Excel vs PropertyLord AI

Walk into the viewing
knowing the deal.
Not 45 minutes of Excel.

Excel doesn’t tell you about Article 4. SDLT formulas go stale after every Budget. The risk you miss is the one that kills the deal. PropertyLord AI runs SDLT, build cost, planning, flood, and comparables against any UK postcode in 3 minutes.

Excel: 45-90 min per deal·Quick Check: 3 min
Underwrite your first site freeTry a live postcodeSee sample report

Same scheme, side by side

SW9 2A

0.18 acres · consent for 4 units

Asking £495,000

Row

In Excel

In PropertyLord AI

SDLT

=IF(A2>250000, ...) // last edited 2024-03

Surcharge missed after the autumn Budget.

£19,250

HMRC-accurate. Same source every check.

Build cost

=Sheet2!B2*0.92 // regional fudge

No trade breakdown. No regional benchmark.

£812,000

28 trades, RICS-benchmarked, 11 UK regions.

Article 4

(no column)

Risk lives in a different tab, or nowhere.

None in postcode

Planning flags surfaced against the postcode.

Flood zone

(no column)

Three browser tabs open. You miss one, you commit.

Zone 2 (NW corner)

EA flood map overlaid on the site.

3 minutes to a verdict on every row. Article 4, flood, and EPC surface against the postcode, not a tab you forgot to check.

Cost of running deals on Excel

45-90 min

Time to build a feasibility model from scratch in Excel, once the formulas are behaving.

£8k+

Typical SDLT surcharge missed by a stale formula on an additional dwelling. Found at completion, not the offer.

0 flags

Article 4, conservation, flood, EPC. None of them live in your spreadsheet. All of them can kill the deal.

Where the spreadsheet breaks

Row by row, what Excel does and what it misses.

Every 45 minutes you spend rebuilding a formula is 45 minutes you didn’t spend sourcing the next deal.

What you do today

SDLT calculation

Why Excel breaks

Manual lookup, stale thresholds. One Budget and the formula is silently wrong for six months.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

HMRC-accurate SDLT auto-applied. Surcharges on second homes and non-resident purchases caught.

What you do today

Build cost estimate

Why Excel breaks

Guess a £/sqft figure, or pay £3k to a QS on a deal you haven't won.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

28 trades, RICS-benchmarked, regional multiplier applied to the postcode automatically.

What you do today

Planning + risk flags

Why Excel breaks

Three tabs open: planning portal, flood map, EPC register. The risk you miss is the one that kills the deal.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

Article 4, conservation area, flood zone, and EPC target surfaced in one view against the postcode.

What you do today

Comparables (GDV)

Why Excel breaks

Whatever Rightmove returns. No filter for property type, condition, or sqft.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

Land Registry sold prices, refined for type and condition. The GDV your lender will accept.

What you do today

Turnaround per deal

Why Excel breaks

45 to 90 minutes once the formulas are behaving.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

3 minutes from postcode in to verdict on screen.

What you do today

Sharing with a JV partner

Why Excel breaks

Email a 14MB .xlsx. They open it, formulas reference missing tabs. Two weeks of reconciliation.

What PropertyLord AI does instead

Save the run, share the link. One version of truth, same numbers on both screens.

Run a Quick Check on any UK postcode

Three reflexes, priced

Three reasons developers stay on Excel. What each one costs.

Objection 01

“It’s free.”

So is Quick Check. The difference is what happens when SDLT rates move: your sheet doesn’t know, the tool does.

The day HMRC moves the thresholds, every self-built sheet needs checking. PropertyLord AI updates centrally. Your sheet only updates when you remember to reopen it.

Run Quick Check free

Objection 02

“I know how mine works.”

Until you don’t. We’ve seen sheets with SDLT formulas that were wrong for six months. The developer only noticed at completion.

PropertyLord AI uses HMRC’s published thresholds directly. If HMRC changes them, the tool is right the next morning. Your sheet is right whenever you remember.

Compare your sheet’s SDLT to ours

Objection 03

“It’s good enough.”

