How AI in Real Estate Investing Is Changing the Industry
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way investors analyze, acquire, and manage real estate. In this episode of Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing, Alex Blackwood shares how AI in real estate investing is helping modern investors identify opportunities, streamline operations, and scale portfolios faster than ever before.
For wealthy professionals and entrepreneurs looking to diversify into real estate, AI driven platforms are beginning to remove many of the traditional barriers that once made property investing complex and time consuming. From automated deal analysis to smarter rental strategies, artificial intelligence is reshaping how investors approach property ownership and long term wealth creation.
Why AI Is Becoming Essential for Modern Real Estate Investors
The real estate industry has historically relied on manual analysis, spreadsheets, and fragmented data sources. According to Alex Blackwood, the integration of AI tools is beginning to change that process dramatically.
AI powered systems can now analyze massive amounts of real estate data in seconds, helping investors identify promising markets, evaluate properties, and forecast potential performance. Instead of relying solely on intuition or limited market knowledge, investors can leverage data driven insights to make more informed decisions.
For investors pursuing multifamily or residential rental properties, this technological shift can mean faster deal evaluation and improved confidence when allocating capital.
AI Driven Property Selection and Market Analysis
One of the most powerful applications of AI in real estate investing is the ability to quickly analyze markets and identify properties with strong potential returns. AI models can review variables such as rental demand, employment trends, population growth, housing supply, and historical price performance.
These systems can highlight opportunities that may otherwise be overlooked by traditional analysis methods. For example, AI can identify emerging neighborhoods or housing strategies where rental demand is rising but institutional investors have not yet entered the market.
This type of predictive analysis allows investors to move earlier in the market cycle and potentially capture greater long term upside.
AI Powered Rental Strategies That Increase Cash Flow
Another area where AI is influencing real estate investing is in rental optimization. Alex discusses how advanced analytics and automation can help determine the most profitable way to operate rental properties.
Examples include
Identifying optimal pricing strategies for rentals
Analyzing demand for shared housing models
Monitoring occupancy trends and tenant behavior
These insights allow investors and operators to adjust pricing, improve occupancy, and increase cash flow while reducing guesswork.
Technology Is Lowering Barriers to Real Estate Investing
AI is also playing a role in making real estate more accessible to investors who previously lacked the time or expertise to manage properties directly. Through technology driven platforms, investors can access deals, review property data, and monitor performance in a much more streamlined way.
For busy professionals, this means the ability to participate in real estate investments while maintaining their primary careers or businesses. AI helps simplify decision making and provides clearer visibility into how properties are performing.
As these tools continue to evolve, AI in real estate investing is expected to play an increasingly important role in how investors evaluate opportunities and scale their portfolios.
About Alex Blackwood
Alex Blackwood is the CEO and co founder of a technology driven real estate investment platform designed to modernize property ownership. With a background in investment banking and real estate private equity at Goldman Sachs, Alex combines institutional real estate experience with innovative technology solutions. His work focuses on using data and emerging technologies such as AI to make real estate investing more efficient, accessible, and scalable.
If you want to hear the full conversation and detailed insights, watch the podcast video or read the complete transcript below.
AI in Real Estate Investing FAQ
What is AI in real estate investing?
AI in real estate investing refers to the use of artificial intelligence technologies to analyze property data, identify investment opportunities, and improve decision making. Investors use AI tools to process large amounts of market information such as rental demand, pricing trends, demographic shifts, and property performance. By automating complex analysis, AI helps investors evaluate deals faster and make more data driven investment decisions. As the technology evolves, AI is becoming an increasingly valuable tool for both individual investors and large real estate firms.
How is AI used in real estate investing today?
AI in real estate investing is used in several ways including property analysis, market forecasting, tenant screening, and portfolio management. AI powered platforms can quickly analyze thousands of potential properties and highlight those that meet specific investment criteria. Investors also use AI tools to predict rent growth, identify emerging markets, and optimize pricing strategies. These capabilities allow investors to reduce manual research and focus on high quality investment opportunities.
