Opendoor is clearly one of the more sophisticated examples of AI being applied at scale in residential real estate, and it does a lot of things well—especially around pattern recognition, pricing signals, and submarket-level analysis across many markets.My post was meant to be a broader look at where AI is genuinely useful in real estate data and where it needs to be interpreted carefully.

Looking for patterns across several comps instead of chasing one standout sale really seems to keep analysis grounded.

Without it, you're optimizing based on guesses.Why Volume Comes Before StrategyThere's a specific pattern I see with new investors.

Most underwriting mistakes aren’t math errors, they’re optimism errors.The patterns are boring but deadly: trusting pro forma over T12 reality, underestimating expense normalization, ignoring tax/insurance drift, and assuming value-add speed.A simple filter I use: don’t ask “Does this work?”

Any patterns you’ve noticed between contractors who work well with investors vs. those who don’t?

We have seen this exact pattern play out in other regulated short term rental markets, and Austin is not immune to basic supply and demand mechanics.

After going through 200+ reports across California transactions, clear patterns emerged.Here are the top 5 things sellers consistently fail to disclose, even when inspectors flag them:1.

A willingness to move all the levers such as term, amortization, rate, LTV, etc, and to look at deals outside of the bank's typical lending pattern.

You need AI to provide you with pattern detection, outlier detection, casual reasoning, scenario analysis, narrative synthesis and decision guidance.Some things that you will need to be sure to do is making sure that your expense categories data doesn't vary from year to year and that you have everything categorized correctly.Last, I would consider two things: adding benchmark intelligence with ranges from that Frank Gallinelli book into the prompt.

It’s a powerful way to get your first deal.But as inbound opportunities increase, I’m learning that the real advantage comes from pattern recognition—seeing what others overlook and structuring accordingly.There’s a difference between chasing transactions and understanding real estate.The former pays occasionally.The latter compounds.If you’re in this space and only looking at what’s built, you may be missing what actually holds the value.Sometimes the “ugly” deal is simply misunderstood.