What it does
Highest and best use for a property: twenty simulated strategies across four families (Keep & Optimize, Convert & Split, Rebuild and Build-Up & Densify) compared against each other, with one recommended play and the reasoning and numbers behind it.
When to use it
Use it on a site or a building where the question is "what should this be": keep it, convert it, rebuild, or build up. Use it early; it is cheap enough to run on a site you are only curious about.
Do not treat the output as a planning opinion. It compares scenarios; it does not tell you what a planning authority will approve. For an approval path and a land value, run Feasibility.
How to use it
- Open Best Use under Analysis in the left list. The screen asks Give me the property.
- Type the address after Find the best use for.
- Attach documents if you have them: Attach zoning, title or a survey, Attach a T-12 or rent roll, or Pick from Vault. Anything the zoning or title shows is blocked gets ruled out, not glossed over.
- Press Start.
What you get back
The uses, best first: each scenario with its numbers, the recommended play, and why it beats the runner-up on return over the hold. If returns cannot be computed, the report says what is missing: usually your purchase price and the current rent roll. The run's Results panel lists the files it wrote.
Time and cost
Median 13 minutes and 2.2 credits, the fastest of the substantial products and among the cheapest, which makes it the best first thing to run if you want to see how the work reads.
Do
- Say what you would actually consider. Scenarios you would never build are a waste of the comparison; naming two or three real candidates sharpens it.
- Put the local rule in the brief if your question turns on one (see below).
- Send the rent roll and your price if you want returns, not only a ranking.
Do not
- Do not assume local planning rules were applied. Zoning is carried for 21 cities; outside those, the scenarios rest on general research rather than the local plan. And the jurisdiction pack does not reach the model on any run, in any city, so if a density limit, a height restriction or a tenure convention decides your answer, that rule has to be in your brief.
- Do not treat the output as a planning opinion. It compares scenarios; it does not tell you what a planning authority will approve.