Can AI help investors find better real estate deals?
Yes, AI can help investors find better real estate deals by analyzing massive datasets that would be difficult for a person to process manually. AI systems can evaluate historical property values, rental trends, population growth, job markets, and housing supply to identify areas with strong investment potential. By uncovering patterns and trends, AI can reveal opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. This can give investors a competitive advantage when searching for profitable real estate investments.
How does AI improve property analysis for investors?
AI improves property analysis by automating complex financial modeling and market comparisons. Investors can use AI tools to evaluate cash flow projections, cap rates, occupancy trends, and renovation potential in seconds. These systems can also compare properties across multiple markets and identify the most attractive opportunities based on predefined investment goals. This level of automation allows investors to analyze more deals in less time while reducing the risk of overlooking key factors.
Can AI help with property management in real estate investing?
AI is increasingly being used to improve property management and operational efficiency. AI powered systems can automate tenant communication, maintenance scheduling, rent pricing adjustments, and vacancy forecasting. Some platforms even use predictive analytics to identify potential maintenance issues before they become expensive repairs. By improving operational efficiency, AI helps property owners increase profitability and provide a better experience for tenants.
Is AI in real estate investing only for large companies?
AI in real estate investing is no longer limited to large institutional firms. Many technology platforms now provide AI powered analytics and tools that individual investors can access. These platforms allow smaller investors to analyze markets, evaluate properties, and track portfolio performance using advanced data insights. As AI technology becomes more widely available, it is helping level the playing field between individual investors and large real estate organizations.
What are the benefits of using AI in real estate investing?
Using AI in real estate investing offers several advantages including faster deal analysis, improved market insights, and more efficient property management. AI tools can help investors identify profitable opportunities, forecast market trends, and optimize rental income strategies. By relying on data driven insights rather than guesswork, investors can reduce risk and improve long term investment performance. Many investors view AI as a powerful tool for scaling their real estate portfolios more efficiently.
Will AI replace real estate investors?
AI is unlikely to replace real estate investors but it is becoming a powerful tool that supports better decision making. Successful real estate investing still requires human judgment, negotiation skills, market knowledge, and strategic thinking. AI works best as a tool that enhances an investor’s ability to analyze opportunities and manage properties more efficiently. Investors who learn to combine their experience with AI powered insights may gain a strong advantage in the evolving real estate market.
Disclaimer: This summary was written with the help of AI and reviewed by Rod’s Team.
01:20:08:02 – 01:20:30:04
Rod Khleif
Welcome back to life time cash flow through real estate investing. I’m Rod Khleif and I’m thrilled you’re here. And we are going to have a fascinating conversation today. I’ve got the CEO of Mobile here. We have mobile. That’s cool. Name. Name is Alex Blackwood and they are doing some really cool stuff with commercial real estate investing where they basically said, you know what, I don’t want to stay with them.
01:20:30:04 – 01:20:31:25
Rod Khleif
Let you describe how you doing?
01:20:31:27 – 01:20:33:00
Alex Blackwood
Doing all right. Thanks so much.
01:20:33:00 – 01:20:44:19
Rod Khleif
For having me. Absolutely. So why don’t you, you kind of give us some brief background on you, on yourself, and then why mobile? And then what you do about what it does and all that,
01:20:44:22 – 01:21:13:14
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I’m happy to give kind of the origin story, so to speak, SparkNotes version. But yeah, I mean, coming out of school went to Goldman Sachs. I worked in investment banking and then real estate, private equity. And before I started the real estate, private equity, I got my opportunity to purchase my first home. And I realized that along the way, there were so many efficiency, inefficiencies and manual and archaic processes that I said, there’s got to be a better way to invest in real estate.
01:21:13:17 – 01:21:35:19
Alex Blackwood
And I looked around at the platforms that were around today and realized that there really wasn’t any that allowed for the returns that we were getting during our time at Goldman. And so the idea being that I decided to build out my own with my co-founder. And so today people can go to Mogul Doc Club, go on, invest whatever amount of money they want to in high quality single family rentals.
