Would you trust a rehab estimate tool before a contractor walks the property?

[Ali Kalaei]

I’ve been thinking about where technology actually fits in rehab underwriting. Not as a final contractor bid, because that would be unrealistic, but at the first-pass stage when the inspection report comes back, the option period is moving, and you need to decide whether the deal is still worth chasing.

Would you trust a tool if it could take inspection notes or photos and return trade-level repair categories, low/mid/high repair ranges, major-system risk flags, and a clear separation between assumptions and report-backed items? Or would you still ignore it until a contractor physically walks the property? For me, the issue isn’t that the number might be imperfect. Every rehab estimate is imperfect. The real red flag is when a tool gives one clean number and acts like there’s no uncertainty behind it.