Your First Retrospective
What Is a Retrospective?
A retrospective is the final step in any deal tracked through Kaison. After a property is done — rehab complete, tenant placed (or property sold), and the dust has settled — you come back and tell Kaison what actually happened versus what you originally estimated. Think of it as closing the loop.
When you first run an analysis in Kaison, you provide estimates: rehab cost, timeline, expected rent, and projected after-repair value. Those numbers feed the underwriting engine, which scores the deal, flags risks, and renders a verdict. But estimates are just that — estimates. Reality always diverges. Sometimes you come in under budget. Sometimes the contractor takes six weeks longer than promised. Sometimes the appraisal surprises you.
A retrospective captures that divergence in a structured way. You record the actual rehab cost, the actual timeline, the actual rent you achieved, and the actual appraised value. Kaison then calculates the variance on each variable and stores it as part of your investor profile.
Why This Matters
Without retrospectives, Kaison uses default P90 buffers based on industry data. With retrospectives, it learns YOUR patterns — where you tend to be optimistic, where you're accurate, and where you consistently underestimate. After enough data points, every future analysis is calibrated to your personal track record, not generic assumptions.
Filing a retrospective takes about two minutes. The return on those two minutes compounds across every deal you analyze for the rest of your investing career.
Filing a Retrospective
Navigate to Retrospectives in the sidebar, then click Log Retrospective. You'll select the property and fill in four fields:
The Four Fields
Once submitted, Kaison automatically compares your actuals against your original estimates and calculates the percentage variance on each variable. Here's what that looks like for a real deal:
Sample Deal: 742 Birch St
| Variable | Estimated | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rehab Cost | $38,000 | $46,000 | +21% |
| Timeline | 4 months | 5.5 months | +37% |
| Rent | $1,650 | $1,600 | -3% |
| ARV / Appraisal | $215,000 | $218,000 | +1.4% |
This investor was pretty close on rent and ARV, but ran significantly over on rehab cost and timeline. That's a common pattern — most investors are reasonably accurate on market-driven variables (rent, value) but consistently optimistic on execution variables (cost, time). The retrospective captures that pattern so Kaison can account for it.
Pro Tip
File your retrospective as soon as the deal is stabilized — tenant placed and first rent collected, or sale closed. Don't wait months. The numbers are freshest and most accurate right after completion, and you want Kaison calibrated for your next analysis.
Your Variance Profile
After filing a retrospective, Kaison calculates your personal variance on each variable. One deal is a data point. Two deals are a coincidence. Three deals are a pattern. Your variance profile is built across all your completed deals, giving Kaison a statistical picture of where your estimates are reliable and where they consistently miss.
Here's what a variance profile looks like after three deals:
Rehab Cost Variance Across 3 Deals
| Deal | Estimated | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 742 Birch St | $38,000 | $46,000 | +21% |
| 1180 Oak Ave | $52,000 | $56,160 | +8% |
| 309 Elm Dr | $28,000 | $32,200 | +15% |
| Average | +14.7% |
Timeline Variance Across 3 Deals
| Deal | Estimated | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 742 Birch St | 4 months | 5.5 months | +37% |
| 1180 Oak Ave | 6 months | 7.8 months | +30% |
| 309 Elm Dr | 3 months | 4.3 months | +43% |
| Average | +37% |
Your variance profile is your honest track record. It tells you where you're consistently optimistic and where you're spot-on. In this example, the investor reliably underestimates both rehab costs and timelines — a pattern that's invisible when you're looking at deals one at a time, but obvious in aggregate.
Key Insight
Most investors don't know their variance. They remember the deal that went perfectly and forget the one where the HVAC replacement added three weeks. Your variance profile removes that selective memory. It's a mirror, not a highlight reel.
How This Improves Future Analyses
Here's where the retrospective pays for itself. After 3 deals with rehab data, Kaison starts adjusting your P90 buffers. After 5, they're fully calibrated to YOUR track record instead of generic industry assumptions.
