Episode 17 | PropertyLens 2.0: The Data-Powered Tool You Didn’t Know You Needed
Listen or watch on YouTube
In This Episode
Hosts: Bob Frady & John Siegman
Property: 55 San Angelo, Rancho Santa Margarita CA 92688
Episode Summary
Welcome to another episode of PropertyLens! 🎙️ This time, Bob Frady and John Siegman unveil the all-new PropertyLens 2.0 — a game-changing upgrade that gives homebuyers a complete view of property risks before they sign on the dotted line.
Key Takeaways
📊 See Bob's own condo report and find out:
✅ What he didn’t know when he bought it
✅ How PropertyLens now reveals hidden risks like mold, flood zones, and emergency response times
✅ Why buyers should use PropertyLens alongside traditional inspections
Resources
🔹 Try it: Propertylens.com
🔹 Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com
Transcript
[00:00:00]Bob Frady: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, ships at sea. It's time for another episode of Property of the Week with PropertyLens. I'm Bob Frady. With me as always,
[00:00:16]John Siegman: John Siegman.
[00:00:18]Bob Frady: John, we're gonna take a little detour this week. We're not gonna talk about a specific property. Instead, we're gonna talk about the new and improved version of the PropertyLens report, or as we call it, PropertyLens 2.0.
[00:00:32] How's that sound? Sweet. Sounds like a winner. 55 San Angelo. Rancho Santa Margarita is a condo owned by yours truly. So let's go in here and view this report. So this looks very similar. To the old report.
[00:00:45]John Siegman: I was about to say, Bob, I'm not seeing anything different.
[00:00:48]Bob Frady: If you're an experienced user of PropertyLens, you'll see that this navigation is much bigger than what we've had in the past.
[00:00:55] So we've broken out the segments so you can get to them a lot faster. And because there's a lot of new segments, so as always, we have the BuyerLens up front. There was a wildfire event here. I did know about that, but there, luckily there was no damage. But here's something I didn't know about this property.
[00:01:12] There was a fire at this property in November of 2015. I had zero idea that there was a fire at this property in 2015 when I bought it. Did not alert the inspector to say, Hey, take a look. You know, look for any remaining damage, it just. Just didn't know, bought it anyway, but didn't know. So, it has a high risk of termites, the roof's in good condition, but it's part of the HOA, it's very windy there with the Atic Winds, it has earthquakes.
[00:01:42] The property has a high risk of experiencing mold issues. I did not do a mold check before I bought this house, and what ended up rearing its ugly head a year into the purchase mold? Go figure. Below average resistance to natural disasters. This is new. There's new information that we have from our improved API, and what this means is that if there's a problem, you need to get outta Dodge because your community isn't necessarily too good at handling this sort of thing.
[00:02:11] But let's go to the overview of the property. Now we can see all the real estate data. And some of this has changed. We're still pulling in real estate data. Now we're pulling in our own local data, for this location. So we know the roof. We know the roof is huge. We know the municipality, all sorts of things.
[00:02:30] Here's the most recent listing. Again, very similar to what you've seen. Here's the ownership. But now we start to get into things like damaging events. Now we see this fire. Which was in 2015. We see all the wind events and then we see the wildfire events in September of 2024, where we had unknown damage jump down to roof condition and the roof's in pretty good condition.
[00:02:53] You could see that it's, yeah, it's a little, it's a, it's got some smoke in the air from the wildfire, but it's not too bad. So again, very similar. Now we start to get into some areas that are a little bit different. One of the things that we really focused on with this release is structure and foundation, because structural problems or foundation problems are really expensive fixes.
[00:03:18] So we wanted to say, Hey, how can we find the right data in order to pump in structure and foundation data? An incredible job by our team was to add a national soil type layer to. Our data set. So now we can tell you it's young and undeveloped soils might be sandy or rocky, but it drains well. So you shouldn't necessarily have problems with drainage at this location.
