AI IN CRE VALUATION: Supercharged, But Not Autonomous
July 30, 2025
There’s a lot of noise right now about AI “disrupting” commercial real estate valuations. Most of it misses the point. Yes, AI is powerful. It can process data faster than any analyst, flag outliers, and crank out tidy-looking reports in seconds. But in commercial real estate valuation the data is messy, the buy-sell motivations are hidden, and no two assets are identical. For these reasons, you still need a human being at the helm.
AI is not going to replace judgment. It’s not going to walk a property, talk to a broker, or understand why a “special purchaser” overpaid to settle a tax issue.
What it will do is supercharge the tools we already use. The real transformation here isn’t machines replacing professionals, it’s professionals becoming exponentially more capable. Think of it as going from a paper map to GPS. The destination is still chosen by a human, but the path to get there is faster, more informed, and constantly updating. AI won’t make the decisions for us, but it will remove friction, surface better options, and let valuation professionals focus their energy where it counts most: judgment, interpretation, and insight.
What AI offers is synthesis and speed. It can sift through public records, historical appraisals, leases, sales comps, and demographic overlays faster than any team of analysts. It helps surface trends and anomalies, and it makes communication more seamless across teams and stakeholders. But none of that matters if the underlying data is garbage.
As we explained in There is No Such Thing as Moneyball in CRE, the problem is that CRE data is “big and lumpy.” It’s full of gaps, inconsistencies, and outliers. There isn’t enough of it to run statistically significant models, and what does exist is often shaped by behavioral factors like emotions, egos, special situations that don’t show up in the numbers.
Throwing AI at that kind of data doesn’t produce a more insightful, or accurate result. It just gets you to the wrong answer faster.
That’s why data curation is now more critical than ever. At Capright, we’ve been focused on this for years: combining private, in-house data with selected public sources and carefully vetted thirdparty inputs. We don’t just collect data. We clean it, challenge it, discuss it, and place it in context. AI helps us do that more efficiently, but it doesn’t replace our underlying expertise.
Even with perfectly curated data, two things still require a human:
First, CRE is a people business. Deals are driven by strategic and sometimes emotional motivations that don’t always make sense on paper. Understanding why a trade happened at a certain number often requires experience and intuition. AI can’t get on a call with a buyer or read between the lines of a negotiation.
Second, CRE is a physical business. It involves unique structures in real places. AI can read floor plans and parse rent rolls, but it can’t feel what it’s like to stand in a lobby or hear the noise from a nearby highway. CRE valuation requires sensory judgment, which is something no algorithm can replicate.
We are embracing AI, but we believe its role is to elevate human insight, not replace it. At Capright, we’re integrating AI into our data and workflows to move faster, think more critically, and bring greater clarity to our clients. Like GPS, it’s a powerful guide—but it still needs a driver. The destination, the route changes, the real-world judgment? That’s all human. And in commercial real estate, it always will be.
About Capright
Capright specializes in institutional valuation and advisory services throughout the United States. As a truly independent third-party, Capright has emerged as the leading provider mark-to-market valuations for many of the largest privately-owned commercial real estate platforms. In addition to valuation services, Capright offers NAV calculation, daily pricing, valuation process implementation, debt mark-to-market, option and JV interest valuation, compliance review, audit assistance, litigation support, and managed services. In partnership with several of the largest institutional investment managers and data platforms, Capright has pioneered industry-leading analytical tools to set higher levels of accuracy and credibility for assets requiring higher-frequency valuation compliance.
