Real estate · Do this yourself

Run a land-listings site that shows which parcels border public land.

In short: an AI-agent-run business you oversee about an hour a week. Tools cost $30–$175/mo, agent setup is advanced, and our estimate is 8 featured listings × $99 = $792/mo.

How it makes money: Charge land sellers and brokers $99 per featured listing on a free site of parcels that border public land.

Agent setup: Advanced · Needs custom code (Cursor) and hosting you maintain. How we rate this

✅ Show HN post with 317 points.

No X data

Based on otherwatersflow on Hacker News (opens in new tab)

Who it’s for

Real estate agents, investors, property managers and renters or buyers.

Adapt it to your industry

  • Agent: listing descriptions, social posts and follow-up emails
  • Property manager: tenant question answers and maintenance logs
  • Investor: a quick deal check using public numbers

Step by step

  1. Pick one task: a listing write-up, a buyer follow-up, or a property comparison.
  2. Open ChatGPT, Claude or Grok and paste the prompt below with the property details (no private client data).
  3. Ask for 3 versions in different tones and pick the best.
  4. Check every fact (size, price, features) against your listing; AI can get numbers wrong.
  5. Save your best prompt as a template for the next listing.
  6. Track which posts or emails get replies, and ask the AI to improve the weak ones.

Ready-to-copy prompt

Here is a land listing with its parcel boundary [paste coordinates] and the nearest public-land polygon [paste]. Tell me whether it is inside, bordering or near the public land, how long the shared edge is, and what I should double-check before trusting it.

Start with AI

Opens the AI with this guide and the prompt filled in.

Open in ChatGPT (opens in new tab)Open in Claude (opens in new tab)Open in Grok (opens in new tab)
Time
2–6 weeksOur estimate

Your autonomous stack

Autonomy: A weekly run pulls licensed listings, checks parcel lines against public-land maps, rebuilds the pages and sends alert emails. Your part: Weekly: skim the run log and flagged data problems before publishing (about 1 hour).

Every layer an agent-run business needs, in order. Prices are public list prices, checked Oct 16, 2026.

  1. Agent (the brain): Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot runs the business day to day: writes, answers, decides small things and reports to you. Claude Code or Codex are alternatives.
  2. Build and hosting: Cursor (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Plus $8/mo · Premium $30/mo), Vercel hosting (opens in new tab) (Hobby free · Pro $20/mo), Supabase database (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Pro from $25/mo). The product or service your customers use.
  3. Payments: Stripe payments (opens in new tab) (No monthly fee · 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment). Automatic checkout and receipts. Other options: PayPal Checkout (3.49% + 49¢) or Lemon Squeezy (5% + 50¢, handles sales tax).
  4. Customer acquisition: Buffer (scheduled X posts) (opens in new tab) (Free plan (3 channels, 10 queued posts each) · Essentials $5/mo per channel, billed yearly), beehiiv newsletter (opens in new tab) (Free up to 2,500 subscribers), Apollo (find business emails) (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Basic $65/mo). Agent-written SEO pages, scheduled X posts and a weekly newsletter, plus cold email to businesses that follow CAN-SPAM/GDPR (real sender, opt-out link, no bought consumer lists).
  5. Delivery: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). A Grok Bot routine delivers the product or result as soon as someone pays.
  6. Support: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot answers the support inbox; anything unclear is flagged for you.
  7. Monitoring and schedule: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot scheduled routines run each day: send, check for failures, alert you if something breaks.
  8. Analytics: Google Analytics (opens in new tab) (Free). Tracks visits, signups and sales so the agent can report what works.
  9. Human checkpoint: Weekly: skim the run log and flagged data problems before publishing (about 1 hour).
  10. Price: charge $99 per listing (featured listing packages for land sellers). Offer the first 3 customers a founding price for honest feedback.
Monthly cost$30–$175/monthFree tiers → paid plans of the tools above. Card fees come out of each sale.
What you could earn · EstimateEstimate: 8 featured listings × $99 = $792/moOur estimate, not a fact or a promise. It’s simple math if you land these customers at this price.
Details: source, numbers and tags

What they did

Once a week, listings arrive from a licensed listings feed; each one near public land gets its county parcel boundary, is compared with USGS public-land data, and gets elevation, road access, flood zone and wildfire hazard. The output is about 16,000 static map pages plus free weekly email alerts.

How it went

Show HN post with 317 points. The site is free with no account; the builder lists the data problems they had to fix (acre fields in square feet, shared subdivision parcels, merged public-land polygons). No revenue reported.

Worth knowing

This is the builder launching their own product on HN. Use licensed listing data, not scraped listings; say plainly when no parcel boundary is available instead of claiming a shared edge.

Difficulty
AdvancedOur rating
Time to build
Not reportedOur estimate
Monthly cost
Not reported
Revenue
Not reportedWe only show revenue the source states
Engagement
317 HN points200 comments · fetched Oct 19, 2026
X buzz
No X data

Posted · Added Oct 19, 2026

Original builder recipe

  • Licensed listings feed
  • County and state parcel data
  • USGS public-land data
  • Static site with maps
  • Weekly email alerts
  1. Connect listings, calendar and messaging.
  2. Let the agent handle routine questions and scheduling.
  3. Keep a human on negotiations and compliance.
  4. Log every interaction.

Tags

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