[00:03:42] And so far we haven't had any, it looks like it's 18 inches down to bedrock. And then we have the potential issues from the construction type. It's contemporary. It's modest, it's framing on wood and it's contemporary physical shape. Here's another new section that we have as part of structures and foundations.
[00:04:00] We want to look at what are some of the threats to the structural integrity of this property. So John, what are we looking at here?
[00:04:08]John Siegman: Well, you're looking at all of the things that can happen to a house that the house probably has nothing to do with. So termite infestation. Welcome to Southern California. We have a national termite map. We know where they're at. We can't tell you if they're in or on your property. We can definitely tell you if you need to look for 'em. You got soil runoff.
[00:04:29] Potential moving water is not necessarily a good thing unless it's moving away from your property. And so, you know, runoff, it's coming from a different area down in your downhill. That would be bad. water hardness. You know, hard water causes pipe leaks. Pipe leaks cause indoor water damage. And, or water, non weather as it's also known. so knowing the water hardness tells you whether or not you need a softener, it tells you what you need to do to prepare for those types of things.
[00:05:05] Mine, subsidence not gonna happen in California. Mines don't occur here, but sometimes they collapse. People think it's a single, it's really not a single, it's mine. Subsidence, drainage potential for the soil. Frosty. Not gonna give frost, even in Southern California. But places where you have lots of coal, the ground actually shifts, expands contracts, does bad things underneath your foundation, which cause
[00:05:35]Bob Frady: and what happens to your foundation if it, if the land heaths
[00:05:39]John Siegman: it cracks, which is not good for you. It also causes leaks in your pipes and sewer system.
[00:05:48]Bob Frady: Yep. Neither one of which are good. So, that's all new information. Can't get this anywhere else.
[00:05:55]John Siegman: Nowhere else. Soil slip potential, soil erosion potential. Again, looking at the types of soil, because those are other things. Soil slip leads to landslides.
[00:06:06] Soil erosion means all of your dirt is going away.
[00:06:09]Bob Frady: And that's tied to the type of soil that you have at the location. So then we get into updates and repairs. We're looking at permits. So we don't have any permits specific to this location. but they are required in condominium work in Rancho Santa Margarita.
[00:06:28] So way back at the beginning we said this is the municipality, which is Rancho Santa Margarita. And then we go in and we say, our permits are required for this area. And yes they are. So, and if you wanna learn more about the permits, it'll take you to the appropriate place to learn about permits. So flooding has been revamped. This in this situation. John, why don't you talk about floods a little bit?
[00:06:51]John Siegman: Sure. So when you look at floods, floods are bad. Just let's establish that, particularly if it's happening to you. So FEMA 100 and 500 year digital flood zones. We build our own, and we verify and check all of those. Flood insurance required, it’s only required if you are in a hundred year zone.
[00:07:13] Flood insurance recommended. If you are exposed or in a 500 year zone or exposed to coastal or riverine flooding, we're gonna suggest very highly that you get flood insurance. Don't necessarily need it, but the people that we've recommended it to, about 50% of them have been glad that we made that recommendation.
[00:07:36] coastal flooding, just as it says, is tied to being near the ocean and tied to surge tsunamis. Things along those lines. River rain flooding is when lots of rain falls down and it's got nowhere to go, so it comes visits. You notice that we also have for both of these expected loss, annual loss and historic loss ratio.
[00:08:01] These are A.A.L. models, annual average loss. And so this tells us is this an area that's likely to have this happen, and then historically has it happened?
[00:08:13]Bob Frady: Yep. You know, you'll, you see a lot of stories, around things like wildfire or flood, and people go, it's never happened here before, but it still happens in areas where it's likely to happen.
[00:08:25] You know, the geophysics of the location are what they are, which represents the expected laws. The history is what it is, which represents the historic laws, and we see this all the time where areas that are historically low. Have an event, and it's not because it's just, you're not gonna have a wildfire in the middle of Manhattan.