01:21:35:21 – 01:21:55:18
Alex Blackwood
Think of it as almost buying, stock in a home and you get cash flow on a monthly basis from rental income. You get the, appreciation impact as well as the tax benefits at your end. So hopefully your yield stays your yield. And I actually be a passive loss for income reporting purposes. So that’s high level. What we’re building over here at Mobile.
01:21:55:20 – 01:22:19:11
Rod Khleif
Wow. So you’ve set up this investment club and I understand you invest in like for plexus. And, and your model. Correct me if I’m wrong. Is your you’re also doing, short term rentals. You’re doing, you said pod split where people are sharing like, and, workforce housing they’ll throw for workers in a, in a, in a place.
01:22:19:11 – 01:22:27:21
Rod Khleif
And you, of course, you get higher rent. And it’s very often a corporate, tenant. And are we together on what I’m saying here? Yeah.
01:22:27:21 – 01:22:41:00
Alex Blackwood
So pad split and typically it’s eight bed, three bath, roughly. So each individual room is actually rented by the tenant. Got you, 12 week minimum lease time. Gotcha. So typical is around nine months. They stay.
01:22:41:00 – 01:23:05:05
Rod Khleif
In place. Fantastic. Yeah. My daughter just bought a triplex in Tampa, and she literally has her top two bedrooms, in her top unit, rented separately, just like that. And it’s a whole lot more money than, you know, in a long term rental. And so I just want to understand the structure so you, you’re able to do this without, you know, massive SEC scrutiny because you have a club.
01:23:05:05 – 01:23:10:14
Rod Khleif
It’s an investment club. Correct. Could you describe it a little better than I just did? Yeah.
01:23:10:16 – 01:23:20:09
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. I mean, so the SEC basically came up with the classification of investment that if you and I were to invest in a single family rental property.
01:23:20:12 – 01:23:20:29
Rod Khleif
Or any real.
01:23:20:29 – 01:23:33:01
Alex Blackwood
Estate or any real estate, yeah, I’ll clear any real estate is, then as long as we have governance rights over the operation of that asset, it is technically active management of the asset.
01:23:33:01 – 01:23:34:21
Rod Khleif
So it’s more of a joint venture. Really?
01:23:34:26 – 01:23:57:27
Alex Blackwood
Almost. Yeah. Okay. But the idea being that we basically set in place a CapEx threshold, meaning anything below $1,000, we don’t bother you. It’s similar to how the property manager would take care of it for a leaky faucet. But if the Hvac bursts and it’s 6 or 7 K, they’ll come to us with quotes and, this or that type of does.
01:23:57:27 – 01:23:59:12
Rod Khleif
The club vote on it at that point?
01:23:59:12 – 01:23:59:27
Alex Blackwood
Exactly.
01:23:59:27 – 01:24:17:16
Rod Khleif
Right. And that makes them active. Yes. You guys, you’ve heard me talk about this, I teach this. I literally just taught this yesterday at my boot camp. I had a virtual boot camp here for two days. And it’s where I’m a little tired today. But if you if if you’re participants in a in a venture are active, it’s you don’t have to syndicate.
01:24:17:23 – 01:24:35:07
Rod Khleif
Okay. If you’re raise if you take money from someone and just give them a return and they don’t have active involvement, you absolutely need to do a 5 or 6 B or 5 or 6 three or something. You know, where you’re actually doing a syndication. And I remember in my 20s, I bought millions of dollars with the property, 5050 with partners.
01:24:35:09 – 01:24:51:14
Rod Khleif
I mean, I did all the work, I found the properties, I fixed them up, I rented, I manage them, but if I spent more than a certain amount of money like you just described, I had to get their approval. And very often they signed on the debt, which absolutely made them active and so, so that’s why you can do this quite easily.
01:24:51:14 – 01:25:02:03
Rod Khleif
Yeah. Makes sense. And so, you’re, you’re, you’re and you’re acquiring properties or houses in different markets, what’s, what markets do you like? Let’s talk about that.
