The DispoLab tools guide: Comps & ARV, Repair Estimator, and Skip Trace

Finding the buyer is the main event in DispoLab. But three more tools live in the sidebar under Tools, and together they cover the rest of what it takes to sell a deal: knowing what the house is worth, knowing what it costs to fix, and getting a phone number for the person you need to call. This is the plain-English walkthrough of all three — what you put in, what you get back, and when to use each one.

Comps & ARV

What it's for. Every cash buyer is going to check your after-repair value before they make an offer. If your number doesn't hold up, they pass without telling you why. Comps & ARV gets you a defensible number in seconds, from real sales.

How it works. Type an address (it autocompletes) and click Get comps. You get a photo of the house, a list of recent comparable sales nearby — address, sale price, price per square foot, beds and baths, square footage, distance, and how closely each one matches your property — and at the top, the Estimated value (ARV): the average price per square foot of those comps, times your house's square footage.

Two things worth knowing. First, the square footage is editable. If the seller tells you the house is bigger than the record shows, or there's an unpermitted addition, change the number and the ARV recalculates on the spot. Second, click any comp to see it up close, so you know which ones to lean on when you talk numbers.

Download the report. Every comp run can be saved as a PDF. Send it to your buyer with the deal — a wholesaler who shows their comps is a wholesaler buyers take seriously. Past lookups stay under History so you can pull them back up later.

When to use it. On the seller call, so you can make an offer without hanging up. Again before you send the deal out, so your ARV survives the buyer's own homework. And any time a deal is sitting — an inflated ARV is the number one reason deals don't sell.

Repair Estimator

What it's for. Rehab cost is the number new wholesalers get wrong most, and it's the number experienced flippers check first. Say $25,000 on a house that needs a roof, an HVAC, and a kitchen, and every serious buyer knows you're off by $30,000. The Repair Estimator gets you in the right ballpark with an itemized number you can defend.

How it works. Two steps. Upload photos of the house — the more the better, up to 40, and at least a dozen if you want a dollar figure rather than just a condition read. Then add the basics: beds, baths, square footage, year built, property type, plus anything the seller disclosed. You can paste a listing and let the app pull those out, or type them in. Click Get my estimate.

What you get back. A condition tier (from move-in ready through full gut), a confidence level, and the Estimated repairs: a most-likely number with a low-to-high range around it, adjusted for local labor and material costs. Under that, the line items — roof, kitchen, flooring, paint, whatever the photos show — plus a list of big-ticket items to verify (the foundation, plumbing, or electrical issues a photo can't confirm) and a note on what couldn't be seen.

Download the report. Same as comps — save the estimate as a PDF and include it in your deal package. Past estimates stay in the tool.

When to use it. While the seller is on the phone, from photos they text you. Before you price a deal for buyers. And whenever a buyer pushes back on your rehab number — pull up the line items and walk them through it.

One caveat. It's a screening estimate for deal analysis, not a contractor bid or an inspection. Use it to price the deal and talk intelligently about the work; tell your buyer to get their own contractor through the house before closing.

Skip Trace

What it's for. You have an address, or a name and an address, and you need the phone number. A skip trace finds it.

How it works. There are two ways to run one. Single skip trace — type an address (and the owner's name if you have it) and get phones and emails back. Bulk skip trace (CSV) — upload a CSV of addresses, map the columns, name the list, and it runs the whole list (up to 200 addresses) in about a minute. Every result shows every phone number and email it found, along with two flags that matter: whether the number is on the Do Not Call list, and whether the person is a known TCPA litigator. Those two flags are the difference between a productive call and a lawsuit, so look at them.

How you pay. Skip traces come out of a prepaid credit balance that sits at the top of the app. You're charged per hit — if a trace comes back empty, it's free. Everyone on every plan can use it; the Max plan includes a monthly bundle of traces.

It also shows up in Find a Buyer. When a buyer in your results is tagged Sourced by DispoLab — an investor DispoLab went out and found for you — their contact info starts locked and there's a Skip trace button right on the row. Same thing — one click, pay only if it finds them, and in most markets, once you've unlocked someone they stay unlocked for you on future deals. Skip trace a whole results list at once with the Skip trace investors button, and use the slider to only trace buyers above a certain match score. When you see Save to Buyers on a row, one click adds that investor to your own list.

When to use it. Most obviously on the buyer side, to reach the investors DispoLab found for you. But it works just as well on the acquisition side — run a driving-for-dollars list through the bulk tool and you've got phone numbers for every distressed house you wrote down. Skip tracing 101 covers the flags and the etiquette.

How they fit together

The tools are built around the shape of a real deal. A seller calls; you pull comps and a repair estimate while they talk and make an offer on the spot. You sign, then drop the deal into Find a Buyer and get your buyers. You skip trace the ones you need to call, send the deal to the ones on the platform, and attach your comps and repair PDFs so every buyer sees the same numbers you do. Then you call. The whole thing happens in one login — no spreadsheet, no second tool, no "let me get back to you."

Comps & ARV and the Repair Estimator are Pro tools, and both are included in the free trial, so you can run real deals through them before you decide. If you're new to the app, the DispoLab handbook covers every term and button you'll see.