[00:08:49] It's because it just hasn't happened yet. So bringing this data into, our scoring is really brand new. Still have the map. There's no zone here, but we have added a couple of things onto here. John, look at this section and tell me what you see.
[00:09:08]John Siegman: I see the fact that because this is not in a special flood hazard area, no one has taken the time to get a LOMA or a LOMR, which is letter of amendments and letter of remediations that take a look at, Hey, if I am in a flood zone but I am on a rise, I'm probably not gonna get wet. That'd be the LOMA. LOMR is, Hey, I've developed this area. I purposely built up the soil, and then set down on top to avoid getting flooded.
[00:09:45]Bob Frady: Yep. This is also brand new, so a lot of times what you'll see is that your property might not be in the flood zone only because there's a letter of map amendment saying you've lifted it up.
[00:09:57] Still might want to get it. More information for you to know and for us to use to say, Hey. Something we might wanna take a look at in the property. So next we have our environmental risk. And last time. We had a lot of different cards with a lot of different numbers and we've simplified everything with environmental risk.
[00:10:15] And the first section that we have is naturally occurring risks, which are perils, you know, or hazards. So this area, high risk of earthquakes. and we look at a limited number of events per year, and it's in the 88th percentile, so it's got a pretty high grade. but again, we add fracking, earthquake, and historic loss ratio.
[00:10:39] This area will shake at some point. It just hasn't yet. And there's no fracking earthquake from this area. And we don't say that fracking causes earthquakes. We just happen to say it's often a lot of earthquakes where there's fracking. So, high risk of earthquakes. Above risk of landslide. It is on a bit of a grade, the whole property.
[00:11:01] but otherwise everything, heat waves, sink holes, tornadoes, avalanches, cold waves, of course in California, hail, hurricane, ice storms, lightning, tsunamis, volcanoes, wildfires and wind and winter weather. It's all pretty low. The second part that we have is crime. So what's the crime assessment in an area?
[00:11:22] And John, why don't you walk us through this.
[00:11:24]John Siegman: Sure. So crime, you know, nobody, everybody thinks that they live in a very safe place. This actually happens to be a fairly safe place. People shouldn't freak out. C is okay. The US is a relatively safe country, so average is not bad. but you can see that, you know, overall, very safe place to live.
[00:11:47] and then, you know, extending out from crime. We have registered sex offenders within a half mile proximity of the location. So these are registered, we don't know the ones that aren't registered. We use, you know, all 50 states' registries. A lot of work goes into this to give you an idea, you know, how safe is this, is this the neighborhood?
[00:12:11] I want kids to grow up in all the things associated with that. And then we tell you. Who they are, what they did, where they're at, and how far they are away.
[00:12:22]Bob Frady: Yep. Here's a new set of factors for our report for neighborhood factors. Now listen, these are things that you might be able to find in different places, but we bring it all together, which our goal is to make it easy for you to fully understand what you're getting yourself into and in this neighborhood.
[00:12:40] What we see is that there's not a lot of public transit, and yes, that's true. There's not a lot of public transit. You're gonna need a car for the most part, if you live in this neighborhood. So if you're the kind of person who really needs public transit, you're kinda outta luck. There's a bus line that runs, but it's not very robust.
[00:12:57] also we see that the neighborhood has below average ability to prepare for natural disasters. It's a relatively young city, and doesn't have its infrastructure all built out. It's kind of by itself. So yeah, natural disaster resilience is not, they're gonna need state or federal help if something ever did happen, and it's fairly walkable.
[00:13:17] but you do need a car for most daily needs. On the good news side, it's quiet. The airport rail and road noise are all pretty low, for this area. Then we give you a second new thing, which is neighborhood points of interest. So where's the school? Where's the childcare centers? all within five miles of an area and there are no hospitals within five miles of this location.
[00:13:42] We'd show you if there were, here's a new section. What have we got here, John?
