Cite as: Real Problem AI problem “Why does checking a property for easements still mean digging through county records by hand?”. Opportunity score 7.5 out of 10 (severity 8, AI feasibility 7, market signal 7, competition gap 8). Category PropTech / Real Estate. Trend Agents. Source signal: r/land thread asking for a tool that finds recorded easements and maps them on a property, 27 September 2026, 34 comments.. Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/idea/why-does-checking-a-property-for-easements-mean-digging-through-county-records-by-hand.
Why does checking a property for easements still mean digging through county records by hand?
Before making an offer on land, a buyer has to find the parcel, pull deeds, plats and separately recorded easements from the county, then work out where each one actually sits on the ground.
Who has it: Land and home buyers screening properties before an offer, plus real estate agents, small developers and surveyors who repeat the same county records hunt for every parcel.
Evidence
“Finding the documents and figuring out where an easement sits on the property feel like two separate projects.”
Quoted word for word from the public post linked below. Nobody submitted it to Real Problem AI.
r/land thread asking for a tool that finds recorded easements and maps them on a property, 27 September 2026, 34 comments.Scoring breakdown
Existing players
- Title companies and land surveyors · The reliable answer, but they come in after an offer is made and cost money for every parcel, so they do not help with early screening.
- County GIS and recorder portals · Hold the parcel maps and recorded documents, but every county runs its own system and search, and the documents come back as scans.
- Regrid parcel data and deed plotting tools · Give parcel boundaries, or plot a legal description you already found, but neither gathers the recorded easements for you.
What they are missing
A screening tool where a buyer enters an address or parcel number, gets the recorded deeds, plats and easements with links to the originals, sees each plottable easement drawn on the parcel with a confidence label, and gets a clear list of what still needs a title search or a survey.
Founders working in this area (not affiliated with Real Problem AI)
- Jerry Paffendorf, Co-founder, Regrid (formerly Loveland Technologies)
Stack hint
#OCT13 · Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/idea/why-does-checking-a-property-for-easements-mean-digging-through-county-records-by-hand