As analytics are only as good as the data and algorithms behind them, I’d love to see how Everyhome ranks our current investment scenarios in the East Bay.  They are touting the benefits of their “advice engine” pretty aggressively, here’s an excerpt from a recent article by the Puget Sound Business Journal:

Bryan Copley’s Seattle company, Everyhome, has come up with a tool that for the first time ranks every property in King County based on its redevelopment potential. Everyhome is working to roll out the tool nationwide. If successful, the six-employee company could forever change the real estate industry. Anthony Bolante

It may not be just private builders that could benefit. Everyhome could sell the service to cities struggling with gentrification. There’s “a lot of opportunity here for public good,” Copley said, if Everyhome can figure out a model where cities get the first right of refusal on properties that, if redeveloped, would displace people. Copley said making a profit is important to him, but so is that he calls “sustainable capitalism.”

The website scores each property based on its redevelopment potential. As Copley increases the website’s scoring tool, more properties drop off the map. “You start to see very tight clusters,” he said, as dots form show up on the map in the University District, Fremont, Ballard along 15th Avenue and other neighborhoods. The area with the most potential: Capitol Hill.

No word yet on what data their scoring systems use to evaluate which properties would be best suited for development (other than the “zoning” comment in the article, which it seems should be a no-brainer).   If they are able to team up with a larger analytics company such as Zillow and evaluate changes in rental patterns, building permits issued, traffic flow changes et al. we might be able to see some trends that investors on the ground aren’t intuiting yet.  I’m still skeptical, but willing to be convinced otherwise.