Opportunity Brief — AssessIQ

Over-Assessed Properties, Delivered to Tax Appeal Attorneys.

Public assessor data + AI valuation cross-check = a ranked lead list of homeowners paying too much property tax. Sold as a $499–$3,999/mo subscription to attorneys and appeal shops.

The Opportunity

County assessments are wrong 30–40% of the time. Nobody’s closing the gap at scale.

Every property in America has an assessed value set by the county. Property tax is calculated off that number. Assessments are re-run every 1–5 years, are frequently inaccurate, and can be appealed by the owner. When the appeal wins, the owner saves 10–30% on property taxes — typically $1,500–$10,000/year, recurring.

Appeals are filed by property tax attorneys and consultants who charge on contingency — 30–50% of Year 1 savings. Their entire business is finding over-assessed homeowners. They do this slowly, manually, one neighborhood at a time. Most of them have never touched AVM data.

The data to identify over-assessed properties is already public. The missing piece is cross-referencing assessed value against market value at county scale, ranking the opportunities, and handing attorneys a ready-to-close lead list.

$350B+
US property tax / year
30–40%
Of homes are over-assessed
$1,500+
Avg Y1 savings per win
<5%
Of owners ever appeal

The pattern we’re running: public records + AI + AVM cross-reference, sold to professionals who used to do this manually. Same architecture as Signal IQ (PropStream → roofing leads) and Same Day Title (county portals → title abstracts). Different professional buyer, same asymmetry.

How It Works

Two data sources. One subtraction. A ranked list.

1
Pull the assessment roll
PropWire aggregates county assessor data: assessed value, parcel ID, owner, beds/baths, sqft, year built, lot size, sales history. One API call per county = the entire tax roll, pre-normalized.
2
Pull the market AVM
Apify Zillow Property Detail actor scrapes Zestimate + rent estimate for each property. Batch job runs overnight, ~$49/mo for unlimited-ish use. Fallback: ATTOM or HouseCanary licensed AVM for legal defensibility.
3
Compute the gap
gap_pct = (assessed_value − market_value) / market_value. Flag anything above +15%. That’s the over-assessed population — typically 25–40% of the roll in a stale county.
4
Enrich with evidence
For each flagged property: pull 3–5 recent comps from PropWire (same zip, ±20% sqft, last 12 months), compute comparable median, calculate projected Y1 savings at the county mill rate, build an appeal-ready evidence summary.
5
Rank and filter
Score by projected savings × probability of win. Filter out exempt properties, condos with data quality issues, and properties already under appeal (public docket). Deliver top 500–5,000 per county.
6
Deliver to attorney partners
CSV export + dashboard view with owner name, address, phone (skip trace via PropWire), assessed vs. market, projected savings, and pre-built evidence packet. Attorney works the list, pays per lead or monthly territorial exclusivity.

The AI compression play: A solo property tax attorney manually sources ~5 over-assessed candidates per week. AssessIQ hands them 20–50 pre-ranked leads per month with evidence packets attached. 4–10× throughput at their margin — not ours to fight over.

Data Stack

Already paid for. Already tested in Signal IQ.

Data Source Cost Coverage Notes
Assessed value + parcel PropWire Already licensed National Same source we use for Signal IQ leads
Property characteristics PropWire Included National Beds, baths, sqft, year built, lot
Recent sales comps PropWire Included National 12-month rolling, filtered by zip + sqft band
Market AVM (Zestimate) Apify Zillow actor ~$49/mo National Batch scraping; TOS-grey but standard for this stack
Market AVM (licensed backup) ATTOM or HouseCanary $500–2K/mo National Swap in if we need clean-paperwork for enterprise sales
Owner contact (skip trace) PropWire $0.20–0.40/lookup National Only for attorneys that want owner-direct outreach leads
Mill rates + appeal deadlines Manual / county assessor sites Free Per county One-time config per market; update annually
Active appeals filter County court dockets Free Per county Scraped to avoid delivering leads already in process

All infrastructure runs on our existing Cloudflare stack: Workers for scrapers, D1 for the parcel table, R2 for document evidence packs, Pages for the attorney dashboard. Zero new ops.

