Property data and intelligence vendors look alike from a distance. Every one of them has a map, a dashboard, and a claim about coverage, and many sales conversations go straight to a demo of the interface.
The interface is the least important thing you are buying. These are the questions that separate the options, and we would ask them of anyone, including us.
1. What exactly do I receive?
A list of addresses, a licensed dataset, software seats, or a finished document with a recommendation in it? These are different products at different prices, and each leaves a different amount of work on your side.
Ask for a real example of the deliverable, not a screenshot of the product. Ours is the sample report; a vendor that cannot show you its equivalent is selling the tool, not the answer.
2. Where does each finding come from, and how old is the source?
Every claim about a property should name its source: which imagery, which assessor roll, which permit index. And every source has a date — imagery can be two years old in one county and two months old in the next.
A vendor that blends sources into a single score without showing the dates underneath is asking you to trust the blend. How imagery recency affects property intelligence explains why the date matters as much as the source.
3. Who checks the output, and against what?
Automated screening is fast and genuinely useful, and it makes confident mistakes: a shadow read as a solar array, a demolished building still standing in old imagery. Ask whether a person reviews results before they ship, and against which written criteria.
If the answer is that the model is accurate enough not to need review, ask what accuracy means there, and how it was measured.
4. What does the evidence not prove?
This is the most revealing question on the list. Aerial imagery cannot see inside a building, and public records cannot establish owner intent, structural capacity, or a system's condition. A good provider says so on the deliverable, next to the finding it limits.
5. Can I see the price before the demo?
Many vendors in this category price on request. That is a choice; a published price is easier to plan around and to compare.
Ours is on the pricing page, from a free 3-property preview to the monthly plan.
6. What happens if the deliverable misses?
Ask what the vendor commits to about its own work — not about your results, which no vendor controls. A delivery date and an acceptance standard written down before the work starts are commitments; a promise of more meetings is not.
Be wary of anyone who guarantees outcomes such as leads, conversions, or revenue. The evidence behind a property ranking cannot establish any of them.
7. Is it my territory, or a filtered national table?
A national dataset filtered by ZIP code and a territory drawn around your crews' drive time are different starting points. Ask whether the provider screens the market you actually work, with your exclusions, or hands you a slice of a table built for everyone.
8. What work stays with my team?
Even the best ranking leaves work: the owner conversation, the site visit, the engineering review. Ask the vendor to name that work explicitly; if the answer is “nothing,” the deliverable is being oversold.
Our comparison of lead lists, GIS tools, and managed research sets out what each approach leaves on your desk, so you can price the whole job rather than the invoice.
The short version, for the call
- Show me a finished deliverable.
- Name the source and the date behind this finding.
- Who reviewed it, and against which criteria?
- What does this evidence not prove?
- What does it cost, in writing?
- What do you commit to if the deliverable misses the criteria?
- Is this my territory or a filtered national table?
- What work stays with my team?
