Built from the twenty-two notes you wrote on the buyer plan. Every ruling below is quoted from the note it came from, so none of it is me deciding policy for you. One conflict inside your own rules is printed rather than quietly resolved.
Part 0
What you decided that applies to every version
Twelve rulings. These are not buyer-only — they change the engine underneath all five documents.
Ruling
Rent is read at the MEDIAN, not the conservative end
This overrides what I had proposed. It applies wherever rent is read.
Median for everybody, in every version
The exception is a property in genuinely bad shape — then the conservative end, and the report says why it dropped
The full range still prints beside it in every version
Your note · add-0“No we're not doing the 25th percentile anymore We're doing the median unless the property is in terrible shape.”
Ruling
The permit caveat, on every version
Our value is built from what was FILED with the city. That has a consequence in both directions and it gets said plainly, not scarily.
If work was done without permits, the inside can look far better than our number — so our figure may be too low
But unpermitted work surfaces the moment an inspector is called for any future upgrade, and the cost of curing it lands on whoever owns it then
So: not a reason to walk away — a reason to pay less than for the same house done correctly
Wording stays calm. This is a disclosure, not a warning label.
Your note · add-2“our value is based on the data we collect If the data wasn't logged with the city and it was done illegally then the house actually may be worth more than what our document states … you should pay less for the property than one that was done correctly but I don't want to scare the buyer off”
Ruling
The comp window: 12 months out, 18 months in
A hard rule for the grid in every version.
Outside the building or the community — 12 months, no exceptions
Same building or same community — up to 18 months is fine
Anything in the 12–18 month band gets a star and a sentence explaining that same-building evidence beats fresher evidence from outside
MLS only, because a comp without a photograph is not evidence you can look at
Your note · cur-4“if we find something in the same community or in the same building but it's 18 months old That's OK … outside of the building or outside of the community uh we're gonna stick to 12 months And if we do use something … from 12 to 18 months we're going to put a little star there”
Ruling
Asking prices are never evidence — and we say so
Already true in the engine. Now it gets stated out loud to the reader.
Anyone using asking prices as evidence gets called out, in writing
Our own asking-price panel keeps its label: not evidence
Your note · cur-4“anyone using asking prices is evidence we have to point it out and We have to warn our buyers”
Ruling
Documents can be uploaded, and can change the conclusion
Condo and HOA financials are not in any public record we hold.
An upload area on every version: association financials, budgets, reserve studies, special-assessment notices, inspection reports
Uploading one can move the value — the report re-states the conclusion and says which document moved it
The financial health of the association gets examined and printed, not just filed
Your note · cur-4“if it happens to be a condo or something like that we have to find a way to get our hands on their financials … there has to be an area for them to upload the documents because that could change the whole appraisal”
Ruling
A summary on the page, everything behind one link
We hold far more than belongs in a readable report.
Each version prints a useful summary, not a wall of text
One link per property to everything we hold on it
True whether or not the property was ever on the MLS
Your note · cur-2“I would like to create umm basically on the appraisal a link with all the information that we have on that specific property so they have all the data but I don't want to overload them with giant rolls of text”
Ruling
Every tool named gets a live link
Applies to every section of every version.
If the report leans on a tool, the reader can open that tool and run it on any other address
This is the consideration argument: the report proves the engine exists
Your note · tools-is-this-the-right-“whatever these tools that we use for every section not just for this section we should have a link to the tool so they can try it out and test it out for other areas”
Ruling
Where there is no evidence, ask the question
Silence reads as 'nothing here'. A question reads as 'go look'.
Instead of only saying we could not check it, the report says: we have no evidence either way — you should look into this
Turns Section 10 from a disclaimer into a to-do list
Your note · new-b“Maybe we ask questions even if there's no evidence you just say we don't have evidence of this or that but maybe we can ask a question uh you know maybe you should look into this”
Ruling
The reader can change the numbers that are theirs
Our figure is a starting point, not a verdict.
Interest rate · down payment · insurance quote from their own agent · HOA · the addresses that matter to them (work, school, place of worship)
The report re-runs on their numbers and says which line moved
Insurance especially: we give an estimate and tell them to get a real number from their agent and type it in
Your note · add-9“we need to give them a place to enter it to the system where they can modify certain numbers … interest rate … how much money they can put down … how much the insurance is going to cost”
Ruling
One home for each fact — no duplicating the Deal Dossier
Section 8, Section 9 and the Dossier currently overlap.
