Introducing the HP-12C(RE)!

By Brent Pritchard

Some things can’t wait until Tuesday…. Are you a commercial real estate (CRE) finance professional? If so, you likely know all about the HP-12C financial calculator. (Why would you use anything else?!)

One doesn’t need to be a real estate professional to know about the Four Corners. You know the piece of real estate where the four states of AZ, CO, NM, and UT meet.

Today, I introduce the HP-12C(RE)…that’s the HP-12Commercial Real Estate (style)…to the wide world (all of which is real estate). (And you’re not considering a career in real estate because…?)

If you’re practicing CRE, whether in the field or classroom, here is how you can use the memory of the HP-12C financial calculator, thus turning into an HP-12C(RE):

Photo by Brent Pritchard. Copyright 2025 Brent Pritchard. All rights reserved.

These are the four corners of the HP-12C memory keys that consist of the most important investment or credit metrics. Notice how these memory keys minimize your movements by putting the number you need to divide by close by. (Like a guitarist efficiently moving their fingers along the fretboard.) Further notice how the “DY” memory key can be used for either the Going-in Debt Yield (GI)DY or the Exit Debt Yield (E)DY.

Hands down, these are the memory keys CRE finance professionals should use when analyzing a deal.

How do you know when to give a real estate deal the green light?

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Brent Pritchard is an author and college finance educator with over two decades of industry experience and cofounder of Boxholm Press, LLC, a family-owned-and-operated publishing company providing educational content, products, and services. He pioneers an innovative and approachable new way of learning and teaching the Time Value of Money as well as thought leadership in other business topics. His most recent book is Would Your Boomerang Return? You can contact him on his website here.

No Wonder You Have a Restless Mind.

By Brent Pritchard

Recently I got some great unsolicited advice: “If you work with your mind, you need to rest with your hands. If you work with your hands, you need to rest with your mind.” This nugget of wisdom came after I decided to commit 12 Indian dishes to memory before the clock strikes midnight on December 31. I want to eat healthy and be able to put a curry dish on the table in no time. The act of cooking Indian food, in particular, relaxes me. Regardless of what you think about Indian food, who doesn’t like a twofer?

I’m learning how to cook Indian food asynchronously and with the unbeknownst tutelage of Atul Kochhar, a Michelin star chef. Check him out on YouTube. He’s great!

Photo by Brent Pritchard.

Screenwriters talk about the three-act structure, which at its most basic level breaks a story into a beginning, middle, and end. The same structure works with books as well. Thanks to Steven Pressfield and his work (Turning Pro and Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t), I kept this structure in mind as I wrote Would Your Boomerang Return? This year, in addition to getting back into a regular writing routine, I also want to learn how to cook Indian food. Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve found a kind of three-act structure to cooking Indian food?

Two of my greatest skills are quickly identifying patterns and simplifying complexity. I’ve come to understand a beginning and middle and end as it relates to cooking Indian food. Just like every good movie follows some version of the three-act structure, so too does every good Indian dish (I think):

• Beginning: gently toast dried, whole spice(s) in hot oil followed by green chiles and ginger or garlic and then onion (if you’re looking for a tearjerker).

• Middle: main ingredient after which the recipe is named enters the cast iron skillet followed by masala that 9 times out of 10 includes coriander powder, turmeric powder and red chili powder.

• End: dish is further differentiated with the supporting ingredient(s) and finished with other powdered spices and such.

The dish I’m learning in February is Khatti Gobi, which I understand translates to sour cauliflower. Even if this pattern to Indian cooking is just a figment of my imagination, it works for me. I know that cauliflower enters the p(l)ot at the start of Act 2, and that lemon juice is probably making an appearance in Act 3 when the p(l)ot thickens.

How are you finding balance and resting with your hands or mind?

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Brent Pritchard is an author and college finance educator with over two decades of industry experience and cofounder of Boxholm Press, LLC, a family-owned-and-operated publishing company providing educational content, products, and services. He pioneers an innovative and approachable new way of learning and teaching the Time Value of Money as well as thought leadership in other business topics. His most recent book is Would Your Boomerang Return? You can contact him on his website here.

Dollars and (Per)Cents.

By Brent Pritchard

You’ll work alongside some amazing people in finance. One of those people for me was (let’s just call him) Douglas Fairchild.

At his retirement party, myself and others got to hear some of the stories that can only be told after the fact. Like his opinion of a now former colleague and the hundreds of unread emails that he refused to open from this company officer who drove him crazy. This guy didn’t give a rip. That’s what having the kind of money that can best be described with two letters and being micromanaged can do to a person. If we’re being honest, each of us can probably think of one person whose emails we’d like to never open again.

Douglas was in the conference room the day the cat had the tongue of everyone in attendance. None could find the words to describe Net Present Value!

This image was created with the assistance of DALL·E and prompts from Brent Pritchard.

Are you a cat person or dog person? Can a person be both?

Speaking of both, NPV and i(RR) are usually analyzed side by side. But that doesn’t mean that both will always lead to the same decision.

Here’s an excerpt from my book Would Your Boomerang Return? What Birds, Hurdlers, and Boomerangs Can Teach Us About the Time Value of Money (2023):

As mentioned, we can’t ignore the issue of accretion to value, or the scale of economics of an investment opportunity, which is one of the benefits of the NPV metric. This illustrates why IRR Analysis and NPV Analysis go hand in hand. The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing.

Finance professionals have different metrics at the ready to analyze and evaluate finance and investment decisions. The primary focus of this chapter is how cash flow influences return on investment or i(RR), but any discussion regarding i(RR) should also consider NPV. Some people like to unnecessarily overcomplicate things, and in the field of finance, I see lots of people doing this with NPV. It is simply the Present Value of the future expected cash flows minus or net of the Present Value of the investment. Remember that i(RR) is the (d)i(scount rate) that makes the Net Present Value of an investment equal to $0.

What words would you use to describe Net Present Value?

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Brent Pritchard is an author and college finance educator with over two decades of industry experience and cofounder of Boxholm Press, LLC, a family-owned-and-operated publishing company providing educational content, products, and services. He pioneers an innovative and approachable new way of learning and teaching the Time Value of Money as well as thought leadership in other business topics. His most recent book is Would Your Boomerang Return? You can contact him on his website here.