[00:13:48]John Siegman: Well, we've got, you know, stuff that's just bad but typically isn't considered a natural hazard. So health and structural hazards, mold, that's bad. PFAS tends to be bad. Radon is bad if you let it build up in your house. So, you know, mold, we already discussed that.
[00:14:11] Found the mold problem. Wish you'd found it sooner, but man, that's,
[00:14:15]Bob Frady: I wish we'd found it sooner. Wish I had told the inspector, Hey, check for any signs of mold, because this area, has this type of environment that makes mold growable,
[00:14:27]John Siegman: PFAS, polyfluoroalkyl you know, it's a forever chemical, tends to get into the ground and into the groundwater.
[00:14:39] so, you know, average. It's better than a lot of places. but you might wanna consider some type of secondary filtration. And then radon. Radon is a naturally occurring gas, thanks to the earth. Aging. It'll be gone in about a hundred million years, but so will we. And, with that, you know, after that, you don't have to worry about it.
[00:15:04] But here in Southern California. Not a big radon spot in the country and also because the dirt is pretty much rock, not a lot of basements to have to deal with that.
[00:15:15]Bob Frady: Yep. Radon comes from soil decomposition. It's very naturally occurring and it's built on bedrock, so there's not a lot of soil decomposition in this area.
[00:15:25] then we have distance to contaminated sites. People get very worried about what sort of locations are around them, and we tell you within five miles. There are 11 contaminated sites that are reported. Some are underground storage tanks. Some are toxic release facilities. We have electrical transmission lines and how close you are to them natural gas pipelines.
[00:15:49] There was a big problem in Southern California a couple of years ago where a natural gas pipeline burst and it took weeks for it to settle down and the families couldn't live in their houses there because of. Of the risk. So we tell you, you know, it's 2.6 miles away, so it's pretty far, but it is there.
[00:16:09] we tell you where the power plants are and where the near Superfund site is, which is 4.3 miles away. That's becoming a disclosure that's forced in some states, but we tell you just as part of you know, who we are. We tell you what the closest sites are. Closest Toxic release facility, closest Superfund, closest leaking Underground Storage tank, and the closest former clandestine drug lab.
[00:16:31] we don't know where the current ones are because that's why they're clandestine. but yep, we tell you all that stuff in the nearest Brownfield site. So
[00:16:40] What's our next section, John?
[00:16:41]John Siegman: We have our new Health & Safety group. Brand new to PropertyLens 2.0. All right. So looking at things, you know, to understand.
[00:16:50] How quickly somebody can get to you if something bad happens. Yeah, so great fire protection, great law enforcement response and great medical response. So yay for all of those things. In Southern California, probably Northern California too, fire protection and medical response are almost one and the same because almost all of our fire stations have.
[00:17:15] Onsite EMTs, they go together. So if you got an A for one, you're gonna get an A. For the other law enforcement, there's probably a nearby police station, so somebody can get there quickly, should the need arise.
[00:17:32]Bob Frady: Excellent. And then you can see where they are, health and safety services within five miles.
[00:17:36] And the police department is half a mile away and the station is a mile away. When you live, this is something you don't normally think about when you buy a house. It's like stuff happens, you know? And whether it goes into the calculus of, or whether you buy the house, it's like you wanna know how long it's gonna take for people to get to you.
[00:17:56] Now, there are insurance implications to this as well, because what we've seen is that if you have rapid response from the fire department, your average loss tends to be lower, significantly lower if in the event. A fire. So you wanna know where these things are and most people just never tell you.
[00:18:14] They're like, I don't know, it seems pretty good. We tell you straight away where everything is and how quickly they get to you. Brand new PropertyLens 2.0. Upkeep in ownership. We've had this before, estimated utility costs. if you wanted to put solar, you can't, in this case, it's a condo. who your sub, who your service is with.
