VAREVirginia Real Estate Engine

Read every Richmond parcel against what is being built around it.

VARE, the Virginia Real Estate Engine, is a personal research tool. It joins county parcel records with public signals and points to the few properties worth a closer look, with the math and the open questions for each one.

A private project in development. Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield first.

A survey plat of eight lots Eight lots along a road. Lot 3 is flagged for a tax sale. A flood zone covers the rear of the back lots, a substation and power line sit to the north-east, and a school to the north-west. Lot 1 Lot 2 Lot 4 Lot 5 Lot 6 Lot 7 Lot 8 N 86°04′ E, 116.3′ Lot 3
Lot 3: tax sale in three weeks. Maximum all-cash bid $44,196, limited by resale value. Rear flood zone on the lots behind it; power line 300 feet north. Illustration. Not a real parcel.

What it reads

Free public sources, each one a layer on the map. A layer is added only when a free or low-cost source exists.

Parcel records
Owner tenure, assessed value, lot size and zoning from each county's assessor and GIS.
Tax and trustee sales
Auction dates, deposit terms and postponements from county and court notices.
Flood zones
FEMA flood hazard areas, which drive insurance cost and damage risk.
Power and data centers
Transmission lines, substations, and data-center campuses from proposal to operation.
Growth
Major employers and projects: new plants, hospitals, rail and rapid transit.
Daily life
Schools, grocery stores, hospitals and restaurants within reach of the front door.
Zoning
What the lot allows today, including room for an accessory dwelling unit.

How a property gets flagged

  1. Screen

    County records narrow tens of thousands of parcels to a short list, using facts only: price band, length of ownership, lot size, upcoming sales.

  2. Layer

    Each candidate picks up its concerns and advantages from the map layers, every one with its source and the date it was checked.

  3. Price

    Calculators set the most worth paying: the price at which owning costs no more than renting, or the highest all-cash bid that still meets a target yield.

  4. Verify

    Anything uncertain waits for a person to check it against the original record: a notice matched by address, a parsed sale date, a curated map point.

Ground rules