Each fact appears once, in the version that needs it most
The others link to it rather than reprinting it
Your note · tools-what-is-wrong-with“I don't want to duplicate uh the deal dossier … you decide what should go up there and what should be down here”
Lender does not disappear — it becomes an output option on the seller and investor versions, not an audience of its own
Your note · cur-prof“we're going to be changing all this in the future we're going to have a buyer version a seller version an investor version an agent version and an internal version”
Ruling
The income approach is for investors and multifamily only
Said four separate times, so it is treated as settled.
Out of the buyer version entirely
In for the investor version and the internal version. A multifamily buyer is served by the investor cut, not by bolting the income approach onto the buyer one (settled 1 Aug, below)
Section 7 (what to pay for a target return) moves with it
Your note · cur-6“I think we should get rid of the income approach for buyers only keep it for investors and for multifamily buyers”
Settled — your call, 1 Aug
Settled — larger multifamily is an investor report, and the income approach goes with it
You answered this on 1 August: “I wanted to have the larger multi families under the investment section … most of the multi families I think that’s where we should focus the income approach.” So the switch is the AUDIENCE after all — the door count only decides which audience a property belongs to.
The buyer version never develops an income approach. Not on a house, not on a duplex, not on an eight-unit. No NOI ÷ cap value, and no Section 7 target-return price.
5+ doors is an investment property — the county roll decides the door count, never the MLS property type — and it is served by the investor version, which carries the income approach and Section 7.
A buyer who runs a 5+ door address is told so on the face of the report and handed the investor cut, rather than being shown half an answer.
1–4 doors stays where your standing rule puts it: sales comps.
The one rent number a buyer still sees is the exit floor in Section 5 — what it would rent for if life changed. That is a rent read, not a value, and it is never capitalised.
Part 1
The four remaining versions
Each one is the same spine with different additions and different silences. Nothing is subtracted that the audience actually needs.
Audience
Seller
“I’m going to sell too cheap.”
Second fear, right behind it: it will sit and I will have to cut. The seller version has to answer both, or the honest number loses to the flattering one from the next agent through the door.
What carries straight over
The whole sales-comparison spine, the land test, the market and time adjustment, the record, the limits, the sources
The permit caveat — inverted: unpermitted work will surface in the buyer’s inspection, so cure it or price it now
The upload area, because the association financials get demanded by every buyer anyway
The document link and the tool links
The mirror of your buyer idea
You want a buyer shown the high comps the other side will use, then argued down. A seller gets the same trick reversed: here are the low comps a buyer’s agent will walk in with, here is why each one is beatable, and here is the evidence you answer them with.
That single section is the listing presentation.
Added, seller only
The net sheet — what you actually walk away with: payoff, commissions, taxes, and the $500,000 married exclusion when they lived there two of the last five years
Best month to sell, with the reason spelled out, and what waiting costs in carry
Ask premium — what we would list at against what sellers in this pocket actually ask, so the gap is a decision not an accident
What overpricing costs — measured days-to-sell and the price-cut record for listings that opened above the evidence
Who is buying here — migration, nearby permits, demand
The other side’s agent and brokerage, run through the forecast, because who you are negotiating against is information
Not in this version
The income approach, unless the property is 5+ doors
Our required-return number — that is our business, not the seller’s
Seller
Where this version stands
The seller version is the one that wins listings. It is worth building second.
Audience
Agent
“I’m going to get out-argued and lose the deal.”
An agent does not read a valuation analysis to learn the value. They read it to walk into a room and win an argument with it.
Everything the seller version has, plus
The negotiation grid, formatted to be handed across a table
The same deal, said two ways — honest against brochure, so they can name the spin before the client falls for it
Every exhibit numbered and citable, because an unsourced claim loses
Your explicit ask
Run the forecast on the opposing agent and their brokerage — what their listings actually close at against what they ask, how long they sit, how often they cut
Recent price drops in the area
Whether price per square foot in this pocket is rising or falling
Added, agent only
The listing-appointment exhibit: what we would list at, why, with every citation live
A live tool link on every section so they can run it in front of a client instead of describing it
Leaderboard context for the agent’s own record, since they already have one on file
The line we do not cross
Nothing in this version tells an agent what to say to a consumer that the consumer’s own version does not also say. Two documents that disagree is how a company gets sued.