The Customer

Three tiers of buyer. Size the product to what they can actually work.

The biggest mistake in this space is over-feeding attorneys. A solo practitioner can physically handle 20–50 active appeal files at a time — not 500. Price and package to workable volume.

Tier Who Workable Volume Monthly Spend Launch Order
Starter Solo / 2-person tax appeal attorney 20–50 leads/mo $500–$1,500 Phase 1
Growth 3–10 person firm, paralegal support 75–200 leads/mo $1,500–$5,000 Phase 1
Firm Staffed appeal shop (O’Connor-style) 250–500+ leads/mo $5,000–$15,000 Phase 2
Property tax consultants (non-attorney) Same economics, TX/FL volume markets Matches tiers above Same Phase 2
Real estate agents (retention) Agents giving past clients a win 5–20 client lookups/mo $49–$99/mo Phase 3

Nobody writes a $50K check upfront. Attorneys pay monthly, as leads arrive, in chunks that match their case load. Starter is the beachhead — 80% of the market is solo and small firms. Firm tier comes after 2–3 case studies.

Pricing

Monthly subscription + per-lead overage. Paid as leads arrive, not upfront.

Tier Monthly Base Leads Included Overage Target Customer
Starter $499/mo 20 leads $50/lead Solo attorney
Growth $1,499/mo 75 leads $40/lead 3–10 person firm
Firm $3,999/mo 250 leads $30/lead Staffed appeal shop

Territorial exclusivity available as a +50% premium. Mill-rate data, evidence packets, and contact info included at every tier.

Why these numbers work: $499/mo maps to the same budget attorneys already spend on Avvo, Martindale, or small Google Ads test. It’s a “say yes” price. $1,499 is where firms with a paralegal team live. $3,999 is where O’Connor-scale shops expect to pay.

Attorney P&L

The math they’ll run before they sign.

A single win pays for months of subscription. Here’s what one Starter attorney’s numbers look like at different close rates on a 20-lead-per-month list.

Close Rate Monthly Wins Y1 Revenue (50% of $1,500 avg savings) Monthly Net ROI
15% (cold baseline) 3 $2,250 $1,751 4.5×
25% (realistic with evidence) 5 $3,750 $3,251 7.5×
40% (strong attorney, warm pitch) 8 $6,000 $5,501 12×

Lifetime contingency, not just Year 1

Tax savings are recurring. Most attorneys charge % of Y2 and Y3 too:

1
Year 1 — 50% of savings
$1,500 savings × 50% = $750 per win
2
Year 2 — 25% of savings
$1,500 × 25% = $375 per win (assessment holds absent re-appraisal)
3
Year 3 — 10% of savings
$1,500 × 10% = $150 per win

Lifetime contingency per win: ~$1,275. At 25% close on 20 leads/mo for 12 months = 60 wins = $76,500 lifetime revenue from a $6,000/yr AssessIQ subscription. 12.75× lifetime ROI. That’s the sales pitch.

Our Cost Structure

Variable costs are $1/lead. Fixed costs scale slowly. Margin stays above 90%.

Per-lead variable cost

Cost Item Per Lead Notes
PropWire assessor + comps pull ~$0.20 Amortized from flat subscription
Apify Zillow AVM scrape ~$0.40 Smart-filtered, batch pricing
Skip trace (owner contact) ~$0.30 Only for delivered leads
LLM evidence packet (Claude Haiku) ~$0.02 One-page appeal narrative
Cloudflare infra allocation ~$0.05 Workers + D1 + R2
Total per lead ~$1.00

Fixed costs

Item Monthly Annual
PropWire subscription $300 $3,600
Apify platform $49 $588
Cloudflare (Workers + D1 + R2 + Pages) $100 $1,200
Stripe + misc SaaS $50 $600
Total before headcount ~$500/mo ~$6K/yr
Optional: 1 FT sales rep (commission + base) $6K $72K
Optional: ATTOM licensed AVM (scale) $1,500 $18K

Revenue Model

Build a portfolio of 30 attorneys across 10 counties by end of Year 1.

