How a number earns its place in the report.
Every figure we publish is a third-party published number, a public record, or arithmetic on one of those, carrying its source. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap. This page is the standard the reports are held to, written so you can check us against it.
Four checks clear before a report ships.
Tax, total monthly cost, permits against claims, and price tested independently.
Three verdicts, defined in advance.
Proceed, Conditional, Walk Away. Proceed means proceed with further due diligence.
No opinion of value, ever.
We reproduce what others publish and do the arithmetic.
Gaps are named, never filled.
Anything we could not verify is on the data checklist with retrieval instructions.
Four sign-offs before anything ships.
Each one exists because skipping it is how buyers get hurt. Every report carries the four checks as a table with a status on each, including the ones that did not clear.
The tax you will actually pay
Post-sale property tax is computed from the uncapped taxable value and the city's published millage for the correct school district — never from the seller's current bill. Under Michigan's Proposal A, taxable value is capped while an owner holds the home and resets to the state equalized value on the January 1 following a transfer.
A buyer reading the seller's bill can be wrong by five figures over the first few years of ownership.
The whole monthly cost
Principal and interest at the current published benchmark rate, post-sale tax, homeowners insurance, PMI where the down payment calls for it, utilities, HOA where one exists, and a maintenance reserve scaled to the age of the house.
The payment a listing implies is principal, interest, and the seller's tax. It is not what the house costs.
Claims measured against permits
Every renovation the listing claims is reconciled against the municipality's building-permit file. Where the file cannot be pulled online, the report says exactly that and names the office, module, and parcel number to pull it from.
An unverified claim is never promoted to a fact. Unpermitted work becomes the buyer's liability at closing.
The price tested independently
The asking price is placed beside every published third-party estimate that already exists for the address, the assessor's record, and comparable asking prices, and the arithmetic between them is shown.
The listing is never the only price opinion in the file. We report what others publish and do the arithmetic; we issue no opinion of value of our own.
Three words, defined before we use them.
A verdict describes the strength of a property's records and numbers as found. None of the three is a recommendation to buy, not buy, or transact at any price.
The records and numbers, as found, support moving to the next stage of due diligence — inspection, title, financing. Proceed means proceed with further due diligence. It is not a recommendation to buy.
Specific, named items have to resolve before the picture is complete — a permit file that has not been pulled, a taxable value that does not reconcile, a flood determination still outstanding. The report lists them in order, with the retrieval steps.
The numbers or the record, as found, do not support the asking price. What you do with that is entirely your decision.
The colors above appear nowhere else on this site or in a report. Green, amber, and red are reserved for verdicts so that a color never carries an argument a sentence has not already made.
Named sources, and the chapter each one feeds.
Every number in a report carries its source at the point it appears, down to the week of the rate survey and the tax year of the millage sheet.
| Source | What it provides | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| County assessment, tax, and deed records | SEV, taxable value, tax history, ownership chain, sale prices | Chapters 1, 2b, 6 — the uncap arithmetic and the transaction record |
| Michigan Department of Treasury published millage (L-4028 compilations) and city millage sheets | Homestead (PRE) and non-homestead rates by city and school district | Chapter 2b — the post-sale tax computation |
| MCL 211.27a (Proposal A uncapping); Forms 2368 and 2766 | The statutory reset rule and the filing deadlines that follow a transfer | Chapter 2b — the rule the arithmetic implements, and the deadlines you inherit |
| Municipal systems — assessing, tax, building department, utilities, rental registration | Permit history, code enforcement, special assessments, open balances | Chapter 6 — the city file; BS&A Online where the municipality publishes there |
| FRED, Freddie Mac 30-year fixed survey (MORTGAGE30US) | The current weekly published benchmark mortgage rate | Chapter 2 — the financing line, with the survey week cited |
| FRED house-price indices (metro, state, national) | Ten-year compound growth benchmarks | Chapter 3 — the panel the parcel's own record is measured against |
| Listing platforms — price history, days on market, prior and concurrent listings | Published value estimates, price cuts, rental hedges, time on market | Chapters 1 and 6 — the pricing behavior and the listing record |
| FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer; EPA and federal lead-paint era rules | Flood-zone determination and pre-1978 disclosure status | Chapter 6 — risk and environment |
| Metro-Detroit contractor cost bands by component | Replacement-cost ranges and typical service lives | Chapter 4 — labeled as current cost bands, never as quotes |
Rate and index figures are cited with their release date. Millage is cited with its tax year and refreshed on the Michigan publication cycle — the inflation rate multiplier in November and winter rates in December.
The credibility of the document is the checklist.
Every report ends with a checklist of everything we looked for, whether we got it, and if not, exactly how you get it. A competitor's instinct is to hide the gaps. Ours is to print them, because a buyer who knows which questions are still open is in a far better position than one holding a document that quietly filled them in.
No figure is ever interpolated, averaged in, or carried over from a similar property to make a table look complete.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| FOUND | The figure was retrieved from a named source and is cited where it appears. |
| NOT_AVAILABLE | The record does not exist publicly, or exists only behind a paid or licensed feed we do not buy on your behalf. The report says which, and what the closest available substitute was. |
| MANUAL | The record exists and can be obtained, but not by an automated pull — a treasurer call, a counter visit, a FOIA request, or a document only the current owner can order. The checklist names the office and the exact ask. |
We issue no opinion of value.
Michigan licenses the appraisal of real estate. Under MCL 339.2501(u) an appraisal is an opinion of value performed for compensation, and MCL 339.2601 and 339.2607 restrict who may prepare one. We do not prepare one, do not hold ourselves out as preparing one, and a report may not be used as one by you, by a lender, or by anyone else.
What a report contains instead is every published value figure that already exists for the address — the third-party estimate, the assessor's record, the comparable asking prices — set side by side, with the arithmetic between them and the asking price shown in full. Where a report says the ask sits 2.5% above a published estimate, that is subtraction, and the estimate is named along with the date it was pulled.
The same discipline governs the forward-looking chapters. Growth rates, component service lives, and cost bands are stated on the page and labeled as assumptions. Projecting a stated rate forward is arithmetic, not a forecast, and the report says so at the point it does it.
What a report is, and what it is not.
What it is
- An independent screening analysis of public records and published market data, prepared before you write an offer.
- A complete reconstruction of what the home costs to own, to hold, and to leave.
- A record of what could be verified, what could not, and where the unverified items live.
- A verdict on the strength of that record, with its reasons printed beside it.
What it is not
- Not a home inspection. Nobody climbs on the roof or enters the property.
- Not an appraisal or an opinion of value, and no lender should rely on it as one.
- Not a title search, a survey, or a lien guarantee. Order those before closing.
- Not legal, tax, or lending advice, and not a recommendation to buy, not buy, or transact at any price.
Independence
We take no lender money. We accept no referral fees, no lender or title partnerships, no rate or refinance products, no agent commission. We are paid the same whether you buy the house or walk away from it, and we are paid by you. That is the entire reason a verdict from us is worth reading.
Corrections
If a figure in your report is wrong, tell us and we will re-pull the source, reissue the document, and say what changed. Write to support@dealassay.com. If the correction changes the verdict, the reissued report says which verdict it replaced and why.
Read a real one before you buy one.
The complete report on a live Michigan listing, with every figure and every source it shipped with.