First State
Design

Design · Development

Everything by design. Research · Automation · AI Tooling

Practice

The consulting practice of Joseph Holmes. Research, automation, and AI tooling for affordable housing and real estate development.

The work is compounded across four backgrounds: urban planner, land and property developer, Army cryptologic linguist, software engineer. Programs covered include HUD, LIHTC, USDA Rural Development, and state Housing Finance Agencies.

Engagements are deliberately small and specific. The output is a thing that runs, a memo that decides, or a model that holds up under audit. Selected work ›

Three practice areas, one operator.

01

Research

QAP scoring, market analysis, due-diligence frameworks, and regulatory and program research across HUD, LIHTC, USDA, and state HFAs.

02

Automation

Document classification, OCR and extraction systems, and monitoring agents for repeated manual work that should not be done by hand.

03

AI Tooling

Agents and toolkits for development teams: site evaluation, narrative analysis, financial proformas, application assembly, asset management.

Talk soon.

Most engagements begin with a 30-minute call to scope the question. Replies arrive within one business day. Open the contact page ›