Agent
Where this version stands
This version is mostly a re-skin of the seller version. Cheapest of the four.
Audience
Investor
“The broker is lying to me.”
This is where the income approach lives, and where the engine we already built is strongest. It is the version closest to being ready.
What it keeps that nobody else gets
The full income approach — signed leases, real expense lines with the assumptions printed, NOI ÷ a cap rate we measured rather than picked
Section 7 — what to pay for a required return, kept apart from market value and never on the cover
The reconciliation of both approaches side by side
The upside layer, in full
Zoning, the buildable envelope, off-market under-built parcels
Insurance and the tax reset flagged as the two lines that actually move the return
Your additions
The deep dive on the seller — financial, corporate, news. Who you are buying from, researched the way we research a meeting.
Everything permitted within about a quarter mile — what is coming, what has been filed, what is in the news. You called this a big one and it is: it is the difference between a block and a building.
The builder, and their other projects
Kept out
Nothing. The investor version is the maximal client-facing document.
Investor
Where this version stands
Least new work of the four — most of it already exists in Sections 5, 7 and 8.
Audience
Internal
“What are we not sure about?”
Not a sales document. The version where the doubt is the point.
Everything the investor version has, plus
The valuation knobs — every dial, its current setting, and what moving it does to the answer
Chain of custody on every number: screen, table, loader, source, last refresh
Coverage — whether we can honestly answer a zoning or permit question in this municipality at all, per municipality
Is our data actually right — the sample-back-to-source check for the tables this report leaned on
The numbers we never show a client
Our required return, and the gap between it and market value — that gap is the negotiating room
Confidence per input: how thin the comp pool really was, how many leases the rent came from, whether the unit mix was known or assumed
Every comparable we rejected and the exact reason
The rule that stays
Never dress an estimate as a verified figure. VERIFIED / DERIVED / CLAIMED chips are on internal too — especially on internal.
Internal
Where this version stands
Should be built last, but designed first: it is the honest skeleton the other four are trimmed down from.
Part 2
The questions you asked me in the boxes
Answered here rather than buried in a chat message.
Answer
You asked: what is the solar / EV thing?
Straight answer, no jargon.
The MLS has tick-boxes for “solar” and “EV charger”. Agents tick them carelessly — a south-facing window gets called solar, a normal garage outlet gets called an EV charger.
So instead of trusting the tick-box, our tool reads the raw listing text and looks for the real thing: panel counts, an owned-versus-leased solar lease, a Level 2 charger, a dedicated 240-volt circuit.
Why a buyer cares: leased solar panels come with a payment they inherit, and it can block a sale. Owned panels cut the power bill and add value. Those are opposite facts and the tick-box calls them the same thing.
If you would rather leave it out of the buyer version, say so — it is a small section.
Answer
You asked: is the two-sided comp idea good?
Yes, with one caution.
Showing a buyer the high comps the other side will use, then making the case with the lower ones, is genuinely good and nobody does it. It is expectation control backed by evidence.
The caution: it only works if both sets come from the same rulebook — same 12/18-month window, same door count, same distance. If we pick the high set loosely and the low set strictly, an agent will take it apart in about a minute, and we lose the argument and the credibility.
So: one comp pool, one rulebook, then split it into “what they will lean on” and “what we lean on”, with the reason each landed where it did.
Answer
You asked: summary plus a link to everything — good idea?
Yes, and it is the cheapest thing on this list to build.
We already hold the data and already have the citation spine that knows where every field came from.
One caution from your own standing rule: the full-detail page must not name the data supplier. Keep the reading caveats and the county links, drop the vendor names.
It also quietly does the consideration job — a reader who opens it sees the depth without us claiming anything.
Answer
You asked: use Brainiac’s Corner in Section 3?
Yes for the market read. One change to what I proposed.
The seasonality board is currently framed as best month to sell. On the buyer version it has to be best month to buy — and it must explain why, not just print a month. They are not the same month and a reader who is not told why will not believe either.
Rent burden belongs there too, framed exactly the way you said: in case you ever want to rent it out. That is the exit floor without calling it an income approach.
Answer
Things you told me to drop or hold
Recorded so they do not creep back in.
Old vs New — out. You said you do not need it.
Rent Check — held for now on the buyer version.
Income approach — out of the buyer version (see the door-count conflict above).
Path to zero tax and the two-of-five-years $500,000 exclusion — in, you asked for both.