AI powers land and lot search and zoning feasibility. Here’s how
“We have seen enormous innovation across residential and commercial real estate over the last decade, and it has been exciting to be part of many of those success stories. But there is one area of the built environment that still feels materially underbuilt. Land. ….
… In many ways, land feels like the last frontier of PropTech. And I think there is a massive opportunity to rethink how land is managed in the U.S., how it is priced, how it is financed, and how it moves through the economy.” – Brandon Wallace, CEO & CIO, Fifth Wall
In a LinkedIn post, Fifth Wall CEO and CIO Brandon Wallace argues that land remains the “last frontier” of real estate innovation — a domain characterized by fragmented data, opaque pricing signals, and slow, manual decision-making.
This week’s launch from Acres.com may be one of the first credible attempts to close that gap.
The Fayetteville, Ark.–based land intelligence platform is introducing native AI search and zoning intelligence that compresses what has typically taken weeks or months of manual land analysis into minutes or seconds.
For production homebuilders navigating one of the most risk-sensitive acquisition environments in years, the release comes at a tactically urgent moment. Their question is always, “Are we paying too much?” Now, that amounts to an existential challenge.
But its longer-term implications for homebuilding and residential real estate – a space entirely driven by residual land value wagers – may be even more significant.
Natural-language land search meets zoning intelligence
Acres’ new capabilities enable acquisition teams to search for land opportunities with plain-language prompts — replacing rigid filters and fragmented datasets with AI-driven analysis integrated directly into mapping tools.
According to the company, enterprise customers can define acquisition criteria such as parcel size, floodplain exposure, infrastructure access, or zoning status and immediately surface viable opportunities.
“Land decisions have always been slowed by fragmented data, complex regulations, and manual research,” said Acres founder and CEO Carter Malloy in the release. “With our newest AI capabilities, we’re changing how teams interact with land intelligence itself.”
The system is designed to decode zoning requirements, timelines, costs, and rezoning dynamics in real time — a process that traditionally relies on extensive local research and consultant input.
“You can now search for opportunities in your own words, understand zoning constraints instantly, and validate feasibility directly on the map,” Malloy said. “It’s an unprecedented shift in speed, clarity, and confidence for anyone evaluating land.”
Cut to the chase
The launch comes amid a cycle defined by heightened land risk.
Higher borrowing costs, slower absorption, entitlement friction, and volatile consumer sentiment have made acquisition precision more critical than at any point since the post-Great Recession reset.
Malloy framed the product evolution around the operational workflow challenges builders face.
“There are three axes of delivering value to customers,” he said during a preview discussion. “We help you make more money, we save you time, and we eliminate risk.”
The new tools aim to accelerate the reduction of one of the most expensive hidden costs in land acquisition: discovering what won’t work.
“A big part of our job is helping them say no faster and faster so they can spend their time on the important things,” Malloy said. “Really, what that means is helping them find better value, better opportunities, and do more of it.”
For acquisition teams juggling dozens of potential deals across multiple jurisdictions, that speed may translate directly into lower overhead and fewer dead-end pursuits.
From data platform to AI-centric workflow engine
Acres has long positioned itself as a land-data platform. The new release signals a deeper strategic pivot — toward embedding AI across the entire decision pipeline.
“Our obsession since day one… has been originating data,” Malloy said. “We have invested… an extraordinary amount of our time and capital into sourcing, cleaning, and ultimately displaying easy-to-find data… with the sole focus on land.”
He said the company’s strategy has been guided by a belief that AI only works when built on high-quality proprietary datasets.
“Show me bad data and great AI, and I’ll tell you which one wins,” he said. “That has really influenced our AI strategies.”
The new system layers custom AI pipelines on top of more than 150 million parcel records and thousands of geospatial datasets — ranging from zoning codes to satellite imagery.
The result is what Malloy described as “a true AI-centric user experience… where the most powerful technology feels invisible.”
Why Timing Matters in Today’s Market
The release arrives at a moment when land risk is no longer theoretical.
In a high-cost environment where the margin for error is shrinking, precision in entitlement risk, public sentiment, and rezoning feasibility has become mission-critical.
“This market is unforgiving of guesswork,” Malloy said. “The cost of being wrong is unacceptable.”
The platform’s zoning intelligence tools aim to surface insights that historically surface too late in the development cycle — such as local opposition trends or changes in regulatory posture.
“When we talk about busted deals and write-offs, it often comes down to ‘I bought something I thought I was going to be able to execute… and later… public opposition or… a bureaucratic change… doesn’t allow me to accomplish those original project goals,’” he said.
By integrating public-meeting data, rezoning precedents, and sentiment signals, Acres is attempting to give builders earlier visibility into those risks.
Asset-right vs. asset-light
Perhaps the most consequential implication of Acres’ new capabilities is how they may reshape the long-running debate between asset-light and asset-heavy land strategies.
As builders reassess capital exposure, the ability to evaluate large pipelines of potential sites with greater precision could redefine how companies pursue growth.
“Today we’re somewhere between $40 and $50 billion in land decisions… being made using Acres,” Malloy said, suggesting the platform is already influencing industry-scale capital allocation.
Instead of simply enabling faster acquisitions, the tools may help builders pursue what Malloy described as an “asset-right” approach — aligning land exposure more precisely with operational capacity and market conditions.
Land as proptech’s next frontier
The broader significance of the release echoes Wallace’s thesis that land — not just sales, construction, purchasing or marketing — is the least digitized layer of the real estate value chain.
Historically, land strategy has relied heavily on local relationships, manual research, and institutional memory.
Malloy acknowledged that the dynamic isn’t going away.
“There will always be a relationship component,” he said. “Our job is to provide those folks with high-quality data and tools to save them time and money and eliminate risk.”
But the company believes AI can fundamentally change how teams progress from discovery to feasibility.
“This is not… a simple open-internet GPT function,” he said. “This is a specific intelligence on zoning entitlements.”
Bringing it home
For senior homebuilding leaders, Acres’ release signals a potential re-platforming of the earliest — and often most consequential — stage of the residential development cycle.
If the technology performs as advertised, acquisition teams could shift from reactive analysis to predictive strategy, narrowing the universe of potential deals from thousands of parcels to a curated set of viable opportunities in minutes.
In a market where one wrong land decision can ripple through years of margins, that shift could reshape how capital flows into the housing pipeline.
As Malloy put it, the goal is both simple and ambitious:
“We’ve stripped away the friction of traditional land acquisition… This is the first major rollout of many.”