Launch Coming Wednesday

I’ve spent the last several months building the data layer behind AskAugur, a tool designed to help people answer a simple but critical question when buying property: “Can I actually do what I want with this house?”

AskAugur helps homebuyers, agents, and investors check whether projects like ADUs, sheds, workshops, pools, fences, or short-term rentals are likely to be approved at a specific property before writing an offer.

The goal is simple: Know before you buy. Why this matters: Right now the system is broken for buyers.

When you're considering a property, you often need to know whether you can:
- add a garage

- build an ADU

- install a pool

-run a short-term rental

- expand the home later

But the only reliable way to find out is by navigating a maze of zoning codes, permits, HOA documents, and planning departments. Most buyers end up with three imperfect options:
1. Trust the agent Some agents are great with zoning and permits. Many aren't, and even the best ones don’t have time to research every property deeply.
2. Do the research yourself You can try to interpret zoning codes and planning regulations, but most people don’t know where to find them or how to interpret legal language.
3. Wait for the city or county to confirm This is the safest option — but unless it’s in writing, it doesn’t count. Getting an official answer can take days, and in a competitive market that delay can mean losing the property entirely.

The result is a frustrating tradeoff: Buyers either take a risk, lose the house, or lose thousands backing out later.

Our Origins: AskAugur is named after the ancient Roman Augurs, who interpreted signs to predict whether an endeavor would succeed. Our system does something similar — but using data. AskAugur combines multiple real government datasets and machine learning to estimate the likelihood that a project would be approved at a given property.

To do this, we analyze several layers of information:

1. Zoning regulations: We identify the zoning classification for a property and extract the relevant development rules.

2. Historical permit approvals: These are our strongest signals. We analyze what the jurisdiction has historically approved or denied for similar requests.

3. HOA restrictions: Where available, we incorporate HOA governance and deed restrictions.

4. Environmental overlays: Flood zones and other regulatory overlays that can affect development.

5: Government behavior patterns: Different jurisdictions approve permits very differently. A rural county behaves nothing like a dense urban planning department, so we categorize jurisdictions to avoid apples-to-oranges comparisons.

Together these data layers allow us to estimate whether a project is likely feasible before someone commits to a property.

AskAugur helps buyers run a quick feasibility check before writing an offer so they can avoid costly surprises. For the Pros, we help agents bring data-backed context to those conversations and set better expectations early in the process. Delivering a higher level of service to their clients, and act as a first-pass screening tool, allowing investors to quickly evaluate properties for things like:

- ADU potential

- Conversions or expansions

- Accessory structures

- Short-term rental feasibility

This helps filter deals faster and focus deeper due diligence on the highest-potential opportunities. And this analysis can be done right where you already browse listings. Our Chrome extension allows users to run these checks directly on Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and Trulia while browsing listings.

I’d love feedback This is an early launch and I’d love the Product Hunt community’s thoughts. A few questions I'm especially curious about: Would you use this as a homebuyer? If you invest in real estate, would you pay for a tool like this? Are there obvious gaps or opportunities to improve the value?

Thanks for taking a look & See you Wednesday!