Would You Use AI to Analyze Rental or Flip Properties? 🤨
Real Estate Agent · Rancho Cucamonga, CA · Member since 2018 · 82 posts · 36 votes
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
"Alex, I appreciate how direct you are about looking for feedback. I think you’re onto something, but Brett raises an important point — the baseline tools (like BP’s HouseCanary integration or even just ChatGPT with a Zillow link) already cover a lot of ground.
Where I see real value is in the hyper-local layer. Things like:
Renovation costs adjusted for local contractor rates (not national averages).
Neighborhood data that isn’t just demographics, but factors investors actually track — school rezoning, insurance costs, landlord/tenant laws, etc.
Cash flow assumptions that can be tweaked for different investor profiles (flippers vs. buy-and-hold vs. BRRRR).
For $20/month, the bar is high because many investors already stitch together free/cheap tools. But if you can make it hyper-local, customizable, and dead simple to use, then it’s less about competing with ChatGPT and more about giving investors a tool that speaks their language in their market.
Curious — how are you thinking about the renovation cost side? That’s where most tools I’ve seen fall flat."
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hey @Alex Larcheveque! As someone that has built his own proforma that leverages ChatGPT through an Excel Add-In, I'm curious how you'd break down neighborhood demographic data and use those to make recommendations?
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hey @Alex Larcheveque! As someone that has built his own proforma that leverages ChatGPT through an Excel Add-In, I'm curious how you'd break down neighborhood demographic data and use those to make recommendations?
Kinda chiming in on a lot of these, but my personal answer is "let the AI do it while providing descriptions of the data it used and how it came to that conclusion." Sure we want the information, but we want a verification trail to make sure it's correct.
Hi Alex!
As someone that works in this space, this is too simple. BiggerPockets alone has a tool that does this now with HouseCanary. I'm not sure the Real Estate World has even accepted this. If you were to paste the Zillow Link in ChatGPT it would give you the everything you need. This only becomes powerful when you hyper localize it like Jaycee said. If you can make this more specialized than ChatGPT then yes it has value. The issue is that ChatGPT is at a pace where it will be able to do everything more and more everyday. The good news is that they want to stay broad, everyone wants to stay broad. I would recommend making something hyper local to YOUR market and then selling it there. You won't be a VC millionaire but you will turn a profit.
Hi Alex!
As someone that works in this space, this is too simple. BiggerPockets alone has a tool that does this now with HouseCanary. I'm not sure the Real Estate World has even accepted this. If you were to paste the Zillow Link in ChatGPT it would give you the everything you need. This only becomes powerful when you hyper localize it like Jaycee said. If you can make this more specialized than ChatGPT then yes it has value. The issue is that ChatGPT is at a pace where it will be able to do everything more and more everyday. The good news is that they want to stay broad, everyone wants to stay broad. I would recommend making something hyper local to YOUR market and then selling it there. You won't be a VC millionaire but you will turn a profit.
But then you get into the lawsuits that the ai platforms are going through right now, because you're not supposed to scrape the data from zillow or other site's website. I stay very far away from simply typing in a link or property into ai models and expecting it to bring me what I need. Could just be me.
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
"Alex, I appreciate how direct you are about looking for feedback. I think you’re onto something, but Brett raises an important point — the baseline tools (like BP’s HouseCanary integration or even just ChatGPT with a Zillow link) already cover a lot of ground.
Where I see real value is in the hyper-local layer. Things like:
Renovation costs adjusted for local contractor rates (not national averages).
Neighborhood data that isn’t just demographics, but factors investors actually track — school rezoning, insurance costs, landlord/tenant laws, etc.
Cash flow assumptions that can be tweaked for different investor profiles (flippers vs. buy-and-hold vs. BRRRR).
For $20/month, the bar is high because many investors already stitch together free/cheap tools. But if you can make it hyper-local, customizable, and dead simple to use, then it’s less about competing with ChatGPT and more about giving investors a tool that speaks their language in their market.
Curious — how are you thinking about the renovation cost side? That’s where most tools I’ve seen fall flat."
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
"Alex, I appreciate how direct you are about looking for feedback. I think you’re onto something, but Brett raises an important point — the baseline tools (like BP’s HouseCanary integration or even just ChatGPT with a Zillow link) already cover a lot of ground.
Where I see real value is in the hyper-local layer. Things like:
Renovation costs adjusted for local contractor rates (not national averages).
Neighborhood data that isn’t just demographics, but factors investors actually track — school rezoning, insurance costs, landlord/tenant laws, etc.
Cash flow assumptions that can be tweaked for different investor profiles (flippers vs. buy-and-hold vs. BRRRR).
For $20/month, the bar is high because many investors already stitch together free/cheap tools. But if you can make it hyper-local, customizable, and dead simple to use, then it’s less about competing with ChatGPT and more about giving investors a tool that speaks their language in their market.
Curious — how are you thinking about the renovation cost side? That’s where most tools I’ve seen fall flat."
