Port Chester software startup looks to change the housing game

July 18, 2024 at 1:33 a.m.
David Cortez, a co-founder of Foretold, poses for a photo in front of the company’s lobby window at 108 S. Main St. on Tuesday, July 16. His startup, which aims to assist developers seeking funding for their construction projects, was selected to participate in Westchester County’s Element 46 Tech Accelerator, a 12-week program leading to a presentation for potential investors in June.
David Cortez, a co-founder of Foretold, poses for a photo in front of the company’s lobby window at 108 S. Main St. on Tuesday, July 16. His startup, which aims to assist developers seeking funding for their construction projects, was selected to participate in Westchester County’s Element 46 Tech Accelerator, a 12-week program leading to a presentation for potential investors in June. (David Tapia/Westmore News)

By DAVID TAPIA | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment
Reporter

David Cortez is no stranger to success in the real estate development industry, even though he’s still in the process of building a start-up company, Foretold, that he hopes will transform it.

Cortez owns The Leasing Experts, a business that helps developers design buildings and determine rent and unit sales. His team has assisted with the development and renting of 15 buildings across Westchester.

“After doing it for 10 years, we had aggregated an incredible amount of information on every neighborhood we worked in,” he said.

With the data they had gathered, he joked, they had become the “ApartmentGPT” of the area.

“In that time, we helped about 4,000 people find an apartment,” Cortez said. “Someone could come in to use, say, a few sentences about where they wanted to live and we could immediately guide them towards a neighborhood.”

But about a year ago, he started receiving requests for his data in a way he hadn’t expected.

“We started getting a lot of inquiries from big banks about developers using our data to raise money for the projects,” he said. “So, I’d explain our methodology to them and then wouldn’t hear from them. But two months later, that developer would say, ‘Thanks for talking to the bank, they gave us a $100 million loan,’ and I realized I had to monetize that.”

Spurred by the interaction, Cortez and his business partner, Julian Diaz, met in a Starbucks and come up with the idea for Foretold in November 2023.

He summed up what Foretold does with one phrase: “We help with decision making.”

The software analyzes building plans and generates a risk assessment to help developers and investors decide if their project is right for a neighborhood—as well as how to adjust the building if it isn’t.

“What we’re basically doing is creating a baseball card for each building,” the 38-year-old said. “We consider average rent, what kind of people live there, how long it takes to build and lease along with our other data sets. We can tell what the risk is, what the investment return can be and what the risk factors are.”

The company is based in The Magellan at 108 S. Main St.

“We wanted to be based out of Port Chester because there is so much growth happening here and we just feel very at home here,” Cortez said.

He added that what separates the Village from other nearby areas is something he’s heard from people looking for apartments.

“Something that’s very interesting is that my teams have been hearing potential renters in Port Chester say that it feels like a real neighborhood,” Cortez said. “Here, you don’t have many buildings over 10 stories, and that’s still digestible for people. But when you drop people into an area with 20, 30, or 40 stories, they start to feel small and lonely. So, it’s very attractive right now.”

He was quick to add that while some may be against development in the Village, he believes it’s necessary.

“The reality is that this country is undersupplied in housing. We need five million housing units to satisfy it,” he said. “When you build something like (The Magellan), it means 100 new taxpayers, a building that pays property taxes and residents who shop and dine here.”

Cortez said that while people are looking to move into the Village, some developers are hesitant to follow.

In preparation for a conversation with this reporter, Cortez used the Foretold software to create a dashboard on Port Chester—a hypothetical that could be used for a potential developer.

“What it did is review Zoning Board meeting minutes, social media comments and apartment websites to create a dashboard to visualize the data,” he said. “And what that data tells developers is that Port Chester is a medium risk for investments.”

He cited the high number of proposals and low rate of completed projects in the Village.

“Only 5% of buildings that were approved have actually been built,” he said. “Forty-five percent are still under construction and the other 50% have nothing going on.”

Cortez believes that if all the approved housing were to be built, Port Chester could see too much supply without enough demand in the next several years.

“In three or four years, there might be too many apartments here,” he said. “So maybe you buy land now and wait for that to pass before starting something.”

Cortez said that he and his team can use that report to sway potential builders in other directions.

“We started taking our data and telling them if they change their vision to a different size, floor plan or rent, we’d be able to lease out all of the units in, say, six months,” the Stamford, Conn. resident said.

While the program is working towards the rollout of its beta-phase, Cortez has been working to secure capital for growth.

In Foretold’s early days, Cortez and his partners self-funded the venture. But he has been actively searching for parties to invest.

“It’s been a challenge. When you try to raise money for building a software company, people want to see 22-year-olds who dropped out of Stanford wearing hoodies,” he laughed.

But his company drew the eyes of Westchester County’s Launch1000, and he was invited to participate in the Element 46 accelerator program as a member of the Spring 2024 cohort.

“We went through this 12-week program that taught us how to pitch, raise money, build financial models and it culminated in a pitch night in White Plains,” Cortez explained. “It was incredibly beneficial, and we were approached for follow-up meetings and got to pitch at The Capitol Theatre for the Westchester Angels.”

While Foretold is still in its early days, Cortez is already looking towards what the future of the company could look like by reaching into the renters end of the market.

“Our end-goal is to one day be able to compete against companies like Zillow in helping consumers find housing,” he said.

He explained his team has been building an artificial intelligence (AI) model using the data they’ve collected over time.

“Right now, we can ask our AI the downsides to living in a certain area, and it will respond with things that are completely accurate,” Cortez said. “It knows what apartments in this building are affected by the noise of the buses passing and stopping nearby.”

The use of AI interests Cortez. He said police reports could be integrated into the model to allow potential renters a glimpse of how safe a neighborhood is.

“There’s really so much we could do with it,” he said enthusiastically. “But right now, we’re focusing on what Foretold is. We’re focusing on our data strategy.”


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