[00:18:33] You click the button, it tells you who the service provider is. Southern California Edison. If you're considering solar, you can get a quote, but. You know, in this case you, you don't. Here's the carbon footprint for your utility and then insurability, same as last time. You know, we look at the different risk factors for this location.
[00:18:52] These risk factors are now tuned to the new data that we have. and then we tell you what the estimated cost for ensuring that location is, is what your coverage amount should be. We give you the option of getting a quote from one of our partners, and then finally the timeline, which is what we've always delivered.
[00:19:10] So that's it in a nutshell. That is PropertyLens 2.0. We are super pumped to provide it. It is something that is available today at propertylens.com. So, you know, we've talked a lot about what we're trying to accomplish here and you know, John, I think, I think what we're trying to do for consumers is make it simple.
[00:19:38] If you're looking at a house or if you're looking at a bunch of houses, what we wanna do is to say, let's take some of, let's de-risk this for you by giving you this information up front so you can ask about it before you make the offer. Because after you make the offer, you know you're already in love and that's a terrible time to make decisions.
[00:19:56] But to me it's all about simplicity. And John, what do you think we're trying to do here with PropertyLens?
[00:20:05]John Siegman: We're trying to let people sleep better. You know, for most people a house is the most expensive thing that they're ever gonna buy. And you, you worry about it. You worry about, is this the right place?
[00:20:19] Can I afford it? Is, you know, all of the other factors. We can't help you with affording it. Well, we can't, a little bit, because the more you know, the better you're gonna negotiate a deal. But. We can make sure that you know what risks it's exposed to, what's gonna happen, how the soil is. All of the things that most people don't take into account and quite honestly aren't in a lot of the disclosures coast to coast.
[00:20:51] You know, there's still states where it's caveat, enter, fire, beware. You need to go in knowing as much as you possibly can about the most expensive purchase you're ever gonna make.
[00:21:02]Bob Frady: We get questions like, well, does this replace my inspection report? What do you think about that?
[00:21:08]John Siegman: Oh, absolutely not. You know, I can't tell you if the bathroom fan works or if the dishwasher is, you know, up to code, right?
[00:21:19] That's what an inspector is for. An inspector is an onsite eye. The person who understands has looked at hundreds of houses is going to be the, the the one to say, here's the list of things that you need to get taken care of or understand that, you know, you may wave getting it taken care of, but that's so you know what you're getting into on site.
[00:21:43] But the inspector doesn't know if there's an abandoned mine sitting under your house. We do. So it's a. Two-pronged event. The other thing is your time is valuable and you can go and look at 10, 15, 20 houses. The usual person looks at about 10 properties before they decide on one. Or you can say, here's all 10 properties.
[00:22:10] I was going to look at. Let's eliminate 'em by the things that I don't wanna deal with or be concerned about and focus my efforts on The four that I really like.
[00:22:22]Bob Frady: Absolutely. Hey, we're just here to make it better for the home buyer. You know, I think the recent stat was like $33 billion a year in unexpected expenses by new home buyers, or not new home buyers, home buyers in their new home.
[00:22:37] And we're just trying to put a dent in that, you know, to help you understand, 'cause we've done this before. John and I both bought houses, a few houses and we know, hey, this is an issue that's gonna need to be taken care of. Negotiate it upfront or just understand you're gonna have to take care of it on the back end.
[00:22:54] That's why we're here to try to make it easy for you. So John, I am super pumped for PropertyLens 2.0. It has been an incredible effort to put it all together. We're, and we've got so much more planned for the future that I am just super, super hyped that this is now in the market. Anything you wanna add before we get going?
[00:23:16]John Siegman: You know, a lot of cool new data, a lot of data that we make and own. happy to help anybody out.
[00:23:26]Bob Frady: So for this week's episode of Property of the Week, I'm Bob Frady.
[00:23:31]John Siegman: I'm John Siegman.
[00:23:32]Bob Frady: See you soon.
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