Know the land before you fall in love.
37 source checks across 23 public datasets, in 92 seconds — before you spend $25k–$50k learning what the public record could have told you for free.
Land sells on photos. It closes on what's on the title and what's under the soil.
The listing says "buildable, level, paved access." Three weeks into earnest money you discover the road is a private easementA right to cross or use someone else's land. Pertica reads recorded easement language from the deed; many easements are silent on maintenance, which becomes a financing problem. that lapsed in 1998, the corner clips a riparian bufferA protected zone next to a stream or wetland where building is restricted. Setbacks vary by state and county — usually 50–100 ft from the bank., and the soil drains too fast for conventional septic. One missed septic, well, or access issue can turn a cheap rural parcel into a $25k–$50k surprise.
The data exists. It's split across 23 public sources, none of which talk to each other, and most of which weren't built for buyers. Pertica reads them all, weighs them against what you actually intend to do with the land, and shows its work.
Three things changed in the last 24 months.
More buyers shopping unfamiliar geographies. More climate-driven blocker risk. The first time public-record data is dense enough to actually answer the buyer's question. Pertica is the layer that puts those three together.
"Beautiful 14 acres. Buildable. Paved access. Owner financing."
Four sentences on a Zillow card. Eight pieces of unverified claim. Pertica unbundles each one into a row in your evidence ledger — what passes, what doesn't, and the document that proves it.
The ledgerEvery claim becomes a row. Every row cites a document.
No "AI summaries." No paraphrase. Pertica restates the listing claim verbatim, then puts it next to the public record that proves, qualifies, or contradicts it. You read the deed yourself.
Three things to verify before you sign anything.
- 01Confirm the easement maintenance covenant.Bk 988 Pg 442 is silent on who plows the road. Your title attorney should request a maintenance agreement before earnest money releases.
- 02Pull the septic permit history from Macon Health.SSURGO says feasibility is moderate; the county may already have a perc record on this PIN. Costs $0; saves $300–$900 if a record exists.
- 03Get a payoff letter for the open deed of trustA recorded loan secured by the land — like a mortgage. The seller can't deliver clean title until it's paid off or the existing lender agrees to subordinate..Owner financing requires the existing lender to subordinate or be paid at close. Confirm payoff figures before signing the contract, not at the closing table.
Three tasks. Zero earnest-money commitment until they resolve. This is what "unknowns become next steps" looks like.
The decision modelSix decisions that move the verdict on a homestead.
Most land tools give you layers. Pertica converts the layer stack into the actual decision — and weights each facet against what you intend to do with the land.
Setup costSeptic, well, foundation, access, power — with real dollar bands.
Pertica reads the parcel signals that move each line item, then puts a dollar band next to it. So you can put a number on a spreadsheet before you fall in love. Setup costs only — what it takes to make the homesite live-on-able. We don't price the house itself.
Septic
Conventional system, suitable soils
Slow-perc soils, high water table, slope > 15%, or proximity to surface water
Well
200–400 ft, average yield
Hard rock geology, sub-5 gpm yield, or dry drilling on the first hole
Foundation prep
Slab on level, well-drained soil
Slope > 10%, expansive clays, shallow bedrock, or seasonal high water table
Driveway / access
Existing cut, paved frontage
No public-road frontage, long pad-to-road distance, stream or wetland crossings
Power drop
Within 200 ft of distribution line
Long distance to nearest line, transformer upsize, or buried-only easement
These are the line items that decide whether a $189k listing is actually a $235k project. Every band ties back to a parcel signal Pertica already reads — and gets sharper where county permit and installer data is live.
Bands are regional priors derived from public datasets (USDA, USGS, EPA, county records) and reported installer ranges. Pertica narrows the band on each parcel; the final number still comes from a quote on the dirt.
Three steps. Ninety seconds. One ledger you can hand to a closing attorney.
Drop a listing URL or a parcel ID
Paste a Zillow, LandWatch, or Realtor URL — or type a county and PIN.
Tell us what you intend to build
Homestead, off-grid cabin, recreational, ag. Intent reweights every facet — the same parcel passes for timber and cautions for a homestead.
One verdict. Every source cited.
Pass, Caution, or Resolve — with the conditions spelled out and a one-page PDF you can email your attorney. Median time: 92 seconds.
Disclosure, not advice. Sources, not summaries.
Source-cited every line
Click any verdict to open the public record it reads from — deed scan, GIS layer, soil polygon. Re-pulled within 30 days.
Disclosure document, not advice
A defensible summary of the public record. Not legal counsel, not a survey, not a title commitment.
The questions you'd ask a closing attorney before you trusted us.
No. Pertica is a research and disclosure platform. The output is a defensible summary of the public record — useful before you spend money on title work, a survey, or counsel, and useful as an exhibit during diligence. It is not a title commitment, not a survey, and not a substitute for a licensed attorney. We’re explicit about that on every report.
Public sources only — county Register of Deeds, county GIS portals, FEMA, USGS, NRCS, EPA, state DOT, state DEQ/DEP, NHD, NWI, USDA. Every cited line in a report links back to the source URL or recorded instrument. Nothing is scraped from a paywalled MLS, and no proprietary data is mixed in without disclosure.
All 48 contiguous states for federal and statewide layers (FEMA, USGS, NRCS, NHD, NWI). County-level coverage (parcels, deeds, zoning text) is live in 2,958 of 3,144 county-equivalents (94%) — with 38 states at full county coverage including the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. We add new counties every week based on user requests.
The verdict is exactly as accurate as the public record on the day we pulled it. We score precision at the dataset level — flood zone is essentially deterministic, septic feasibility is probabilistic to ±15% — and disclose that on the report. We don’t claim better than the source, and we refuse to render a verdict if any of the six facets has stale or missing data.
Supported. Drop a parent parcel ID and Pertica resolves contiguous tax parcels under common ownership, then aggregates the verdict across the assembled tract. Useful for ranches and timber holds.
Join the waitlist with your email. We are onboarding the first cohort manually, prioritizing buyers who have an active parcel to evaluate. Plans and packaging are intentionally not public yet while the report surface and concierge workflow settle.
Yes — reports are shareable as a one-page PDF summary or a 14-page full-evidence pack. Attorneys and agents can be added as collaborators on a report so they can pull individual exhibits without you re-sharing.
Searches are private. We never sell, syndicate, or aggregate user query data. Pertica does not notify sellers or listing agents that a parcel was pulled. Reports are encrypted at rest, retained while your account is active, and deleted on request.
I'm Evan. I built Pertica because the rural-land buyers I know were spending $25k–$50k learning what the public record could have told them in 90 seconds. The first version was a spreadsheet I ran for friends. Drop your parcel in early access and I'll personally walk you through the verdict on your first one.
Let the next parcel be the one you actually close on.
We're onboarding the first cohort of buyers and brokers. Join the waitlist and we'll reach out when we can walk through a real parcel with you.