MotionCRE Editorial
Written by the MotionCRE team.
Published July 1, 2026
Net lease investment software tracks the screening, underwriting, and closing of single-tenant NNN deals, where a team may review dozens of broadly marketed offerings a month and buy only a handful. Because the product is standardized (one tenant, one lease, cap-rate-driven pricing), the workflow that wins is a high-volume screening funnel: log every deal with tenant, credit, lease term, and cap rate, kill most of them in minutes, and track the survivors through due diligence and 1031-driven closing timelines without losing a date.
The highest-velocity pipeline in CRE
Net lease is the volume game. A multifamily acquisitions team might screen 15 deals a month. A net lease buyer watching broker blasts and listing platforms can see that many marketed offerings in a week. The Boulder Group counted 3,832 single tenant retail properties on the market in Q1 2026, and that was after supply fell 9.8 percent quarter over quarter across the sector.
The product is standardized, which is exactly what makes volume possible. One tenant, one lease, pricing quoted as a cap rate. A screening pass needs six data points: tenant and credit, lease type (absolute NNN versus NN with landlord roof-and-structure), remaining term, rent bumps, cap rate, and price per square foot against replacement cost. An experienced buyer kills or advances a marketed deal in under fifteen minutes.
The workflow problem is bookkeeping at that speed. Sixty screened deals a month is sixty records with a decision each, plus the survivors carrying offers, counters, PSA dates, and lender timelines. The tracking failure mode is specific: the spreadsheet stops being updated in week three, the team re-screens deals it already killed, and a broker's follow-up on a deal you liked gets answered a week late, which on a marketed NNN deal means it is gone.
A worked screening funnel with numbers
Here is what a disciplined month looks like for a small net lease shop, with the time cost attached.
- 60 deals logged from broker blasts and listing platforms. Screening at 15 minutes each: 15 hours for the month.
- 45 killed at screening, with the reason recorded (credit, term, price, market). The record matters because the same deal returns repriced three months later.
- 12 advance to detailed underwriting: lease review, rent-to-market check, dark-store scenario, comp pull. At 4 hours each: 48 hours.
- 5 offers submitted. 2 go under contract. 1 to 2 close.
The calibration data for that screening pass is public. Boulder Group's Q1 2026 comps and tenant benchmarks show how wide the pricing band really is.
| Tenant profile (Q1 2026) | Cap rate | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| McDonald's ground lease (long term) | 4.40% | Best credit, longest term, land ownership |
| Chick-fil-A ground lease | 4.50% | Same trade, similar pricing |
| 7-Eleven, Chattanooga TN comp, 14 yrs remaining | 5.35% | Corporate credit, long term |
| Publix, Foley AL comp | 5.50% | Grocer credit, shorter remaining term |
| Retail sector median asking | 6.55% | The middle of the marketed pool |
| CVS national asking | 6.80% | Drug store credit, mixed terms |
| Dollar General national asking | 7.15% | Volume product, thinner rents |
| Walgreens national asking | 8.10% | Credit and closure concerns priced in |
| Family Dollar national asking | 8.65% | Weakest credit profile of the group |
That is a 425 basis point spread across tenants in the same asset class in the same quarter, per the Boulder Group. A screening system that records tenant, term, and cap rate on every logged deal builds your own comp file over time, which is the unglamorous edge in a market where everyone sees the same broker blasts.
Join CRE teams already running their deals on MotionCRE.
Where the net lease market sits in 2026
The Q1 2026 numbers describe a market converging on price. Boulder Group put the overall single tenant asking cap rate at 6.80 percent, down one basis point, with retail flat at 6.55 percent for a second consecutive quarter, office down 10 basis points to 7.90 percent, and industrial down 5 to 7.15 percent. Property supply fell 9.8 percent quarter over quarter, and the median bid-ask spread narrowed to 23 basis points for retail and 25 for industrial. The Fed held its target range at 3.50 to 3.75 percent through its January and March meetings, while the 10-year Treasury pushed as high as 4.48 percent late in the quarter.
Boulder's report also names the bifurcation every net lease buyer already feels: premium credit assets with long remaining terms attract the broadest pools, including institutions, private capital, and 1031 exchange buyers, while short-term and non-rated assets trade at wider spreads to more selective buyers.
