The government made an interesting AI decision

Good morning,

The UK's planning system has never been known for speed.

It's famous for paperwork, delays and months of waiting.

Yet this week, it quietly became one of the biggest adopters of AI. That tells us something every property investor should pay attention to.

Let’s dive in.

In this newsletter, you'll find...

• Planning is getting smarter. Your investing should too.

• A simple challenge for this week

• Feedback

Planning is getting smarter. Your investing should too.

Right now, the government is testing AI tools with a handful of councils to help planning officers process applications faster. Think of things like:

• Reading through applications and pulling out the key details

• Matching those details against the right local policies

• Flagging issues early instead of letting them sit in a pile for weeks

Humans still make the decision. But the boring, time‑sucking part, the bit that used to mean months of waiting, is starting to get some help.

For you as an investor, that matters. If you’re doing anything value‑add (extensions, conversions, turning a single let into a small HMO), planning time is holding time. Holding time is money:

• Extra months of mortgage interest

• Council tax on an empty place

• Insurance, utilities, the whole lot

If AI can shave weeks off the process, that’s more than a nice tech story, it’s literally more cash left in your pocket.

“But I’m not technical…”

This is the bit where most people mentally check out.

I get it. When someone says “AI”, you picture some hoodie‑wearing tech bro talking about neural nets and GPUs.

Or you tried one of these tools once, asked it a question, and it spat out something that felt vague and slightly wrong.

So let’s park the buzzwords and talk about how this actually helps you as an investor, without needing a computer science degree or a £10k coding bootcamp.

Here are a few very real, very boring-but-profitable ways you can use AI this week:

1. Stress-test a deal in minutes, not an evening
   Grab three Rightmove links in, say, Leeds or Derby. Ask AI to pull the key numbers: listing price, estimated rent, and basic running costs.

   Then get it to run a quick cashflow: mortgage payment at different interest rates, likely yield, and a simple sensitivity check if rent drops 5%.

   
   That’s the kind of back‑of‑a‑napkin maths most people never do… because it’s boring. AI doesn’t care. It’ll happily crunch through it while you drink your coffee.

2. Summarise the stuff that’s designed to make you sleepy
   Long lease documents. Management company packs. Those 40‑page PDFs that somehow manage to say “you’re responsible for the roof” in 20 different ways.

   
   Instead of skimming and hoping for the best, you can paste the text in and ask:

   • “Highlight anything here that affects my cashflow”

   • “Are there any nasty surprises around service charges or ground rent?”
     Suddenly, you’re reading the important 10% instead of wasting an hour on the boring 90%.

3. Compare postcodes like a data nerd, without being one
   Say you’re stuck between two areas: one in the North with higher yields, one closer to home with lower yields but maybe better growth.

   You can ask AI to combine public data – average rents, typical house prices, historic price growth, local vacancy rates – and arrange it into a simple table.

   
   No more guessing based on vibes. It’s not perfect, but it’s miles better than “my mate John said this area’s about to blow up.”

4. Write tenant messages that don’t sound like they were typed in a rage at 11pm
   Late rent. Noise complaints. Rent increases. These are the moments where tone matters.

   
   You can feed in what you want to say, then ask AI to rewrite it so it’s firm but fair, clear, and legally sensible.

   You still decide the message, it just stops you sending something you’ll regret in the morning.

AI isn’t magic. It’s a lever.

Important caveat: AI isn’t going to pick your deals for you.

It won’t tell you whether that street in Manchester is about to turn into a building site for the next two years. It won’t walk into a viewing and notice the subtle crack in the ceiling or the weird smell coming from the basement.

What it can do is kill the friction in the bits of investing most people quietly avoid:

• The detailed deal analysis

• The boring document reading

• The postcode comparisons

• The awkward emails

And that’s where your edge is.

Most investors still operate on rule of thumb and gut feel. They’ll look at one or two numbers, if that, and go with whatever feels right.

If you’re using AI to run more scenarios, check more data sources, and communicate more clearly, you’re simply playing a different game.

Same market. Same Rightmove listings. Same interest rate environment.

Different tools.

A simple challenge for this week

So here’s my ask, if you’ve read this far:

Before next Thursday, pick one AI workflow to test on a real deal.

Not in theory. Not as “something I’ll look at when I have more time”. On an actual property you’re considering, or one you already own.

It could be:

• Running a quick stress-test on your current mortgage vs today’s rates

• Summarising your lease or management pack to find any hidden costs

• Comparing yields across five postcodes you’re genuinely torn between

If the UK government can use AI to speed up one of the slowest systems in the country, you can absolutely use it to shave risk and add a bit more ROI to your next investment.

And if you want, hit reply and tell me which workflow you tried – I’m genuinely curious which ones feel most useful in the real world, not just in newsletter land.

What’s the one part of your property investing that feels most tedious right now – deal analysis, paperwork, or tenant comms?