Last reviewed: May 19, 2026
A report is only worth what its sources are worth. We don't scrape, we don't guess, and we don't pad a report with filler. Every section is built from an authoritative public record or a licensed data provider, and the report links back to the underlying source so you can verify it yourself.
You pay us, and only you. We take no referral fees, commissions, or kickbacks from agents, sellers, or lenders, so nothing in the report is shaded to help a sale close. When a source isn't available for an address, we omit that section rather than guess - a blank is honest; a fabricated number is not. Every report tells you which sources it actually reached.
County assessor, recorder, and permitting records, accessed through licensed data providers (RentCast, Shovels, ATTOM, and Melissa). These supply structure details, the owner of record, assessed and market value, and the full sale and permit history.
FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer for the effective flood zone and base flood elevation - plus FEMA's preliminary/pending map service, so we can tell you when a parcel is moving into a higher-risk zone before that map becomes effective.
FEMA's National Risk Index for multi-hazard exposure, and the EPA for regulated facilities (Facility Registry Service), enforcement history (ECHO), and contaminated, Superfund, and brownfield sites nearby. Wildfire, radon zone, and air-quality layers come from the relevant federal datasets.
Oil and gas well proximity from the state regulator that owns the data (California CalGEM, Texas Railroad Commission, Ohio DNR, Pennsylvania DEP, New Mexico OCD), plus the USGS national documented-orphaned-well dataset everywhere else. Historic mine-subsidence footprints from state geological surveys and DEP mine-map archives (Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio). We only show these where an authoritative source exists.
ZIP-code-level crime statistics with per-category rates and grades. Registered sex-offender proximity from state registries, with a national fallback. A DEA clandestine-lab register check keyed to the address - never to any person.
Real, test-score-based ratings from SchoolDigger where available; otherwise NCES enrollment and grade data only - we never compute a fake numeric rating. The assigned district comes from the Census Bureau's TIGERweb school-district boundaries.
Broadband providers from FCC data and curated per-state provider lists, with the FCC Broadband Map linked for verification. Walkability from nearby-amenity analysis. Noise and solar potential are modeled estimates - clearly labeled as such.
Aggregate, anonymized block signals (owner-occupied vs. rental mix, turnover, value range) - no personal information on individual neighbors. A post-sale property-tax reassessment projection and an insurability/premium estimate, modeled from the property's own data and state market conditions.
Public discussion from Reddit and broader forums (City-Data, Niche, AreaVibes and similar), summarized with a citation back to each source so you can read the original.
Most of the report is measured fact pulled straight from the authoritative record - the FEMA flood zone, the recorded sale price, the permit on file. A few sections are modeled estimates: cell-coverage strength, the noise environment, solar potential, the insurability and premium estimate, and the post-sale tax projection. We label estimates as estimates. They're useful for orientation, not a substitute for a quote or an inspection.
Property details, flood zones, schools, broadband, environmental and climate risk, EPA-regulated and contaminated sites, and ZIP-level crime are nationwide. Some sources are inherently regional - sex-offender coverage varies by state, oil/gas well and mine data depend on which regulator publishes it, and municipal 311 nuisance density exists only for metros that run an open-data portal. Where the official data isn't real, we don't invent it.
Buyer Be Aware is a property-research tool, not a consumer reporting agency, and a report is not a "consumer report" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Our data is keyed to a place, not used to profile individuals, and reports may not be used for eligibility decisions about people (tenant, employment, credit, or insurance screening). A report supports your due diligence; it does not replace a home inspection, a title search, an appraisal, or professional advice. See our Data Disclaimer, Terms, and Privacy Policy for the full picture.
The fastest way to judge the data is to look at a full report.