Good enough costs deals. A 3 percent SDLT surcharge missed on a £400,000 purchase is £12,000. The same miss on a £600,000 second home is £18,000.

Direct HMRC calculation, not a marketing figure. The 3 percent surcharge applies to any additional dwelling bought by an individual, company, or trust.

See the 9-tool feasibility suite

Sharing with a JV partner

Send a link, not a 14MB attachment.

The JV partner opens the email at 10pm. The .xlsx references missing tabs. Two of the formulas resolve to REF! on their machine. The reply comes back the next afternoon: “can you check row 47, the build cost doesn’t match?” Two weeks of back-and-forth on assumptions that nobody wrote down.

PropertyLord AI saves the run. You share a link. They see the same numbers you do. One version of truth.

Try a shareable Quick Check

Shared Quick Check

propertylord.ai/r/sw9-2a-mar-screen

GDV£1.42m
Gross margin21.8%
Build cost£812k
SDLT£19,250
Est. ROI19.4%

Assumptions visible. HMRC source. Same numbers on every screen the link opens on.

The honest bit

Where a spreadsheet is still the right tool.

Not every deal needs the tool. If you’re doing one of the below, your sheet is the right surface.

  • Bespoke JV waterfalls and promoted-interest structures.

    Layered mezzanine, complex profit-share, carry mechanics. PropertyLord AI handles the standard capital stack; bespoke waterfalls still want a sheet.

  • Portfolio reporting across 20+ live schemes.

    That is a data-warehouse job, not a feasibility job. Neither Excel nor PropertyLord AI is really the right surface for it.

  • The deal is under offer and the model is already built and stable.

    If the sheet exists and the numbers are settled, rebuilding it in PropertyLord AI for the sake of it is wasted time.

For everything else, a new postcode, an unfamiliar build cost, a number you want sanity-checked before you send the offer, that is what this is for.

One scheme, one screen

What the switch looks like in practice

Illustrative Quick Check on a 6-bed HMO in Leeds. Postcode in, verdict out in about 3 minutes. SDLT (£5,700), build cost (£92,160), Article 4 status, and viability visible in one view, instead of being rebuilt across four tabs of a spreadsheet that was last updated two Budgets ago.
Internal example, 6-bed HMO feasibility screen, Leeds

Before your next deal

Walk into the viewing knowing the deal.

SDLT, build cost, planning, flood, comparables. Three minutes, any UK postcode. Free to screen, no card, no sign-up.

Underwrite your first site freeTry a live postcode

Not ready to run a deal? Take the build-cost data with you.

We'll email you the regional UK build-cost PDF: 28 trades, RICS-benchmarked, segmented by region. One click to unsubscribe.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Five questions before the switch

What developers ask before they leave Excel behind

Does PropertyLord AI actually replace my spreadsheet, or is it an extra tool?
For feasibility (SDLT, build cost, planning risk, comparables, basic capital stack) yes, it replaces the sheet. For bespoke JV waterfalls and portfolio reporting, it doesn't. Most developers we talk to keep one sheet for bespoke structures and use PropertyLord AI for everything else.
How accurate is the SDLT calculation compared to my accountant's?
It uses HMRC's published thresholds directly, including the 3 percent surcharge on additional dwellings and the non-resident surcharge where it applies. The output matches what your accountant will get. The difference is 30 seconds versus a week, and the rate is current the day HMRC changes it, not the day you remember to update the formula.
Where does the 28 trades, RICS-benchmarked build cost figure come from?
A regional build-cost model assembled from published RICS benchmarks plus trade-level breakdowns. The number on a deal is the regional multiplier applied to the 28-trade base. Full methodology lives on the build cost tool page.
Can I import a deal I already have in Excel?
Not directly yet. For now the fastest path is pasting the postcode and purchase price into Quick Check. It reproduces the SDLT, build cost, planning, and comparables sections in under 3 minutes. Full Excel import is on the roadmap.
What happens when SDLT rates change after the next Budget?
The tool updates centrally. You don't have to remember. Your last check and your next check use the same HMRC source, so year-over-year deal comparisons stay honest. A spreadsheet only updates when you remember to reopen the formula bar.