AI is helping remote and local real estate investors zero in on Pittsburgh’s micro-markets

Pittsburgh’s housing market can look very different depending on which neighborhood you’re in. 

A pair of entrepreneurs from Israel are betting that real estate investors — even those who are living thousands of miles away — will pay for the data that explains those differences.

Their startup, DealScanner, is helping buyers find potentially valuable properties in Allegheny County before ever having to set foot inside them.

“There are some major markets for investors in the States, and Pittsburgh is one of the best markets for investors,” cofounder Dror Israel told Technical.ly. “In Pittsburgh, you can find properties at around $100,000 to $200,000 and yield about 10% cap rate per year.”  

Israel and his cofounder Ido Helshtock have been building DealScanner for about three years, with Israel moving to Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood to develop the platform “with boots on the ground,” he said, while Helshtock has remained abroad in Tel Aviv.  

Now, neither cofounder lives in Pittsburgh anymore, but they say they maintain a local presence through a brokerage company and continue to build out the platform because Pittsburgh’s relatively low housing prices make the market ideal for first-time or everyday real estate investors. 

Their vision for DealScanner could be good timing. The share of homes bought by small investors — those who own 10 properties or less — has been steadily growing in the US for more than a decade. 

In 2025, about 11% of home sales were to investors, and small investors accounted for two-thirds of all housing stock purchases, according to a report this year from Realtor.com. 

“We believe that we can make it easier,” Israel said, “so everyone will be able to invest in real estate.” 

The platform can help people make decisions from thousands of miles away, according to DealScanner user Tomer Weizman, an Israeli-based real estate investor for more than 15 years. 

To date, Weizman has purchased nearly 25 properties in Allegheny County — about 15 for himself and another 10 for partner investors — with help from the platform.  

“In the end, we decided on Pittsburgh because of the income you can get from your investment,” Weizman told Technical.ly. 

Crunching the numbers 

DealScanner pulls together public and private housing data from across Allegheny County. 

Then, its algorithm calculates stats investors often look for, like how much repairs might cost or how much a property could be worth after the work is finished. 

For some investors, like Weizman, DealScanner has replaced popular tools like Zillow, Google Sheets or RentCast, allowing him to learn about available properties and figure out how much to charge tenants all in one spot.

AI tools are making some of this work quicker and easier too, according to the cofounders. 

For example, the team uses AI to estimate the current condition of a house based on publicly available images and videos, and then they compare those estimates to sold properties to better predict its value, Helshtock said. 

See the market block by block

A main feature of DealScanner is its evaluation of the city’s micro-markets. Instead of treating Pittsburgh as a single, uniform housing market, DealScanner analyzes properties by neighborhood or municipality.

“Neighborhoods only a few miles apart were behaving very differently,” Helshtock said, referencing DealScanner’s recent Pittsburgh Housing Market Report, “but those differences are difficult to see when you’re looking at one listing at a time.”

Guy Amos, a small real estate investor who moved to Pittsburgh seven years ago, said he’s purchased fewer than 10 local properties and half of those were with the help of DealScanner. 

Amos, like other small investors, has limited resources, so he’s used the platform to get familiar with Pittsburgh’s micro-markets, he said. 

“We say Pittsburgh, but it’s really like 15 different markets here,” Amos said.

Bootstrapped and building

Today, DealScanner has more than 100 active users, with a 50/50 split between local and foreign investors, according to Helshtock. 

The platform has been bootstrapped so far, with most features still being offered for free. 

“We burn our money, but we burn it with passion,” Israel said. 

But there are plans to keep expanding the platform. The cofounders are currently working on a new feature that would allow users to close deals directly on DealScanner — an effort to offer the full life cycle of real estate investing on the platform. 

Once they build out those transaction capabilities, other markets are next. 

“Our vision is to enable the full flow for the investor community,” Helshtock said, “which is local and foreign, from US and outside.”