How to read a Terranown report

A Terranown report is built to be checked, not taken on faith. This page walks through the parts of it and what each one is telling you.

The summary comes first

The summary is the written analysis: what the AI analyst made of every finding taken together. Start there for the overall picture, then open the sections behind any statement that matters to your decision.

Every finding names its source

Each section shows where its data came from — FEMA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the USDA soil survey, the county assessor — and the written analysis refers back to them. If a finding would change what you do, follow it to the source and read it there. That is the point of naming it.

What the status labels mean

• Ok — the source answered and nothing in it calls for attention.
• Attention — the source answered and found something worth a closer look, such as a flood zone over part of the parcel or a mapped wetland.
• Undetermined — the source answered but the data cannot settle the question either way.
• Error — the source could not be reached or did not answer usefully. This is a gap, not a finding.

A gap is reported, not hidden

Public data services go down, time out, and change without notice. When one does, that section of the report says the data could not be retrieved and the rest of the report is delivered as normal. Nothing is guessed to fill the space. A gap means “we could not check”, never “there is nothing there” — so treat it as an open question and check the source yourself, or refresh the report later to give that section another attempt.

Refreshing, documents and exports

A refresh re-runs the research on the same parcel, which picks up newly published records and retries any section that had a gap. Any finished report can be shared as a read-only link. On a Deep Dive you can also attach your own documents to be read alongside the public record, and export the report to PDF.

How far to rely on it

A report gathers third-party and public data and adds an automated interpretation. Either can be wrong: maps are drawn at a scale that may not match your boundary, records lag behind what is on the ground, and an automated reading can misjudge what it finds. A Terranown report is a research aid. It is not legal, financial, or professional advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy or not to buy. Anything your decision depends on should be confirmed with the agency responsible or a qualified professional — a surveyor, a soil scientist, an attorney — before you act.