Data Science  ·  Real Estate

I talk about tech, real estate, finance, and immigration.

Thirteen years in data science and AI. Seven years investing in real estate. A twelve-unit portfolio across four markets, built alongside a career at Meta, Amazon, Uber and Realtor.com.

I spent four years inside the data infrastructure of the largest housing marketplace in the United States. Now I use the same toolkit on my own balance sheet, and I write about what the numbers actually say.

Saurabh Kurjekar in San Francisco
13
Years in
data science & AI
12
Units owned
across 4 markets
7
Years investing
in Real Estate
200+
Experiments shipped
on housing search

About

A quant who owns the rent roll

There are a great many real estate investors who have never built a model, and a great many data scientists who have never signed a lease. I sit in the narrow overlap, and it shapes everything about how I operate.

For nearly four years I led data science for the mobile experience at Realtor.com, running more than two hundred experiments on how Americans actually search for a place to live. That work gave me an unusually direct view of housing demand — not the version in the headlines, but the version in the clickstream.

I now build LLM and machine learning systems at Meta, after doing the same at Amazon on fulfillment network design, at Uber on a $100M fleet incentive program, and at Ola where I established the analytics function for one of India's largest ride-hailing markets.

Alongside all of it I've been buying and operating residential property since 2019 — long-term rentals in Ohio and Florida, a short-term rental in the Yosemite gateway, and residential holdings in India. Every acquisition goes through the same discipline I'd apply to a production model: price the risk deliberately, underwrite on evidence rather than narrative, and stress-test before you bid.

I partner with operators and allocators who value data, transparency, and a long time horizon.

Method

How every deal gets evaluated

The same quantitative discipline I use to ship production machine learning, translated into underwriting.

i.
Market selection
Submarket scoring across rent growth, vacancy, the supply pipeline, and job diversification — drawn from Census permits, Zillow rent indices, and BLS employment data. The aim is to enter a cycle early rather than follow consensus into it.
ii.
Deal underwriting
Probabilistic cash-flow modeling with explicit sensitivity on rents, CapEx, financing, and exit. Every deal is stress-tested by simulation before a number goes on paper — including the scenarios I'd rather not think about.
iii.
Operating edge
Ongoing performance tracking against the original underwriting, data-driven pricing for the short-term rental, and CapEx sequenced by return rather than urgency. Most of the compounding happens after the close.

Portfolio

Four markets, one framework

A diversified footprint across US cash-flow markets, a destination short-term rental, and international exposure — each selected through the same underwriting discipline. Markets are named; specific addresses are not, out of respect for tenant privacy.

Cleveland, Ohio multifamily property
Market I
Cleveland
Ohio · Midwest
TypeMultifamily
StrategyLong-term rental
ThesisCash flow · Value-add
Mariposa, California short-term rental near Yosemite
Market II
Mariposa
California · Yosemite gateway
TypeSingle-family
StrategyShort-term rental
ThesisDestination yield
Miami, Florida multifamily property
Market III
Miami
Florida · Southeast
TypeMultifamily
StrategyLong-term rental
ThesisGrowth market · Income
Residential district in India
Market IV
India
International · Appreciation-led
Holdings3 apartments
2 land parcels
StrategyAppreciation
ThesisFX · Growth hedge

Track record

Thirteen years of applied data science

2026 — present
MetaSenior Data Scientist
Menlo Park, CA
2025 — 2026
AmazonSenior Data Scientist, L6 — LLM systems for fulfillment center design; network flow prediction at scale
Seattle, WA
2021 — 2025
Realtor.comStaff Data Scientist — led DS for the mobile experience; 200+ experiments; built an LLM-powered natural-language data tool recognised by the CTO
San Francisco Bay Area
2019 — 2021
UberData Scientist — ran a $7M/month fleet incentives budget across 600+ US markets; $100M+ deployed; +8% weekly active fleet
San Francisco, CA
2018 — 2019
ExperianData Scientist
Indianapolis, IN
2016 — 2017
OlaSenior Data Scientist — established the analytics division for the company's 7th largest city by revenue; behavioural pricing work saving ~₹4.8M monthly
Pune, India
2013 — 2016
Mu SigmaData Scientist — retail and CPG analytics for The Home Depot and Kimberly-Clark
Bangalore, India
2017 — 2018
Purdue UniversityMS, Business Analytics
West Lafayette, IN
2009 — 2013
VNIT NagpurB.Tech, Civil Engineering
Nagpur, India

Contact

Applying the discipline of machine learning directly to the balance sheet.

For tech
Talk shop, or speak
Happy to talk about applied ML, experimentation at consumer scale, LLM tooling for data teams, or the data side of proptech. Available for podcasts, panels, and guest lectures.
For real estate
Partner on a deal
I work with operators, co-investors, and allocators in residential — long-term rental cash flow markets and destination short-term rentals. If you underwrite on evidence and think in decades, we'll get along.
Prefer to text? (415) 754-8756