1. Real estate investors, having never had data in meaningful amounts, have become used to modeling their world with static, linear models.
2. The real world is dynamic and non-linear, requiring an appeal to higher mathematics.
3. The internet offers an excellent delivery system for sophisticated tools that require minimum technical background of the user.
The mathematics of uncertainty, known as probability, has been around for centuries. Their progeny, statistics, may be seen as decision making under conditions of uncertainty. The proper use of these powerful laws and tools require large amounts of data, something only recently available to real estate investors.
mathestate takes the practical, common sense values of the seasoned practitioner and combines them with large data sets and powerful symbolic mathematical software. The result is not intended to supplant the "drive by" method of valuation but to supplement it. One should still visit the property, view the neighborhood, and perform a rent survey. But when these are all done, reconciliation with data adds information that cannot be obtained in the field. Simply stated, if you let the numbers talk to you the decision you make improves because the data tells you things you cannot see through your windshield.
Financial investments, primarily the stock market, have made use of these tools for half a century. It is time for individual real estate investors to improve risk management by incorporating proven techniques into their decision process. It is no longer acceptable to make decisions solely on the basis of the projected return. It is time to formally include risk in the model.
mathestate provides the tools to do just that.