01:25:02:05 – 01:25:21:19
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. I mean, markets that we like, it really depends on the operating model. For us. We typically focus if it’s the workforce housing. We’ll focus in Phoenix and Arizona okay. Great workforce housing population out there. Atlanta is a great one there. And some Houston markets too for pads split. Now outside of that we do focus on short term rental.
01:25:21:19 – 01:25:33:00
Alex Blackwood
We actually just bought our first property in Largo, Florida, as a short term rental. There. The road. Yeah. Exactly. Right. We have a few out of Dollywood and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Wow. Which is pretty good. Those things are cash.
01:25:33:06 – 01:25:49:26
Rod Khleif
And that’s short term. This is short term. Short term. You know, I’ve got I’ve got, you know, coaching program out there. Call my warriors. And I have students that do mid term as well like nurses you know traveling nurses things like that. Are you is that resonate at all. Is that something part of. Yeah. So ecosystem or.
01:25:49:27 – 01:25:54:01
Alex Blackwood
That would be the pads. But not only the pads. It’s got 12 week minimum lease on it.
01:25:54:01 – 01:26:12:17
Rod Khleif
Yeah okay. It’s the same thing okay. Very cool. And I and so in your reach local market, you know, depending upon the, the business model, depending upon if it’s workforce housing or if it’s short term rental, then you have a management company that that specializes in that sort of thing I guess.
01:26:12:20 – 01:26:36:12
Alex Blackwood
Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Boots on the ground. Property managers. Right. Yeah. That we and so that’s the benefit of the platform is we’ve been able to negotiate wholesale discounts across the entire vendor ecosystem. So think about property management. We’re getting discounted short term rental typically because it would charge you 25 to 35%. We get 10 to 12%. Okay. Pad split similar situation around 10% management fees there.
01:26:36:12 – 01:26:51:13
Alex Blackwood
And these things are yielding the same, if not greater than a short term rental would be. And so we negotiate those. It could be on the lending part of the cap stack. It could be on the property manager. It could be on different factors throughout the entire property.
01:26:51:13 – 01:26:54:12
Rod Khleif
You’ve been able to go at discounts on the lending front. Yeah.
01:26:54:12 – 01:27:03:16
Alex Blackwood
So we get right now we’re getting 5.99% interest, only ten year fixed interest only with a 20 to 30 year award period on the back end of it.
01:27:03:18 – 01:27:13:00
Rod Khleif
Wow. Yeah, that’s really bad. Yeah. Holy crap. Yeah. No. So with a local or a regional bank or something, or was sort of a lending, partner, is that so?
01:27:13:00 – 01:27:16:12
Alex Blackwood
We have several kind of private lenders that we work with in our network. Okay.
01:27:16:12 – 01:27:44:04
Rod Khleif
Yeah. All right. Very cool people with people with a big wallet. Okay. Like a private family office or something. Okay. So, so you’re in these multiple states based on, what? You know, obviously, your demographic research to determine what the best business model for that market is, and you hire a local management company, and then, and you get debt on these properties, like you just said, which maximizes returns, obviously, with that kind of debt, that’s very low cost debt.
01:27:44:04 – 01:27:54:22
Rod Khleif
And so talk about the club itself. So if someone wants to invest, what’s the minimum investment, what’s the average investment and what can they expect.
01:27:54:25 – 01:28:11:25
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. So I mean the infrastructure is pretty simple. They would just go to our website at mobile Dot club. And the idea being that they could log on, invest whatever they want to. We have minimums that are incredibly low that anyone gets out of that at 250. However, I would say the average check size is closer to kind of the 15 to 20 K range.
01:28:11:25 – 01:28:33:12
Alex Blackwood
Okay, the idea being when we started out, we were going to be the Robin Hood for real estate, but then our returns started attracting high net worths as well as retail investors. That would come on board for much, bigger chunks, so to speak. And so, yeah, and again, to your point, it’s really setting up the ecosystem around high risk adjusted returns.