This. Collect all of the data sources you can. If you're a broker, it's easy enough to download the data from the MLS (I do single family, multi family, land and rentals) onto your local machine. Get your AI (I use Claude Code) to develop a database using that data locally on your machine. It chose to use SQL lite and has worked well. If our county and cities have APIs, get your AI to set up scripts to pull that data. It would be nice to set up a cron job to make them automatically run the scripts, but I've found that creating a simple claude command has done just fine. /update-mls-data and /update-public-data. Just found out my local Register of Deeds is easily scrapeable, so now there's a script that nabs the deed types (which isn't available from other public data sources) so that we know what kinda of deed conveyed the title and foreclosure filings.
Put it all together and what've you got?! A hyperlocal database that your AI can run all over the place with. I also gave it access to the rentometer and zestimate APIs so it can use those when it feels like it's necessary.
I've gotta tell you. It's freaking amazing to be able to type "please find plots of land that's shortest side is 90 feet that are zoned for mobile home use. It doesn't matter if they've had a percolation test or a septic permit, and larger lots that need to be subdivided are fine too." and it shoot me results. I haven't put it into full swing yet, but one of the biggest challenges for me is when people ask me to shoot them a deal that I see and they may be interested in. Now, I can have my deal finder partner assist with that
Don't get me wrong. I verify what it does and take what it gives me with a grain of salt, but I gave it the data that it's using and verified that data myself. Now I have an analysis buddy that can also help me understand market trends without my creating static scripts.
But if you're looking to develop an app or other tool for others to use that provide them advantages on a hyperlocal level, which I'm doing as well, I decided to stay away from MLS data. There's plenty of free, public data that you don't need to pay for and isn't regulated by the association of Realtors. Just make sure you're reviewing those sources use policies.
Hey Alex, I'd love to hear more about how you're building this or plan to build it
Thanks, @Kirstin A.! What type of properties most interest you, SFR, 2-4 MF, or 5+ MF?
@Jaycee Greene thanks, SFH are my buy box for now.
Having tremendous success with GPT-5 and RCIC. It is exceeding expectations. The only complaint is "It's addictive"
Having tremendous success with GPT-5 and RCIC. It is exceeding expectations. The only complaint is "It's addictive"
Bro. Sooooo many sleepless nights... And more to come.
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hello Alex, how’s your AI model going for including more local info for investor? Btw are you watching Tony Robbins’s AI seminar this week (on the 2nd day today) it’s revolutionary!
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hello Alex, how’s your AI model going for including more local info for investor? Btw are you watching Tony Robbins’s AI seminar this week (on the 2nd day today) it’s revolutionary!
I generated close to 20,000 leads last week. 50 markets. 6,513 zip codes.
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
Hello Alex, how’s your AI model going for including more local info for investor? Btw are you watching Tony Robbins’s AI seminar this week (on the 2nd day today) it’s revolutionary!
I generated close to 20,000 leads last week. 50 markets. 6,513 zip codes.
I don't feel like that answered @Kirstin A.'s question on the local data for investors.
If you're not using AI now you will get left behind. It is going to be incredible after Stargate comes online. Open AI could have a trillion dollar valuation. They should raise 100 billion dollars the day of the IPO.
I don't scrape. I am generating 3,500-4,000 leads PER DAY across 6,513 zip codes in 100 markets and they come straight from the courts, trustees, sheriffs etc.
@Nate Marshall would love to connect to learn your setup for courts in NC. I'm working on my algo now. Have the substitute trustees locked in, but not courts and sheriff.
@Nate Marshall would love to connect to learn your setup for courts in NC. I'm working on my algo now. Have the substitute trustees locked in, but not courts and sheriff.
I have it all locked in. People using what I built can go to any AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) in seconds. As long as there is no paywall. I pulled 18 NED filings in one shot from a county in Colorado. They were then parsed according to a BuyBox, comps were oulled, ARV and Rehab determined and the offer was generated and lenders matched from the 5,000 in capital passport.
@Nate Marshall would love to connect to learn your setup for courts in NC. I'm working on my algo now. Have the substitute trustees locked in, but not courts and sheriff.
I have it all locked in. People using what I built can go to any AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) in seconds. As long as there is no paywall. I pulled 18 NED filings in one shot from a county in Colorado. They were then parsed according to a BuyBox, comps were oulled, ARV and Rehab determined and the offer was generated and lenders matched from the 5,000 in capital passport.
Took less than 30 minutes
If you're not using AI now you will get left behind. It is going to be incredible after Stargate comes online. Open AI could have a trillion dollar valuation. They should raise 100 billion dollars the day of the IPO.
I don't scrape. I am generating 3,500-4,000 leads PER DAY across 6,513 zip codes in 100 markets and they come straight from the courts, trustees, sheriffs etc.
Literally now able to generate 10,000 plus a day with 6,513 zip codes and 50 markets. Going to 250. Distress Intelligence not scraping or buying lists.
@Nate Marshall would love to connect to learn your setup for courts in NC. I'm working on my algo now. Have the substitute trustees locked in, but not courts and sheriff.