Year 1 target mix

Tier Count ARPU Annual Revenue
Starter ($499/mo + 10 overage leads) 20 $12K $240K
Growth ($1,499/mo + 25 overage) 8 $30K $240K
Firm ($3,999/mo + 50 overage) 2 $66K $132K
Total 30 $612K ARR

Net profit at Year 1 target

Line Amount
Revenue $612,000
Variable cost (~15,000 leads × $1) −$15,000
Fixed cost (no sales rep) −$6,000
Sales rep (optional, Year 1) −$72,000
Net profit (with rep) ~$519,000 (85%)
Net profit (solo, no rep) ~$591,000 (97%)

Growth trajectory

Year Customers Counties ARR Net Profit
Year 1 30 10 $612K ~$519K
Year 2 80 25 $1.8M ~$1.4M
Year 3 200 50 $5M ~$3.8M

Year 3 assumes mix shifts toward Growth and Firm tiers as we land specialized tax appeal shops and consultants in TX/FL. Tier 3 alone can carry $200–400K ARR per customer.

Geography

Start where property taxes are high, data is accessible, and appeals are already normalized.

Phase 1 (PA beachhead)

Pennsylvania

  • Montgomery County (just reassessed)
  • Philadelphia (OPA appeals hot)
  • Bucks, Chester, Delaware
  • Attorneys already in network
Phase 2 (expansion)

NJ + IL

  • NJ: 1.89% effective rate (highest US)
  • Cook County, IL: 40%+ of owners appeal
  • Attorney market already mature
  • PropWire coverage is strong
Phase 3 (scale)

TX, NY, CT, NH, FL

  • TX: consultants (not attorneys) — different buyer, same product
  • NY: Nassau / Westchester appeal volume
  • FL: post-reassessment waves
  • National SaaS motion

Execution Phases

Proof → Scale → Productize. Signal IQ playbook applied to tax appeals.

Phase 1 — 2 weeks

Proof of concept

  • Pick Montgomery County
  • Pull full assessment roll via PropWire
  • Pull Zestimates via Apify (batch overnight)
  • Flag top 500 over-assessed properties, QC accuracy
  • Free 30-day trial to 1 PA attorney (20 leads/mo)
  • Goal: validate 20%+ close rate on the list
Phase 2 — 1–2 months

Paid beachhead

  • Expand to 5 PA + NJ counties
  • Build attorney-facing dashboard + evidence packets
  • Convert trial attorney to Starter tier
  • Onboard 5 more Starter attorneys
  • Goal: 5–8 paying customers, $3–5K MRR
Phase 3 — 6–12 months

Portfolio scale

  • Self-serve Starter signup flow
  • 10+ counties, season-synced delivery
  • Outbound to appeal shops (Firm tier)
  • Consultants in TX/FL (non-attorney channel)
  • Goal: 30 customers, $50K+ MRR / $612K ARR

MVP Architecture

Signal IQ forked. Different data in, different buyer out.

1
Ingestion worker
Cloudflare Worker pulls PropWire assessment roll for target county. Writes to D1 parcels table. Cron: monthly.
2
Valuation worker
Queue job fires Apify Zillow actor in batches of 1,000 parcels. Persists Zestimate, rent estimate, days-on-market history. Cron: weekly per county.
3
Scoring engine
SQL view computes gap_pct, projected_savings (mill rate × gap), win_probability (comp strength + property type). Outputs ranked leads table.
4
Evidence generator
LLM (Claude Haiku) pulls comps + property characteristics and writes a one-page appeal narrative per lead. PDF stored in R2, linked from the dashboard.
5
Attorney dashboard (Pages)
Territorial view + lead table + evidence preview + CSV export. Auth gated. Same stack as the Signal IQ command center.
6
Billing
Stripe subscriptions + per-lead metered billing. Monthly territory fee + $100/lead overage. Same billing rails as Signal IQ engine.

