Scout — Real Estate Intelligence Platform

System Proposal & Scope

What Is This?

Scout is an agentic system — a set of AI-powered workers that run continuously in the background, finding deals, generating leads, and monitoring permits on your behalf. You wake up to a dashboard of opportunities that have already been researched, scored, and packaged for action.

Think of it as hiring three full-time analysts who never sleep, never miss a filing, and get smarter every week.

The Three Agents

1. Deal Scout — finds and analyzes investment opportunities

What it does:

Scans property records, tax assessor data, deed transfers, and public filings across your target cities
Detects distressed signals — pre-foreclosures, tax liens, code violations, vacancy indicators, ownership changes tied to life events (divorce, probate, bankruptcy)
Automatically runs deal analysis on flagged properties: comps, ARV, cash-on-cash return, cap rate, rehab estimates, exit strategies
Generates investor-ready deal packages as downloadable PDFs — property overview, financials, comps map, risk factors

How it works:

Public Data Feeds (ATTOM, county records, court filings)
        ↓
   Ingest & Normalize
        ↓
   Distress Signal Detection (AI classifier)
        ↓
   Deal Analysis Engine (comps, ARV, cash flow modeling)
        ↓
   Scoring & Ranking (1–100 investment score)
        ↓
   Deal Package Generation (PDF + dashboard card)
        ↓
   → You review, act, or pass

You get: A daily feed of scored, analyzed deals with one-click PDF export. No manual research. No spreadsheets.

2. Life Event Lead Engine — builds targeted contact lists from public records

What it does:

Monitors public records for life events that correlate with real estate activity: recent divorces, probate filings, bankruptcies, pre-foreclosures, newly married homeowners
Cross-references events against property ownership to identify who owns real estate
Skip-traces contacts (phone, email, mailing address) automatically
Scores and prioritizes leads based on event recency, property equity, motivation signals
Outputs ready-to-use contact lists segmented by event type and priority tier

How it works:

Court Records + County Filings + Vital Records Vendors
        ↓
   Life Event Detection (divorce, probate, bankruptcy, pre-foreclosure)
        ↓
   Property Ownership Match (does this person own real estate?)
        ↓
   Skip Trace (phone, email, address via BatchData/REISkip)
        ↓
   Lead Scoring (equity, recency, location, event severity)
        ↓
   Compliance Check (DNC scrub, state-specific rules)
        ↓
   → Prioritized contact list in your CRM or dashboard

You get: Weekly drops of 50–200+ scored leads with full contact info, segmented by life event, ready for outreach. Lists are pre-scrubbed for Do Not Call compliance.

3. Permit Hawk — monitors construction permits and automates outreach

What it does:

Continuously monitors building, roofing, electrical, solar, and renovation permits filed across your target jurisdictions
Classifies permit type using AI (the raw data is messy free-text — the system reads and categorizes it)
Identifies the highest-value leads: owner-builder permits (no contractor yet), high-dollar renovations, new construction
Triggers automated outreach — direct mail postcards via Lob, email sequences, or flags for manual follow-up
Replaces the manual process of checking county permit sites daily

How it works:

City/County Permit Portals (Socrata APIs, Accela, scrapers)
        ↓
   Ingest & Standardize (every city formats data differently)
        ↓
   NLP Classification (roofing, addition, remodel, new build, solar, etc.)
        ↓
   Lead Scoring (permit value, owner-builder status, recency, location)
        ↓
   Outreach Trigger
        ├── Direct Mail (Lob API — postcard within 48 hrs)
        ├── Email Sequence (SendGrid)
        └── Dashboard Alert (manual follow-up)
        ↓
   → Prospect receives personalized outreach within days of filing

You get: Automated permit-to-prospect pipeline. A permit gets filed Tuesday, your postcard arrives Friday. No more checking permit sites manually.