The capital backdrop supports the volume. U.S. CRE investment reached $117 billion in Q1 2026, up 19 percent year over year, with private investors accounting for $66 billion, per CBRE. And the tenant fundamentals under NNN retail remain tight: CBRE reported retail availability of just 4.9 percent in the same quarter, which matters for the dark-store scenario on every deal you underwrite.
The 1031 clock changes how the pipeline works
A large share of net lease demand runs on Section 1031 timelines: 45 days from the relinquished sale to identify replacement property, 180 days to close, no extensions. That shapes the workflow on both sides of the table.
As the exchange buyer, the identification deadline inverts your funnel. You are screening toward a date, not a quota, and the deals you identify need backup options because one will fall through. Every live deal carries the exchange dates alongside its own PSA and DD dates, and missing the 45-day identification is not a lost deal, it is a tax bill. We cover the mechanics in how to manage 1031 exchange deadlines.
Competing against exchange buyers, expect them to pay up for certainty and speed of close on clean, long-term credit deals. Your edge shifts to the segments they avoid: shorter terms, franchisee credit, deals needing a story.
Tool fit for a 60-deal-a-month funnel
| Capability | Spreadsheets + inbox | Generic sales CRM | Enterprise deal platform | Purpose-built deal management |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logging 60 deals a month without decay | Fails around week three | Possible, admin-heavy | Yes | Yes, fast entry with custom fields |
| Screening fields (credit, term, bumps, cap) | Columns, inconsistent | Custom objects required | Yes | Custom fields per pipeline |
| Kill reasons preserved for repriced deals | Rarely | Notes, unsearchable | Yes | Deal record with notes and stage history |
| 1031 and PSA dates with statuses | Calendar reminders | Weak | Yes | Key dates per deal |
| Filter pipeline by tenant, size, assignee | Manual sort | Partial | Yes | Built into the board |
| Typical cost for a 2 to 5 person team | $0 plus re-screened deals | $50 to $150 per user per month | $15K to $50K+ per year | $249 to $399 per month flat |
The honest read: a spreadsheet handles 20 screened deals a month. A generic CRM can be forced into this shape with admin work, but its model is leads progressing toward a sale, and a net lease funnel where 75 percent of records die at screening fills it with noise. Enterprise platforms do this well at institutional pricing. Small net lease shops, the two-to-six person funds and family offices doing this work, are the gap in the middle.
How MotionCRE maps to a net lease pipeline
MotionCRE is built for deal volume with organization as the point.
- The pipeline board runs custom stages that match the funnel (Screening, Underwriting, Offer, Under Contract, Closing, plus a Dead stage that preserves the record), with days-in-stage on every card and filters by asset class, deal size, and assignee.
- Each logged deal is a workspace with 50+ fields including cap rate, NOI, WALT, and occupancy, plus custom fields for what net lease screening actually uses: tenant credit rating, lease type, rent bump schedule, guarantor.
- Key dates track 1031 identification and closing deadlines next to PSA, DD, and financing dates, each with its own status, so an exchange clock is visible on the deal instead of in someone's calendar.
- Stage-triggered task templates generate the underwriting and DD checklist when a deal advances, and due diligence tracking spans 8 categories for the survivors.
- Files hold the OM, lease, and site materials per deal, and the AI Associate answers questions over those files when you need the rent bump language without rereading the lease.
- Financing quote comparison tracks lender terms side by side, useful when the same lender pool quotes your last three deals.
Pricing starts at $249 per month for three seats, with 5 seats at $399. Enterprise deal platforms anchor at $15,000 to $50,000 or more per year. Every plan has a 14-day free trial with full access; a credit card is required.
The test for a net lease tracking system
Three questions, answerable in under a minute: how many deals did we screen this month and where did they die, which live deals have a 1031 or DD date inside 30 days, and what did we say about this tenant the last time a broker sent us one. If the answers require reconstructing history from an inbox, the funnel is leaking quietly.
For the category basics, see what deal management software is. If your book includes multi-tenant centers, that workflow is lease-abstract-driven and covered in deal management software for retail investors.
Browse more playbooks, templates, and definitions in the MotionCRE resource library.