Parcel watch, quarterly edition

Early access

The deed shows up last. The ground changes first.

A quarterly read of your watch area for parcels that have gone cleared, mown and unbuilt, and how long they have stayed that way.

Request early accessHow the pattern is read
GSD
≤0.5 m
Cadence
Quarterly
Platform
High-res satellite
Spectral
RGB
A grassed city lot behind a chain-link fence, mown short, with nothing built on it and row buildings on the far side
A city lot that has gone quiet: cleared, fenced and mown, with nothing built.

01 The job today

What the records show, and when

You keep the target-parcel layer. Every parcel on it came from the county parcel file, joined to assessor records for owner, acreage, zoning and last sale. Before each acquisition committee you run the list again, and it looks the same as it did last quarter, because the records only move when a deed is recorded.

That is the gap. Someone who is assembling a site quietly does not need to be on record yet. Options and contracts go through an entity with no name you would recognize, and some land contracts are never recorded at all. By the time the sales show up at the recorder, the owners next door may have heard, and the asking price may already have moved.

The ground moves sooner. A lot that sat rough for years gets cleared. The weeds stop coming back because someone is mowing. A fence goes up, or an edge gets tidied, and nothing is built. Your own eye would catch it on a drive-by, once, on the one day you happened to be there. The county aerial gives you one date and no way to tell whether the lot was always like that.

So the screening list stays a list of what is on record, and the parcels worth a phone call are somewhere else on the map.

This page is about reading that pattern across the whole watch area, every quarter, with a start date beside each flag.

02 What you get

What comes back each quarter

You are joining an early-access list, so this describes what the first pilot areas would receive, and it will be scoped with you.

  1. 2.1 Report per watch area

    Quarterly parcel-pattern report

    Which parcels in your watch area show the quiet-hold signature this quarter, listed against the parcel numbers in your own layer. Delivered once per quarterly pass, after the pass closes.

  2. 2.2 Per flagged parcel

    Since-when read

    The first quarter the signature appears, and whether it has held since. A parcel that flipped to tidy two passes ago reads differently from one that has been mown for years.

  3. 2.3 Map layer

    Adjacency view

    Whether the neighbors of a flagged parcel show the same signature over the same quarters. Several adjacent parcels going quiet together is a pattern worth a closer look than one owner tidying up, though it still proves nothing about assembly.

03

How it works

  1. Send the watch area

    A region boundary or a list of parcel numbers, with the parcel layer you already use if you want flags to join to it.

  2. Imagery

    A quarterly high-resolution satellite pass over the watch area.

  3. Read the pattern

    Each parcel is classified for cleared, mown and unbuilt condition and compared with earlier quarters, so the flag carries a start date.

  4. Report

    The quarterly report lists the flagged parcels and since-when. You decide which of them get a phone call, a records pull or a site visit.

04

Where it fits

Feeds the site-screening step before outreach to an owner. Flags patterns forming in a broker's territory. Adds a ground-condition column beside the courthouse search, which only ever shows completed transactions.

05

Limits

These are the ways this signal can mislead you.

  1. 1

    It is a ground condition, not a purchase

    Nothing here tells you who owns a parcel, or that anyone has bought, optioned or contracted it. Ownership and sales stay in the recorder's and assessor's records.

  2. 2

    A quiet lot can be a neglected one

    A tidy, mown, unbuilt parcel can belong to an owner who simply keeps it up. A flag is a reason to look, never a finding of intent. Parcels that look untended are not flagged as quiet at all.

  3. 3

    Cloud can push a read to the next pass

    If a quarter has no clear scene over a parcel, its read moves to the following pass, and the report says so.

  4. 4

    0.5 m sets the floor

    At that pixel size a cleared lot, a mown lot and a building can usually be told apart. A fence is a thin line, and it only shows where it casts a line or a shadow. Small or narrow parcels may not resolve cleanly, so the report marks those reads as weak.

  5. 5

    Quarterly is not continuous

    Something that changes between two passes is seen at the next one.

  6. 6

    The record starts when we start

    The since-when read goes back only as far as usable imagery of your area does. That is checked before any work is agreed, and it is not the same for every place.

06 Who it's for

Who it's for

  • Land acquisition analysts at developers and REITs who screen parcels ahead of a pursuit.
  • Brokers who want to know which parts of their territory are going quiet.
  • Teams that already hold a parcel layer in GIS and want a fresh column on it every quarter.

Who it's not for

  • Teams that need to know who owns a parcel or whether it was sold. Use title and recorder records for that.
  • Teams that need a confirmed acquisition signal. This reports a pattern, not intent.
  • Continuous or real-time watching of a site.
  • Owner-level or person-level tracking. The unit here is a parcel and what it looks like from above.

07 FAQ

Questions before you sign up

Does this tell me who owns a parcel or that it was bought?

No. It reports what the ground looks like, not a transaction or an owner.

Could a quiet parcel just be neglected?

Or well kept by an owner with no plans. That is why a flag is a reason to look. The adjacency view helps separate one tidy owner from several parcels moving together.

What if the parcel is under cloud that quarter?

Its read slips to the next clear pass, and the report says which parcels were missed.

Will it cover rural and urban parcels alike?

It suits parcels large enough to resolve clearly at 0.5 m. Small urban lots and narrow strips may read weakly, and the report marks them.

How current is a quarterly read?

It is as current as the last pass, not continuous.

Can we check it against our own records?

Yes. Every flag is tied to a parcel number, so you can lay it over your assessor and recorder pull and against what your team has seen on site.

Will it join to our parcel layer?

If you send your parcel layer or parcel numbers, the flags are keyed to them.

Who owns the report, and can we use it internally?

Use and ownership terms for what we deliver are written into the agreement before any work starts. The satellite imagery behind it keeps its own licence terms.

How is it priced?

Each watch area is scoped on its own, from its size, number of parcels and how many quarters you want. There is no price on this page, and early access is scoped with you.

Send us your watch area.

We'll tell you what the first pilot would cover.

Request early access