How the Agents Work Together

The three agents share a common data backbone and amplify each other:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    SHARED DATA LAYER                        │
│  Property Records · Owner Data · Geocoding · Contact Info   │
└──────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────┘
           │                  │                  │
    ┌──────▼──────┐   ┌──────▼──────┐   ┌───────▼──────┐
    │  Deal Scout │   │  Life Event │   │ Permit Hawk  │
    │             │   │  Lead Engine│   │              │
    └──────┬──────┘   └──────┬──────┘   └───────┬──────┘
           │                  │                  │
           └──────────┬───────┴──────────────────┘
                      │
              ┌───────▼────────┐
              │   DASHBOARD    │
              │  Deals · Leads │
              │  Permits · CRM │
              └────────────────┘

Example of cross-agent intelligence:

Permit Hawk detects a new roofing permit → Deal Scout checks if the property has other distress signals (tax lien, code violations) → Life Event Engine finds the owner recently went through probate → System flags this as a high-priority acquisition target with full context, not just a permit notification.

What You See — The Dashboard

A single interface with four views:

View	What's There
Deal Feed	Scored deals with financials, comps, and one-click PDF export
Lead Pipeline	Contact lists by life event type, with priority tiers and outreach status
Permit Monitor	Live permit feed filtered by type, value, and geography with outreach tracking
Settings	Target cities, deal criteria, scoring weights, outreach preferences, notification rules

Daily email digest summarizes: "3 new deals scored 80+, 47 new leads added, 12 permits triggered outreach."

Outreach Channels — Built-In, Compliant

Channel	How It Works	Compliance
Direct Mail	Postcards/letters via Lob API. Template library with AI personalization. ~$0.50/piece all-in.	No opt-in required. Lowest legal risk.
Email	Sequences via SendGrid. Triggered by events or manual.	CAN-SPAM compliant. Opt-out managed automatically.
SMS	Available but restricted. Twilio integration.	Requires prior written consent (TCPA). Use only for warm leads who opt in.
Manual	Dashboard flags high-priority leads for personal phone calls.	DNC-scrubbed lists provided.

Default recommendation: Lead with direct mail for cold outreach. It's compliant, tangible, and converts at 1–5% for targeted lists. Reserve phone/SMS for warm follow-ups only.

Estimated Build Timeline

Phase	Weeks	What Ships
Phase 1 — Deal Scout	1–6	Property data pipeline, deal analysis engine, scoring, PDF reports, basic dashboard
Phase 2 — Permit Hawk	5–10	Permit ingestion (starting with free Socrata API cities), NLP classification, Lob direct mail integration
Phase 3 — Lead Engine	8–14	Life event monitoring (bankruptcy, pre-foreclosure, probate), skip tracing, lead scoring, DNC compliance
Phase 4 — Polish & Connect	13–16	Cross-agent intelligence, email digest, CRM integrations, onboarding flow

Total: ~16 weeks to full MVP with a working Deal Scout available by week 6.

Estimated Monthly Operating Costs

Item	MVP (you + small team)	Scaled (100+ users)
Cloud hosting	$80–200	$400–800
Property data feeds	$100–500	$1,000–2,500
Skip tracing	$50–200	$500–1,500
AI/LLM usage	$20–100	$500–2,000
Outreach (mail, email)	$50–200	$500–2,000
Total	$300–800/mo	$2,900–8,800/mo

What Makes This Different

Most investors piece together 3–5 tools (PropStream + BatchLeads + DealMachine + a CRM + manual permit checking) at $500–$ 1,000+/month with constant manual effort. No existing platform does all three of these things:

Detect life events and permits in near-real-time — not after they've already been picked over
Cross-reference signals across agents — a permit alone is a lead; a permit + probate + equity is a deal
Auto-analyze and auto-outreach — from raw public filing to investor-ready package or mailed postcard with zero manual steps

The system doesn't replace your judgment. It replaces the 20+ hours/week of searching, scraping, spreadsheet-crunching, and site-checking that buries most investors before they ever make an offer.

Next Steps

Lock target geography — which cities/counties to prioritize at launch
Define deal criteria — property types, price ranges, minimum equity thresholds, return targets
Choose outreach preferences — direct mail templates, email sequences, notification triggers
Begin Phase 1 build — data pipeline and Deal Scout agent

This document describes a proposed system architecture and scope. Timelines and costs are estimates based on current market pricing and may adjust based on data provider negotiations and geographic scope.