflect the BOMA definitions used in your report.

Income field inconsistencies. The usebrave.org validator does not enforce cross-field math, but lenders will check that Income.NetOperatingIncome equals Income.EffectiveGrossIncome minus Income.OperatingExpenses. Verify this manually before submission.

Use AppraisalAPI.com to validate your office BRAVE file before submission and catch these issues automatically. For a full list of frequent mistakes, see our common BRAVE validation errors guide. For a complete pre-submission process, follow our BRAVE compliance checklist. For background on the standard, read What Is BRAVE?, and for a step-by-step tutorial, see how to create a BRAVE file.