How Porthaven Partners avoided a $75K analyst hire with an AI comp workflow

The challenge

Building national comps one tenant at a time

For an investment sales broker, good comp data is more than research. It is the evidence behind a valuation and a key part of winning a client’s confidence.

Porthaven Partners represents developers building retail and restaurant projects across the country. To compete for listings, the team has to show a developer what an asset is worth and support that valuation with relevant transactions.

Because Porthaven specializes in single-tenant retail, the most relevant comps are often national rather than local. If a developer wants to sell a Chipotle in Tulsa, for example, the team needs to understand where comparable Chipotle properties are trading across the country, not just what has sold nearby.

The challenge for Porthaven was assembling those datasets.

The team used sources including CoStar and Crexi, but found itself repeatedly filling gaps and piecing together comp sets tenant by tenant. The information was critical to the business, yet researching and maintaining it was fragmented and time-consuming, all while competing against national firms with entire research departments behind them.

Anybody in investment sales knows the challenge of tracking and researching comp data. It’s something we always need, but it’s hard and time-consuming to obtain.

Daniel Herrold, Managing Director, Porthaven Partners

How they use DealGround

Building an AI-powered comp intelligence workflow

Daniel has advocated for DealGround since its early days as an advisory committee member, consistently feeding property flyers into the platform for a comprehensive view of what’s on the market. The turning point for his team came when DealGround expanded to include transaction data: ownership information, sales dates, title information and prices.

That made DealGround increasingly valuable as a comp resource, and eventually changed where Porthaven Partners started its research.

Instead of going to Crexi or CoStar first, we’re going to DealGround first to pull comps for a specific tenant.

Daniel Herrold, Managing Director, Porthaven Partners

Daniel estimates that DealGround now gives his team roughly twice the quantity of comp data he retrieves through other platforms, while also providing more complete information.

Then came automation. Using the DealGround MCP, which brings DealGround’s property data, search and owner research into AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, the team built a workflow that links DealGround, Claude and its Monday.com comps board, and now runs largely on its own:

• Every day, Porthaven receives 300–400 property-flyer emails. Claude scans them, identifies the single-tenant net-lease deals, and adds them to the team’s comps board in Monday.com, automatically de-duplicating against previously marketed properties.
• When a flyer is missing details, Claude pulls the gaps from DealGround and enriches the record.
• For any deal older than 90 days, Claude checks DealGround to see whether it’s still on the market or has closed, then updates the sale price, cap rate and other details.

The result is a fundamentally different approach to comp research, and one that updates in real time.

Instead of rebuilding a comp set only when a client asks for one, Porthaven is continuously collecting and refreshing market intelligence, so relevant information is already available when the team needs it. For example, if a Chipotle transaction closes and Daniel knows one of his developer clients is building another Chipotle, he can proactively send that new comp to the client rather than waiting for a request.

I wake up in the morning, look at the report, and it’ll say four deals closed per DealGround, with all the information enriched. Instead of comps being a response to a client request, I’m getting that intelligence at my fingertips. It’s intelligence that’s actionable.

Daniel Herrold, Managing Director, Porthaven Partners

The impact

More data, less manual work, and the reach of a larger team

Since building its comp process around DealGround, Porthaven Partners has changed both how much information is available to its brokers and how that information is used.

• Twice the data, better data. By Daniel’s estimate, DealGround surfaces roughly 2X the comp data of competing platforms like CoStar or Crexi, with thoroughness and accuracy he describes as “exponentially better.”
• A $75,000 analyst hire, avoided. As a growing shop, Porthaven would otherwise have needed a full-time comp analyst. Building the workflow around DealGround and Claude from the start meant it never had to.
• Research depth, without the research department. A four-person shop now goes head-to-head with larger firms that put dedicated research teams behind their comp analysis.
• Sharper intelligence when it counts. A more complete, accurate data set builds client confidence when competing for listings, and can help bridge buyer-seller gaps in capital markets deals by validating where the market really is.

The business value is clear: more complete intelligence gives Porthaven a stronger foundation to advise clients, support valuations and compete for new business.

Porthaven still cross-checks other sources when needed, but DealGround has become the team’s starting point for comp research. For Daniel, the value isn’t simply another database. It’s broader market intelligence plus the ability to put that data to work inside an automated workflow.

If researching and maintaining comp data is a recurring challenge, DealGround can help make the process more comprehensive, more efficient and more actionable.

Daniel Herrold, Managing Director, Porthaven Partners