The P90 buffer is the safety margin Kaison adds to your estimates when modeling the adverse scenario. By default, it uses conservative buffers based on industry data. But once Kaison has your variance profile, it replaces those defaults with buffers tailored to your actual history.
P90 Buffer Calibration
| Variable | Default Buffer | Your Avg Variance | Calibrated Buffer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rehab Cost | +15% | +14.7% | +18% |
| Timeline | +30% | +37% | +40% |
Look at what happened. The default rehab buffer was +15%, but this investor runs 14.7% over on average. Kaison bumps the calibrated buffer to +18% — slightly above the average to account for variance in the variance. On timeline, the default was +30% but this investor consistently runs +37% over. Kaison sets the calibrated buffer to +40%.
What Changes in Your Next Analysis
P90 rehab cost will be 18% above your estimate instead of 15%. If you estimate a $50K rehab, the P90 scenario models $59,000 instead of $57,500.
P90 timeline will be 40% above your estimate instead of 30%. A 4-month estimate becomes a 5.6-month P90 scenario instead of 5.2 months.
P90 carry costs increase because carry costs are a function of timeline. Longer P90 timeline means more months of insurance, taxes, utilities, and LOC interest in the adverse scenario.
Deal scores shift because the P90 scenario is now more realistic. Some deals that were marginal under default buffers might tip to NO_GO. Others that looked risky might improve if your variance profile shows you're more accurate than the defaults assumed.
The P90 numbers in your next analysis will be more accurate because they're based on your history, not national averages. A deal that passes your calibrated P90 is a deal that has genuinely survived YOUR worst-case scenario — not a hypothetical one.
Pro Tip
As your estimating skills improve, your variance will shrink. If you used to run 20% over on rehab and now you're consistently at 5%, Kaison tightens the buffer accordingly. Better estimates unlock better deals — because tighter buffers mean more deals clear the P90 threshold.
For more on how P90 buffers work and how to read the adverse scenario, see Understanding Your P90 Report →
The Honest Investor
Filing accurate retrospectives is an act of honesty with yourself. The variance learning system only works if you report what actually happened, not what you wish had happened. The temptation is real — nobody wants to admit they blew a rehab budget by 30% or that a "4-month flip" took 7 months. But the numbers don't judge you. They calibrate you.
The Rules
Don't fudge the numbers. If the rehab cost $52,000, don't enter $48,000 because you think the extra $4K was "unusual" and won't happen again. It might. And if it does, you want Kaison to account for it.
Don't skip deals that went badly. The deal where everything fell apart is the MOST valuable data point in your variance profile. It pulls your average toward reality. If you only file retrospectives on your clean deals, your calibrated buffers will be dangerously low.
Don't round aggressively. If the rehab cost $46,237, enter $46,237. Rounding to $45,000 introduces a 2.7% error that compounds across your variance calculations.
Think about it this way: every retrospective you file makes the next analysis more accurate. An investor with 10 honest retrospectives has a fundamentally different experience with Kaison than an investor with zero. The first investor's GO verdict actually means something — it's been stress-tested against their personal history of overruns, delays, and market misreads. The second investor's GO verdict is based on industry averages that may not reflect their skill level, market, or contractor relationships at all.
After 5 deals, Kaison knows your blind spots better than you do. It knows you underestimate kitchen renovations but nail bathroom timelines. It knows your rent estimates are consistently 2% high but your ARV projections are dead-on. It knows that your 3-month timeline estimates actually take 4.2 months. That knowledge is worth more than any single analysis — because it improves every analysis that follows.
The Payoff
The investors who get the most value from Kaison are the ones who treat retrospectives as non-negotiable. They file one after every deal, good or bad, and they report honest numbers. In return, they get an underwriting engine that is uniquely calibrated to the way they invest. No other tool offers this. No spreadsheet can do this. And it only works if you close the loop.
Educational content only. Consult a CPA or attorney for advice specific to your situation.