A 24-year-old member of Ottawa’s Bassi family has developed a digital platform called Asset Avenue that pulls together scattered municipal planning data to help people evaluate development sites and multi-family real estate deals.
Anthony Bassi, who works with his family’s construction and development business founded in 1963, said the idea grew out of frustration with how difficult it is to find information that is technically public but spread across zoning maps, planning documents and city databases. He initially built the tool internally to track Ottawa’s development pipeline, monitor proposed housing units in different neighbourhoods and assess potential investments.
“It’s all public data that I’ve kind of just put into a certain way for others to understand more clearly,” Bassi told the Ottawa Business Journal. “We use this as a kind of backstop and see, as a benchmark, do these deals make sense?”
How the Platform Works
Asset Avenue has three main parts. A development tracker places municipal planning applications on a map, showing details such as building height, unit counts and application status. Bassi said the City of Ottawa already publishes this information, but it is hard to navigate because it is split across application pages, PDF files and geographic information system layers that many users struggle to interpret.
A lot analysis tool gives a preliminary read on what could be built on a specific property, based on zoning, permitted uses and other variables. Bassi described one case where a person hoping to replace a house with a small multi-unit building used the tool and, within minutes, learned the site could likely support six units rather than the 10 he had anticipated. Bassi noted the tool’s results do not amount to municipal approval or professional planning advice.
The third component, called the Deal Room, adds financial analysis for multi-family listings, using asking prices, estimated rents, expenses and Canadian interest rate data. Users can review metrics such as capitalization rates and debt-service coverage and adjust assumptions for their own financing scenarios. Bassi said the tool draws on data from the Bank of Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Statistics Canada and municipal zoning bylaws, and is built specifically around Canadian figures rather than the U.S.-focused tools common in the property analysis space.
Built With AI, But Not for the Math
Bassi said he built Asset Avenue himself, relying on artificial intelligence to help write and refine the underlying software, including adjustments needed to display large volumes of proposed developments without slowing down mobile devices. He drew a distinction, however, between using AI in the coding process and using it to generate financial outputs.
“We don’t use AI to do the math,” Bassi said. “It’s all code. Everything you’re getting isn’t a hallucination or maybe it’s going to change depending on when you ask it. It’s the number it is.”
He also cautioned that listing information on the platform may be based on estimates, and that Asset Avenue does not act as a lender, brokerage or financial adviser. “This is a showcase tool only,” he said. “This is not financial advice.”
Expansion Beyond Ottawa
Bassi said most users so far are individuals rather than large real estate firms. The platform currently operates in Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary, reflecting the time Bassi has had to connect the tool to each city’s respective databases.
“The biggest shock for me was, ‘Wow, this is all public data. I didn’t know Ottawa had this,'” he said. “Anyone is allowed to go see this. It’s just unfortunately not shown in an attractive way.”
Asset Avenue currently offers free access to most features, alongside a paid plan for expanded underwriting, lot analysis and data exports. Bassi said he is weighing future monetization options such as advertising, memberships or fees for more detailed analysis as the platform continues to grow, suggesting any such fee would likely take the form of a modest monthly membership.
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