HelloData Transforms Multifamily Market Analysis Through AI-Powered Public Data Platform

Written by:

Steve Marcinuk

Date:

05 Aug 2025

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The multifamily real estate sector has long struggled with a time-consuming, manual process that property managers and asset managers know all too well: the market survey. This critical exercise, which involves calling competing properties, checking websites, and gathering data from various sources into Excel spreadsheets, can consume hours of valuable time while delivering inconsistent results.

HelloData, a proptech company recently acquired by Grace Hill, has emerged as a solution to this persistent industry challenge by using artificial intelligence and public data to automate and improve the market survey process.

Founded by Industry Veterans

The company’s origins trace back to three founders with deep proptech experience. Before launching HelloData, the founding team had previously built and sold Anoto, a rent roll parser that used early AI technology, to Walker and Dunlop. After product development experience for their acquirer, the trio returned to the startup world with new insights about data challenges in the multifamily sector.

“They knew data, and they knew that there were a whole load of issues with the current data providers in the marketplace,” explains Gavin Maxwell, Enterprise Account Manager at HelloData. “One of the main ones just being data relevancy and how quickly people are able to surface new insights as things change in these sub markets.”

The founders developed several APIs, with their market survey and comps API proving most popular. This success led them to focus on building a comprehensive interface, quickly attracting major clients and reaching their first million dollars in annual recurring revenue.

Solving the Market Survey Pain Point

The traditional market survey process represents a significant operational burden for multifamily operators. Property managers and asset managers typically spend considerable time calling properties, reviewing websites, and consulting sources like CoStar to compile competitive intelligence, often resulting in basic spreadsheet analyses requiring extensive internal review.

HelloData addresses this challenge by automating data collection on a daily basis. The platform monitors the majority of websites for large commercial apartment buildings across all US markets, capturing unit-level rent changes, concessions, standard fees, and amenity information at both community and unit levels.

“We’re doing essentially all of that on a daily basis,” Maxwell notes. “We’re going to the majority of websites out there for these large commercial apartment buildings, and we are just collecting those updates for folks every day.”

The platform tracks detailed property features including unit-level finishes such as marble countertops, shaker cabinets, and stainless steel appliances, providing comprehensive competitive intelligence that would traditionally require manual research.

AI-Driven Competitive Analysis

One of HelloData’s key differentiators is its AI-powered comp recommendation system, incorporating visual data analysis to enhance traditional financial comparisons. The system analyzes property photographs from websites to perform appraiser-style quality assessments, recommending properties with similar look and feel characteristics.

“We basically train some AI to incorporate a little bit of visual data, which it captures from the property pictures that are on these property websites,” Maxwell explains. “That’s able to perform like an appraiser style analysis on the quality of those images to essentially recommend properties that are going to be similar in terms of the look and feel from an on-site perspective.”

When users create a market survey, they begin with their subject property and receive ten AI-driven recommendations for the best comparable properties, incorporating both standard financial comparison points and visual similarity assessments.

Comprehensive Market Coverage

HelloData’s platform covers all US markets, focusing primarily on apartment complexes with 50 units or more, though coverage extends to smaller properties in many regions depending on online presence. The company’s approach relies entirely on publicly available data, eliminating compliance concerns that have affected other industry data providers.

“It’s all public data, so we’re not syncing with anybody’s property management system or any proprietary databases to service these insights,” Maxwell emphasizes. “It’s basically just information that’s available on the internet to anyone.”

This public data approach ensures full compliance while providing comprehensive market intelligence without antitrust risks.

Rapid Growth and Major Client Adoption

Since reaching their initial million-dollar ARR milestone, HelloData has secured partnerships with some of the largest multifamily companies in the nation, including Greystar, Avenue5, and Bozzuto. The platform has also gained traction in the middle market.

“One of the things we hear a lot of the time is that it just kind of makes it easy to get in and start doing some basic analytics on your property,” Maxwell notes, highlighting the platform’s accessibility for operators of various sizes.

Grace Hill Acquisition and Future Development

The recent acquisition by Grace Hill represents a significant milestone for HelloData, though the company maintains its current product development trajectory while exploring integration opportunities with Grace Hill’s broader product suite.

“As of right now, the plan kind of remains unchanged,” Maxwell explains. “We are starting to think about how do we integrate with the broader Grace Hill product set. They’ve got a couple of places where it makes a lot of sense for their users to be able to just jump straight into our platform or gain some of the analytics that you typically see in our system.”

Recent platform enhancements include the addition of a rent roll parser, responding to customer demand for a multifamily-specific solution that understands various formats and templates. This feature is currently available for testing as the company works to optimize its functionality.

Looking Forward

HelloData’s focus remains on expanding its reach throughout the multifamily market while continuing to enhance its core platform capabilities. The company’s approach of combining AI-powered analysis with comprehensive public data collection positions it well to address the evolving needs of multifamily operators seeking efficient, compliant market intelligence solutions.

For an industry that has long relied on manual processes for competitive analysis, HelloData’s automated approach represents a substantial step forward in operational efficiency and data-driven decision making. As the multifamily sector continues to adopt technology solutions, platforms like HelloData are helping operators move beyond time-consuming manual processes toward more strategic, data-informed approaches to market analysis.

The company’s success in attracting major industry players while maintaining accessibility for mid-market operators suggests strong potential for continued growth as more multifamily professionals recognize the value of automated, AI-enhanced market intelligence.