FirstPass cuts the initial analysis of multifamily acquisitions from hours to minutes, showing how proprietary data and human review are shaping AI’s role in real estate investing.
Security Properties is bringing artificial intelligence directly into its acquisition process with FirstPass, an internally developed platform for screening multifamily real estate opportunities. Trained on the Seattle-based firm’s own underwriting and operating data, the system is designed to reduce an initial financial analysis that previously required four to five hours of analyst work to less than five minutes.
FirstPass processes documents used during due diligence, including rent rolls and financial statements, classifying the information and entering it into Security Properties’ existing underwriting model. It also incorporates current U.S. Treasury rates and deal-specific assumptions covering financing, location, renovation timing and rent growth, producing forward-looking operating scenarios that can be updated as new information becomes available.
The immediate benefit is not simply faster analysis, but the ability to examine more potential acquisitions before committing substantial staff time. Security Properties, which says it has acquired or developed more than 111,000 residential units over five decades, can use FirstPass to conduct an initial assessment of more deals and markets while reserving deeper human analysis for opportunities that survive the first screening. The platform has already been used across the company’s acquisition pipeline for several months.
That approach reflects a broader question surrounding AI adoption in commercial real estate: where automation can accelerate decision-making without being allowed to make the investment decision itself. Security Properties has built FirstPass using its own operational history rather than relying solely on external market averages, drawing on data accumulated across 57 years and multiple market cycles. The company says analysts and acquisition professionals continue to review every output before decisions are made.
The distinction is important because underwriting involves assumptions about future performance that cannot be reduced to document processing alone. FirstPass appears intended to automate the repetitive work of organizing data and generating preliminary scenarios while leaving judgment over risk, market conditions and capital allocation with investment professionals. For Security Properties, which completed eight market-rate acquisitions totaling nearly $700 million in 2025, the experiment illustrates how AI may change real estate investing less by replacing analysts than by expanding the number of opportunities they can realistically evaluate.
