Security Properties has announced the launch of FirstPass, a proprietary underwriting application powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and developed entirely in-house.
FirstPass is trained on the firm’s own underwriting and operating data. It compresses the initial financial analysis of a multifamily acquisition from four to five hours of analyst work to less than five minutes. The platform has been in active use across the firm’s acquisition pipeline for several months, including transactions currently under evaluation.
Security Properties, headquartered in Seattle, has acquired or developed over 111,000 residential units across the country for more than five decades. FirstPass is now used across its acquisitions pipeline to screen multifamily investment opportunities.
FirstPass takes the critical operating statements received during due diligence, including rent rolls and financial statements, and uses a machine learning algorithm to classify the data and enter it directly into the Security Properties underwriting model.
The application pulls current US Treasury rates and layers in deal-specific parameters such as transaction date, financing structure, location, rehab velocity and rent growth assumptions. It then generates a forward-looking view of operating performance across a variety of scenarios.
The team runs FirstPass continuously throughout underwriting and due diligence, updating assumptions as new information surfaces to sharpen the accuracy of each outcome.
“FirstPass changes the math on how many opportunities we can seriously evaluate. We can now run a rigorous first analysis on a deal the moment an offering memorandum hits our desk, before we ever enter due diligence.
“That means we turn over far more stones to find diamonds. We cast a wider net, and we only pursue the very best opportunities for our investors.”
Mark Bates, Chief Investment Officer, Security Properties
The goal of FirstPass is to dramatically increase the firm’s deal sourcing velocity. A first read on an offering memorandum that once consumed most of an analyst’s day can now happen before the firm commits any meaningful resources, allowing Security Properties to evaluate opportunities across more markets at a higher frequency and pursue only the strongest.
“The quality of the output is a direct result of the quality of the input. We are feeding the model clean, actual operational data from our own portfolio history, not scraped market averages. And the machine never has the last word.
“Our analysts and acquisitions team review every result, so what you get is the efficiency of AI paired with the subject matter expertise of a trained human eye. That blend is where the real advantage lives.”
Éamon Finneran, Senior Director of Operations and Technology, Security Properties
The launch comes as AI moves from experiment to execution across commercial real estate. While adoption of AI continues to rise, much of the industry conversation centres on a single question – can investors trust the machine?
Rather than licensing a third-party product, the firm built FirstPass on its own operational data, gathered across 57 years of investing through every market cycle, and every output is reviewed by its team of analysts and acquisitions professionals before any investment decision is made.
That data advantage is difficult to replicate. Security Properties has operated through multiple market cycles, giving the firm a rare historical record of how assets perform when conditions turn. That history teaches the model, and the team, when things can go sideways.
“Our investors trust us to be disciplined stewards of their capital, and FirstPass makes that discipline scalable. It lets us match the right capital with the right opportunity faster than ever, without ever compromising the rigour that has defined this firm for more than five decades.”
Mark Bates, Chief Investment Officer, Security Properties
The firm’s recent pace underscores the value of faster, sharper screening – in 2025 alone, Security Properties completed eight market-rate acquisitions totalling nearly $70m, supported by an institutional equity roster that includes Fortune 100 insurance companies, private equity funds and ultra-high-net-worth family offices.
