For renters and buyers, right before you sign
The gotchas usually show up after you sign. This is the report I wish I'd had.
I moved twice in three years and both times found the problems afterward — the freeway hum you only hear at 2am, the "street parking is fine" that wasn't, the construction project permitted next door. So I built the report I wish I'd had: one thorough, sourced rundown of any US address or neighborhood. The full report is free. One per email per day.
What's in the report
- Prices & rent — recent levels, direction, and what's actually driving them, with sources and dates
- Commute & transit reality — real routes, real drive times, parking as it actually is
- Walkability & noise — freeways, flight paths, train lines, bar corridors, stadiums, sirens
- Planned development — what's been permitted or proposed near you, and where to track it
- What locals say — recurring themes from the area's public forums, dated and clearly labeled as opinions
- Natural hazards — FEMA flood zones, wildfire severity zones, quake/liquefaction where relevant
- Schools — published ratings only, source named, as-of dated
- Utility & HOA gotchas — the cost surprises and clauses people find later
- Join the conversation — direct links to the area's subreddit and public groups, so you can lurk before you sign
- Questions to ask before you sign — a specific, copy-paste list for your landlord or seller
Read a full sample report — North Park, San Diego →
We read the forums so you don't spend a week doing it
The most honest information about a neighborhood isn't in a listing — it's in years of locals talking to each other in public threads: which blocks flood when it rains, which landlords never fix anything, what the venue crowd does to parking on Saturdays. Reading a month of that is the closest thing to living somewhere before you sign. Nobody has a week for it, so the report does the reading, synthesizes the recurring themes (dated, and clearly labeled as opinions from public forums), and then hands you the exact threads and communities so you can keep lurking yourself.
Couldn't I just ask a chatbot?
Sure — that's roughly how this started. The difference is what a one-off chat can't give you at a moment this expensive: a fixed checklist. A conversation answers what you thought to ask. This report runs the same twelve sections every single time — hazards, permits, noise, utility gotchas, forum chatter, all of it sourced and dated — so the thing you didn't think to ask about still gets checked. Before signing a lease or a mortgage, you're not paying for an answer; you're insuring against the question you forgot. And it's free, so the insurance costs you an email address.
When you're deciding between places
The Move File — $19, one move
One report tells you about one place. A move is a decision between places — and that's where a folder of PDFs (or a chat window that forgot yesterday's conversation) falls apart. The Move File is the version of this that remembers, compares, and watches:
- Up to 5 full reports — every place you're seriously considering, researched the same way
- Side-by-side comparison — your saved neighborhoods lined up on the things that differ: costs, noise, hazards, commute, what locals say
- The Watch — we keep monitoring your saved areas for new permits, market moves, and community chatter until you sign, with weekly check-ins by email
One-time $19 for the whole move. No subscription — the Watch ends when you sign.
What we will never tell you — and why
This report will never describe who lives somewhere. No demographic, racial, ethnic, religious, or family-composition characterizations of any area — and no "good neighborhood / bad neighborhood" opinions, ever. That's the law (fair housing exists for a reason), and it's also the honest position: whether a place is right for you is a judgment only you can make. That rule applies doubly to the forum-chatter section — locals say all kinds of things; we only pass along the practical, checkable kind.
What you get instead is what you'd verify yourself if you had the time: numbers with named sources, official maps, public permit records. Where crime data appears, it is only official published statistics with the publishing agency named — no editorializing. Every report ends with a "verify these yourself" section linking the primary sources, because you shouldn't have to take our word for anything.
FAQ
- How does it work?
- It's AI-powered research: a language model with live web search compiles public data — assessor records context, listing-market trend data, transit maps, FEMA maps, permit portals, published school ratings, and the area's public forum discussions — into one readable report and emails it to you. It takes a few minutes to research and write.
- Why is the full report free? What's the catch?
- No catch, one honest reason: the report is how you find out whether this is any good. The email is only used to deliver your reports. The paid product is the Move File — $19 once, when you're comparing several places and want them remembered, compared, and watched until you sign.
- Is it advice?
- No. It's informational research — not professional, legal, lending, or real-estate advice, and accuracy isn't guaranteed. Figures change and sources can be wrong, which is why every report links the primary sources so you can verify anything that matters before signing.
- An exact address or a whole neighborhood?
- Either. An exact address gets you sharper hazard-zone and noise answers; a neighborhood name gets you the market and livability picture while you're still deciding where to look.
- The "what locals say" section — is that reliable?
- It's clearly labeled for what it is: recurring themes from public forum threads, with dates. Opinions, not facts — but the kind of opinions (parking, noise, landlords, flooding) that you'd want to hear before signing, and the report links the actual communities so you can read the threads yourself.
- Something wrong with your report?
- Reply to the delivery email and say so — a person reads those, and we'd rather fix it than have you guessing.