BOV software for commercial real estate should hand you a sourced value range, the comparables behind it, an income side that shows its lease comps, and an honest list of what it could not find. In one retail BOV run read for this page, 745 fact rows were recorded in 21 minutes 4 seconds, and 190 of them were marked missing rather than filled with a plausible number.
Why most BOV tools fail the first test
A broker opinion of value is a working document. It exists so that a person can test a range, change an input and defend the result to a client, a lender or an investment committee. Software that returns only a number gives that person nothing to test.
The five tests below work on any tool: ask the vendor to run them on a property you already know.
Test 1: Does every figure carry a status?
Open the run and count how the figures are labelled. In the retail BOV run used here (a multi-tenant neighborhood shopping center, run on 29 September 2026 on a Titleman QA account), the 745 fact rows split like this:
| Status | Rows | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Found | 119 | Read from a source, with the source noted |
| Fact | 29 | A recorded value, quoted as recorded |
| Derived | 394 | Calculated from other rows, with the arithmetic noted |
| Assumed | 12 | A stated assumption a person can change |
| Missing | 190 | Looked for and not found |
| Conflict | 1 | Two statements in the run disagree |
The useful row is the one a weaker tool leaves out. 190 of 745 rows, about one in four, say plainly that the run did not find the value. A tool that never reports a gap has not found everything. It has hidden the gaps.
Test 2: Can you see the lease comps the income side rests on?
The request for this run was a BOV with the lease comps shown. The run attached 132 rows from its rent-comp step: 62 found, 38 derived and 32 missing. The missing ones are counted next to the found ones, so a reader sees how many rents are evidence and how many are blanks.
Ask any vendor the same thing. If the income side of a BOV cannot show which lease comps it stands on, the rent figure is an opinion with nothing under it.
Test 3: Does the tool flag its own contradictions?
One row in this run is marked as a conflict. A figure in the report said 0 for the number of nearby competitors with a read asking price. The run's own text, written in the same document, said 5 of 8 nearby competitors carried one.
The checks that run after the analysis caught it and said so: the report disagrees with itself, no figure was changed, and the note says what would close it. That is what you want from software. Two statements that disagree must not be published side by side in silence, and a tool should not decide quietly which one wins.
Test 4: Does it say how long the run took, on timestamps you can see?
This run was created at 11:56:13 UTC and delivered at 12:17:17 UTC on 29 September 2026: 21 minutes 4 seconds, with 7 nested agent runs beneath it, all finished. A different run on another property took 2 hours 5 minutes, which we opened up in Anatomy of one BOV-at-scale run.
Neither number is a promise. Run time depends on the property and the evidence available. Ask for a start and a finish, not an average, and be wary of a speed claim with no run behind it.
Test 5: Does it label itself as an opinion, not an appraisal?
A BOV is not an appraisal. An appraisal is a signed professional report prepared under appraisal standards, and some lenders require one regardless of what a BOV says. Our comparison is in Broker opinion of value vs appraisal.
Software that uses AI should also be able to describe how it manages model risk. The Federal Reserve's model risk guidance and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework are reasonable yardsticks for the questions to ask.
What this run returned
The request asked for a BOV on the shopping center with its lease comps. The run returned a deck and two workbooks. Occupancy and condition stayed marked as missing, because no rent roll, operating statement or inspection record was found. The run did not invent them.
That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the one to hold a vendor to: a range a person can test, with the gaps showing.
How to run the five tests in an afternoon
- Pick a property you know, ideally one that traded recently.
- Ask each vendor for a BOV with its lease comps shown.
- Count the statuses: how many figures are sourced, how many are assumed, how many are missing.
- Look for a self-contradiction check and ask what it caught.
- Compare the start and finish timestamps, and ask what the output is called: opinion or appraisal.
We cover the product side on BOV software for commercial real estate, and you can see a run on a property of yours through the demo.
Frequently asked questions
What should BOV software for commercial real estate do? It should return a sourced value range with named comparables, an income side that shows its lease comps, and a visible list of what it could not find. It should also flag figures that disagree with each other instead of publishing both in silence.
Is BOV software the same as appraisal software? No. A broker opinion of value is a sourced range with reasoning that a person then tests. An appraisal is a signed professional report prepared under appraisal standards. Software that produces a BOV should not present its output as an appraisal.
How long does BOV software take to return an opinion of value? It depends on the run. The retail BOV run on this page took 21 minutes 4 seconds from creation to delivery. A run on another property took 2 hours 5 minutes. Ask for the start and finish timestamps of a real run, not an average.
Can I trust numbers from BOV software that uses AI? Trust the ones you can trace. Each figure should carry a status such as found, derived, assumed or missing, and a note on what it rests on. A figure with no trace should be treated as an assertion and tested by a person.
Written by the Titleman team with AI assistance (Claude). Reviewed by the Titleman review desk. Figures read from the run's own records on 15 October 2026; the run was made on a Titleman QA account.