Competition

The market is fragmented — big D2C players, zero B2B lead-gen plays.

Player Model Moat Our Angle
Ownwell D2C, nationwide, 25% of savings Brand, ad spend, D2C funnel They’re our customer segment’s enemy, not ours. We arm the attorneys who compete locally.
O’Connor & Associates Texas consultant, 40%+ of savings Scale, brand in TX Regional, mature market. We’re outside TX for Phase 1.
Property Tax Reduction Consultants Regional (NY/NJ), agent-driven Relationships Still manual research. We sell them data.
Local attorneys Contingency, relationship-driven Local trust These are our customers. We multiply their throughput.
Real estate data cos (ATTOM, CoreLogic, etc.) Sell raw data to enterprises Data licensing They don’t do the scoring, evidence packaging, or vertical sales. We sit on top.

The gap we’re filling: D2C is crowded. B2C consultant is crowded. Nobody is selling over-assessed lead lists to property tax attorneys. The buyer exists and is underserved.

Risks & Mitigations

Risk: Zillow TOS
  • Issue: Apify Zillow scraping violates Zillow’s ToS. Fine for internal MVP. Risky if we resell raw Zestimates or scale to enterprise.
  • Mitigation: Switch to licensed AVM (ATTOM or HouseCanary) before we hit $500K ARR or onboard any enterprise client. Swap is a single worker config change.
Risk: Appeal deadlines are seasonal & strict
  • Issue: Each county has a 30–90 day appeal window after assessment notices. Miss it = no revenue for 12 months.
  • Mitigation: Calendar per-county deadlines in the ingestion config. Pre-populate leads 60 days before window opens. Nationally stagger counties so some window is always open.
Risk: UPL (unauthorized practice of law)
  • Issue: We can sell leads. We can package evidence. We cannot file appeals ourselves without being an attorney or licensed consultant.
  • Mitigation: Stay on the lead-gen + tool side. Attorneys file. ToS is explicit about this boundary.
Risk: Data quality false positives
  • Issue: 20–30% of flagged “over-assessed” properties will be false positives — wrong sqft, exempt status, condo quirks.
  • Mitigation: Attorney sees the evidence packet before committing. They self-select. Refund credit for any lead they reject within 7 days (like Signal IQ’s model).
Risk: Slow attorney adoption
  • Issue: Attorneys are conservative buyers. First few conversations are educational.
  • Mitigation: Free trial: give first 50 leads free to 3 attorneys. Convert based on appeals filed + wins. Case study → territory sale.

What We Need

Most of this is already live in the Signal IQ stack.

Have

Already built

  • PropWire access + tested integration
  • Cloudflare Workers + D1 + R2 + Pages
  • Stripe billing rails (Signal IQ engine)
  • Attorney dashboard pattern (command center)
  • Cold-outreach sales muscle
Buy

To procure

  • Apify subscription ($49/mo)
  • Domain (assessiq.co / similar)
  • Optional: ATTOM eval ($500–2K/mo) if we scale
  • Optional: PACER / county docket access for active-appeal filter
Validate

First 2 weeks

  • Pull one PA county, manually QC 100 flagged leads
  • Confirm 60%+ are genuinely over-assessed
  • Talk to 3 PA tax appeal attorneys, confirm lead pricing willingness
  • Ship CSV delivery to 1 attorney on a free trial

The One-Liner

$499/mo. 20 pre-qualified over-assessed homes. Close one and you’re profitable for the year.

AssessIQ — over-assessed property leads for tax appeal attorneys.