01:28:33:12 – 01:28:38:28
Alex Blackwood
And so looking at things as a rental price dislocation, we look at the markets that have net new.
01:28:38:28 – 01:28:54:06
Rod Khleif
So hold on hold on slow down. So what he just said was you know if you can rent a place for you know, $1,500 a month and you can buy a place for $1,500 a month, you got a problem because people will buy instead of rent is correct. That’s the disparity you just described.
01:28:54:09 – 01:29:20:14
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, I would say it’s definitely like the cash flow, dislocation to. So rents, rents are a greater percentage of price than in other places or other markets throughout the country. So the idea being that that’s why the secondary markets and I use the term secondary is kind of the commercial real estate definition. The Sunbelt for instance. And so we look at on the horizon the net new supply that’s coming online versus the demand absorption.
01:29:20:14 – 01:29:21:27
Rod Khleif
Yeah okay. Yeah. Okay.
01:29:21:29 – 01:29:27:09
Alex Blackwood
So we we take into account all of that and really hone in on a market thesis before we dive in.
01:29:27:13 – 01:29:27:24
Rod Khleif
Right.
01:29:27:24 – 01:29:37:09
Alex Blackwood
And then from there is when we get inventory partners that are bringing us things 30, 60, 90 days before they’d even hit the open market in a lot of cases.
01:29:37:12 – 01:29:42:09
Rod Khleif
So you got you’ve got a mechanism for finding deals, maybe wholesalers or whatever, bringing your deals.
01:29:42:12 – 01:29:47:23
Alex Blackwood
So think of it as inventory partners that have two parts of the same house, so to speak.
01:29:47:23 – 01:29:50:14
Rod Khleif
So an example of what you mean by an inventory partner.
01:29:50:17 – 01:30:08:00
Alex Blackwood
So think of a property manager that also has an investor broker arm. And so they know the operating assets in a market. They’ll come to us say listen I’ve got this great asset that I think you’d be interested in. It’s off market. And we say, all right, because you’re getting kind of full freight getting paid by the seller at the closing table.
01:30:08:00 – 01:30:16:28
Alex Blackwood
Being our broker, you’re going to sign on for discounted property management fees. Okay. And so we work with local vendors to have basically ear to the ground in these target markets.
01:30:16:29 – 01:30:45:13
Rod Khleif
Okay. So the person that sold you the property may be managing it after you pick it up is what you’re saying exactly. Yeah. Okay. And then so someone invests $1,000, $10,000, and, and if you have a high, CapEx need or repair need, they need to vote on approval to do that, which, of course, if they didn’t, they’d be morons.
01:30:45:17 – 01:31:01:24
Rod Khleif
So that’s an easy vote. But you got it. But that makes them active. Then, you know, I assume you have some sort of a reporting infrastructure, or do they just go on your website, or do you send out reports or how does that work? Is it similar, like in our commercial real estate world, we send out a, you know, an update on what’s happening every 30 days.
01:31:01:24 – 01:31:05:02
Rod Khleif
And, you know, people kind of love those. Yeah, do something similar.
01:31:05:03 – 01:31:16:16
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. So we actually have so I mean, number one, they get dividends monthly and get reports almost like a memo statement on each individual property. What’s been performing well, what’s has needs improvement.
01:31:16:16 – 01:31:29:27
Rod Khleif
And so now let me stop you there. So if someone puts in, say $10,000, could that be do you decide where it gets allocated. Number one. And number two let’s say does it get just to one property or could it be split.
01:31:29:29 – 01:31:49:20
Alex Blackwood
So that’s the beauty. They choose the assets okay. But I will say we do a great job of the deed beforehand and due diligence. Yeah. And so personally I’m invested in every single asset that we have on our platform. I’m typically the first, if not second check in along with my co-founder. We kind of jockey for that pole position.
