Drones and Aerial Sensors Are Redefining Due Diligence Standards For Commercial Buildings

The Property Condition Assessment or PCA has served as the commercial real estate industry’s primary risk-management tool for decades. The methodology governing these assessments, specifically the ASTM E2018 standard, was last substantially revised in 2015. At that time, the protocols were calibrated to what a qualified professional could observe from ground level, a roof hatch, or the top of an extension ladder.

While those constraints were reasonable a decade ago, they represent a significant structural limitation in 2026. As transaction speeds accelerate and the density of building systems increases, the traditional manual walk-through is becoming an informational bottleneck that many institutional investors can no longer afford to ignore...

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RSK: Can a drone and AI do a better job than humans doing a walk through in building.