I have several You Tube videos showing everything in process. The only thing stopping us from getting all 100,000 plus foreclosures per quarter is we are limited on agents. That will change this year as Operators onboard.
I have developed several agentic applications that generate, underwrite, engage, and close deals from start to finish.
It's coming soon! Love where your head's at!
RCIC is doing this now. And doing it well.
What RCIC Actually Does (A–Z)
RCIC exists to help real estate operators move from finding deals to getting them funded—with clarity at every step.
AI inside RCIC is not used to replace judgment.
It’s used to support operators across the entire lifecycle of a deal.
At the front end, RCIC uses AI to help Operators:
• Identify opportunities through AHJs (cities, counties, jurisdictions)
• Interpret zoning, entitlement, and regulatory constraints
• Surface distress intelligence and real-world signals—not scraped hype
From there, RCIC supports Operators through:
• Deal clarity and synthesis
• Communication and documentation
• Workflow tools inside the Tool Store
• Capital alignment through Capital Passport™
Capital Passport connects Operators to vetted lenders, family offices, hedge funds, and institutional capital—matched to deals that are actually structured and defensible.
This is not about prompts.
It’s not about buying tools.
It’s about building an operating environment where AI supports real work.
RCIC is unlimited.
It is not a subscription.
It’s an ecosystem designed for operators who are actively doing deals and want infrastructure—not noise.
If it doesn’t fit a real workflow, we don’t use it.
— RCIC
@Nate Marshall I don't get court information currently. I haven't taken the time to delve into NC courts to figure out how to get the information effectively. Right now you actually need a case number you can't just search by topic. I did notice that we can use wild cards in the search, but after I figure that out I stopped playing with it for a time. I know you can connect to the API, but there's a company that charges out the Wazzu to use it. Not worth it in my opinion. at this point, I probably have exactly what you have. The ability to scrape the register of deeds for substitute trustees.
My use case is a little different, though. I'm not trying to pull thousands of leads from across America. I am getting very, very, very good at developing market intelligence for my area. So that also means that I have to learn to filter out just the filings in my area
@Nate Marshall I don't get court information currently. I haven't taken the time to delve into NC courts to figure out how to get the information effectively. Right now you actually need a case number you can't just search by topic. I did notice that we can use wild cards in the search, but after I figure that out I stopped playing with it for a time. I know you can connect to the API, but there's a company that charges out the Wazzu to use it. Not worth it in my opinion. at this point, I probably have exactly what you have. The ability to scrape the register of deeds for substitute trustees.
My use case is a little different, though. I'm not trying to pull thousands of leads from across America. I am getting very, very, very good at developing market intelligence for my area. So that also means that I have to learn to filter out just the filings in my area
I am not doing the entire nation. Our Operators who own their ecosystem off ramp to their local markets and the authorities with the public records. Their agents notify them when they are released. They can get the NED filings, probate, evictions, tax liens (doj and irs) and surplus/overbid. They get precise data and their buyboxes in their ecosystem parse them to their exact needs. They run market scout to pull comps. run daisy chain detector, determine rehab, arv and then go to offer generator and lender match/capital passport where we have 19,000 contacts.
Oh I just reread your post too. Also, the scrape Zillow part is opening yourself up to MAJOR liability issues. Avoid.
One of my Operators/Users reported back to me that after comparing to manual underwriting a deal opportunity the AI was within 1% of the MAO. Roughly $3,000.00. Accuracy is there.
We are now seeing being within 1% of MAO, generating accurate ARV with Comps using MRA, then setting up the Rehab Budget and Scope of Work appropriate. Also generating Exit Strategies and contingencies.
Hi everyone,
I’m exploring a tool idea and would love some honest feedback from active investors.
How do you currently analyze potential deals? Specifically:
- Estimating cash flow
- Evaluating long-term appreciation potential
- Understanding neighborhood demographics
- Estimating renovation costs
I’m working on a tool where:
- You paste a Zillow link.
The system uses AI to:
- Analyze cash flow potential via Rentometer rents
- Predict appreciation based on historical trends
- Break down local demographic data
Goal: Automate the time-consuming parts of deal analysis and help investors screen properties faster.
Would you be willing to pay $20/mo. for something like this? Brutal feedback welcome!
RCIC already does this and is UNLIMITED. Expandable by Operators on the fly.
Different take here. I come from a software engineering background and invest full-time now.
I don't use AI to underwrite deals. Underwriting needs to be deterministic — same inputs, same outputs, every time. I want the most rigid, repeatable model possible. If my underwriting gives me a different answer on the same deal depending on how I phrase a prompt, that's not a system I'd trust with real money.
Where AI is genuinely useful for me: extracting data from documents, reading through large amounts of information quickly, and handling repetitive tasks that don't require judgment. Stuff like pulling numbers from an OM, normalizing messy data, summarizing market reports. That's where it shines.
The actual underwriting model should be concrete math with clear assumptions you can audit and stress test. AI on top of that for speed, not as a replacement for it.
Scott's point about verification trails is right. If you can't explain exactly how your tool arrived at a number, you don't have an underwriting system — you have a guess with extra steps.