01:31:49:23 – 01:32:01:08
Alex Blackwood
And the idea around the CapEx that you mentioned earlier is our goal is when we initially capitalize an asset is to never call another dollar in the door beyond that. And so, yeah, so I mean, so.
01:32:01:08 – 01:32:19:21
Rod Khleif
So if if the Hvac is got any, any hair on it, you replace it going in. If it needs a roof, even, even within a, you know, a few years you replace it going in and you try to minimize the plumbing needs some work. You go in there and redo it so you minimize ongoing repairs and maintenance costs.
01:32:19:21 – 01:32:21:01
Rod Khleif
Is that somewhat okay.
01:32:21:01 – 01:32:46:05
Alex Blackwood
So we take inventory of the asset. We obviously negotiate some pretty incredible especially in today’s market some pretty incredible either closing cost credits back to us or repairs before closing. And then we capitalize adequate reserves on vacancy and maintenance. And so these assets typically have between 9 to 12 months of complete runway for vacancy before we’d ever have to call on another dollar.
01:32:46:05 – 01:32:48:27
Rod Khleif
That this is in reserves in case the you know what hits the fan.
01:32:49:01 – 01:33:17:00
Alex Blackwood
Exactly. Right. Okay. Yep. And then the idea being in the event of worst case scenario that we need a maintenance reserve, we also have that now we also take out two forms of insurance. Number one typical property insurance. But number two landlord insurance. So we actually get paid the market rent value for our asset. Short term rental and pad split rental that if for whatever reason an asset is taken offline, we get paid the market rent value from the insurance provider.
01:33:17:02 – 01:33:25:08
Rod Khleif
Well, most insurance companies are. You mean taken offline? What does that mean taking? I mean, if you have a fire, they’re going to cover your rent the entire time. Is this is something different?
01:33:25:10 – 01:33:29:00
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. So think of, hurricane barrel came through Houston, Texas.
01:33:29:00 – 01:33:30:18
Rod Khleif
Okay. So damaged.
01:33:30:20 – 01:33:37:21
Alex Blackwood
So that’s the thing. It was it was it taken offline because the broader area around Houston was taken offline due to hurricane barrel.
01:33:37:21 – 01:33:40:05
Rod Khleif
Oh, you mean the website was taken offline?
01:33:40:08 – 01:33:41:05
Alex Blackwood
No. The house.
01:33:41:08 – 01:33:41:25
Rod Khleif
The house.
01:33:42:02 – 01:33:45:00
Alex Blackwood
So that house was taken offline during hurricane.
01:33:45:00 – 01:33:48:21
Rod Khleif
Well, what is your definition of offline? Forgive me, I just want. Yeah. Yeah, of course I’m tracking you.
01:33:48:21 – 01:33:51:24
Alex Blackwood
So it couldn’t be rented out right by Hurricane Barrel.
01:33:51:24 – 01:33:52:26
Rod Khleif
For any reason. Yeah.
01:33:52:26 – 01:33:56:00
Alex Blackwood
So that typically triggers our landlord insurance.
01:33:56:01 – 01:34:03:01
Rod Khleif
Okay. So what you’re saying is if there’s a hurricane coming, even if it hasn’t hit yet, you’re offline because you can’t rent it at that point.
01:34:03:03 – 01:34:20:05
Alex Blackwood
Not that, but if it comes through. So for instance, let’s walk through the hurricane barrel example. So hurricane barrel came through our fence wasn’t actually really it didn’t incur a tremendous amount of costs, $50 repair. It was 20 degrees off kilter. Now, when the idea being that.
01:34:20:09 – 01:34:23:03
Rod Khleif
Sorry, I’m sorry, what what was 20 degrees off kilter?
01:34:23:03 – 01:34:24:09
Alex Blackwood
Just our fence.
01:34:24:11 – 01:34:24:29
Rod Khleif
Your fence?
01:34:24:29 – 01:34:47:19
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, I’ve got it. Yeah. So. But because that mixed with the fact that the hurricane took utilities offline, like electricity or WiFi around there, it actually triggered landlord insurance, which even though it sat vacant for a period of three weeks. During that time, we got paid a 1.22% monthly cash on cash yield to an investors net of debt service, net of everything.
