How TalonAI finds roof damage and neglect from aerial imagery
What PropTalon's TalonAI flags from aerial photos, where the imagery comes from, what a flag does and doesn't mean, and how it improves over time.
Some properties worth a call never show up in a county record. A roof tarped after a storm, a yard that's gone wild, boarded-up windows: the county may not write any of it up for months, if ever. TalonAI is how PropTalon looks for those houses from the air. It's in beta, and this page explains what it does, where it falls short, and how it gets better.
What TalonAI looks for
- ✓Tarps on roofs, the clearest sign of damage that hasn't been repaired yet.
- ✓Missing or damaged shingles and roofs in poor shape.
- ✓Overgrown yards.
- ✓Debris and junk piles.
- ✓Boarded-up windows and doors.
How a sweep works
You pick a ZIP code. TalonAI starts with the homes there that already score highest on public-record signals and reviews up to 40 of them in a sweep, using the most recent aerial photo of each one. Those photos also show the houses next door, and when TalonAI spots a tarp or damage on a neighbor, it matches that house to its parcel too. That's how it finds properties with no county filing at all.
Each find lands on the parcel with the date the photo was taken, next to any code cases, liens or permits. A visual flag adds to the property's score, so a tarped roof on a house that also has an open code case rises toward the top of your list. Every plan includes ZIP sweeps each month (5 on Basic).
Where the imagery comes from
Most scans use the latest aerial photo available for the address, and how recent it is depends on the area. Some neighborhoods were photographed this year; others more than a year ago. After a hurricane, NOAA flies emergency response imagery over the damaged areas. Scans inside those flight lines use the post-storm photos instead, and older results there are marked stale so the next sweep checks them again. Every find shows which imagery it came from and when it was taken.
What a flag means, and what it doesn't
A flag means the photo shows something worth a closer look. It doesn't mean the owner wants to sell, and it doesn't mean the problem is still there: the tarp may be gone and the roof replaced since the photo was taken. Treat every flag as a reason to check, with a drive-by, the county record or a phone call, before you make an offer.
TalonAI makes mistakes. A blue pool cover or a shadow can look like a tarp from above, and trees can hide a roof completely. That's why it's labeled beta, and why we don't publish an accuracy number yet.
How TalonAI improves over time
We check TalonAI's work by hand. On test runs, the same houses go to several AI models side by side, and we mark each answer right or wrong and record what's actually on the roof. Those reviewed houses become reference examples: before it looks at a new house, the model can be shown real examples of a tarp, a worn roof and a clean roof, each with the right answer.
Every reviewed house adds to that set, and each new storm adds fresh imagery, so TalonAI will keep improving over time: better at catching real damage and better at skipping what only looks like it. We turn a change on for customer sweeps only after the reviews show it helps, and we'll say so here when the beta label comes off.
Where TalonAI fits
Think of TalonAI as the first pass of driving for dollars, done from the air. It points you at houses worth seeing; the county records tell you what's on file; the owner tells you the rest. Read more about finding tarped roofs, driving for dollars without the driving, how PropTalon compares to the DealMachine driving app, and the best real estate lead software for Florida.