01:34:47:19 – 01:34:59:14
Alex Blackwood
So 14% went annualized. So we taken into account full risk mitigation mode before we even enter the asset, and we do the full diligence around it prior to it even launching.
01:34:59:20 – 01:35:20:09
Rod Khleif
Interesting. Now it’s interesting. You raising a good bit of extra money. But you know, obviously which impacts returns, but if you’re still getting decent returns that you’re in a safer, more conservative place. Okay. So let’s talk about how you’re implementing. I, we started chatting about that before we got going because we’re all so freaking excited, coming about out of our skin with what the potential is.
01:35:20:09 – 01:35:26:24
Rod Khleif
Talk about what you’ve implemented and what’s on the, you know, the drawing table to implement.
01:35:26:26 – 01:35:53:24
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, I mean, I think the way that AI has impacted real estate, everyone’s first thought is immediately around the acquisition opportunity. And I’m not talking about the underwriting itself. I’m talking about identifying an investment, however, because finding the deals. Exactly. And so because the data, in my opinion, isn’t fully there yet, whether it be lack of data and transparency around it, gatekeepers holding up on the MLS, for instance.
01:35:53:26 – 01:36:17:24
Alex Blackwood
Or the third reason being a lot of these transactions might even happen outside of your traditional pipelines. And so the idea being that what I think I can really help with, at least today, is the workflow. And so if you think about a typical transaction deal, and so we split up the kind of supply chain of real estate between obviously acquisition to the actual closing itself.
01:36:17:24 – 01:36:33:25
Alex Blackwood
So purchase agreement to close. And then beyond that on the property management front now purchase agreement to close. It’s a nightmare. I mean currently the idea being that there are countless vendors that you’re interfacing with, that really it’s just a data flow problem.
01:36:34:01 – 01:36:57:12
Rod Khleif
Let me let me elaborate on that, because I’m dealing with it right now. My son is buying a house and I’m helping him. And so we’ve had the inspectors, we’ve had the appraisal, we’ve had the insurance company, you know, dealing. It’s a brand new place. They’re dealing with the builder and the contract and the the disclosures around the contract and all these different pieces that are very intimidating to an average investor or buyer.
01:36:57:14 – 01:36:59:19
Rod Khleif
So, so elaborate on that.
01:36:59:21 – 01:37:21:22
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. So, I mean, really it is just a data flow problem. And the idea being that purchase agreement that gets uploaded, that’s your one source of true data for that transaction, at least initially, because you upload it. And again, real estate operates in PDF format. It operates an email, it operates and phone calls and text messages. It’s really not a standard flow by any means.
01:37:21:24 – 01:37:39:06
Alex Blackwood
And so what I can do is you feed it in the information. So the PDF around the purchase agreement, it passes out all the data related to that purchase agreement. And it knows right away. All right. I’ve got to send an EMD to this person and it verifies you. And we obviously have human in the loop the entire package.
01:37:39:08 – 01:37:44:18
Alex Blackwood
And we are value add throughout the entire transaction pipeline, let’s say inspection report.
01:37:44:20 – 01:37:46:21
Rod Khleif
Oh but there deadlines that it can track.
01:37:46:27 – 01:37:47:12
Alex Blackwood
Exactly.
01:37:47:15 – 01:37:52:17
Rod Khleif
Actions have to be done by certain day. You know all these due diligence pieces. It’s tracking all that.
01:37:52:17 – 01:38:10:09
Alex Blackwood
So it it not only tracks it but it make sure you hit it. So yeah, it’ll coordinate the inspector arriving. And then when the inspector is done it’ll pay the inspector. And then on top of that, it will actually take the inspection report, parse out everything list. These are the major. These are the.
01:38:10:09 – 01:38:10:26
Rod Khleif
Issues.
01:38:10:26 – 01:38:16:10
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, these are the issues. And then it’ll actually price out both local and nationally the.
01:38:16:11 – 01:38:20:05
Rod Khleif
Vendors to fix it. Yeah. Holy shit. That’s cool. Yeah.
01:38:20:07 – 01:38:38:05
Alex Blackwood
So we want to take basically the transaction management side. That’s what I think is going to be truly revolutionary. We are cutting down the amount of time on a transaction from 20 hours per person, per property, to about 30 minutes to an hour max.
01:38:38:08 – 01:38:54:04
Rod Khleif
Oh that’s that’s a that’s an awesome efficiency. And we’re doing the same thing right now with our marketing and everything else. Or in the midst of this, my the guy leading that is is sleepless because he can’t he because he’s so excited about now he’s got us all excited about it and it’s really, really cool. So okay.
01:38:54:04 – 01:39:10:25
Rod Khleif
And and what about on the property management side or really the asset management since you’ve got property managers? You know, I, I’m certain that there’s some you know, I component there as a relates to KPIs and things of that nature. Any any thoughts on that. Or you just focused on the pre acquisition front right now.
01:39:11:00 – 01:39:33:01
Alex Blackwood
So the pre acquisition front was kind of my focus over the last little bit. However the next step and what we’ve started iterating on is that property management side. So much like you my team I mean I think it’s it’s my enthusiasm for it and pushing through hell or high water to get everyone adopting the AI first mentality.
01:39:33:04 – 01:39:50:17
Alex Blackwood
And so I’ve basically done lunch and learned with our team we’re doing little things where I say, identify one problem. Let’s sit down. I don’t care if it’s a Saturday or Sunday, let’s sit down for five hours and figure out a work stream to set up AI. And that way they can start disseminating throughout the organization and so on.
01:39:50:17 – 01:40:13:08
Alex Blackwood
The property management front, again, it’s just a data flow problem and coordination efforts. And so feeding in things like every single property manager, the systems are disparate. But at the end of the day, they give us a whether it be the actual property management income statement. They give us the, vendor reports that came out of it. They give us all those different the.
01:40:13:09 – 01:40:17:18
Rod Khleif
Exception reports, anomalies, anything unusual, all of that’s got to come from them.
01:40:17:18 – 01:40:39:08
Alex Blackwood
Yes, exactly. And so we basically pull all that information in and then coordinate the efforts accordingly. So we’ll have monitors that set up okay. On this short term rental. It’s rented out at 30% next month, which means it needs to hit 60% to cash flow at X or Y. So coordinate with that property manager a potential fix, whether it be repricing it on a strategy.
01:40:39:10 – 01:40:53:14
Rod Khleif
Or another, another platform, whatever. Whatever you got to do, okay. Love it, love it. So talk. Tell me about your team. So what sort of a team have you put together? I looked at your website. I saw some smiling faces, but I’m just. You know what? What pieces do you have in your team?
01:40:53:20 – 01:41:07:03
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. So, I mean, our goal is to remain as clean as possible, right? And I think you can do it through AI. So we basically split it out into the platform into three different components which are supply demand and development demand.
01:41:07:05 – 01:41:17:09
Rod Khleif
Oh you mean like like to to fill your units. Got it exactly right in the top of the funnel to get the deals in. Yep. Yeah. Demand is, is to actually rent those those properties. And what was the third one.
01:41:17:09 – 01:41:34:23
Alex Blackwood
So a little bit different because obviously we’re looking at it from an investment style platform. Right. So supply being everything from the pipeline management around properties coming online. Right right through to transaction coordination on closing out, which were quickly replacing with AI.
01:41:34:23 – 01:41:36:05
Rod Khleif
That’s all lumped into supply.
01:41:36:05 – 01:41:56:12
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. And then the property management is also lumped into supply. Yeah okay. Because we coordinate vendors right. That’s our our job is our high leverage item. And then on the demand side that’s the actual client facing communications. Right. So everyone has to go through an onboarding call with us and your investors. Yep. So we educate them on everything.
01:41:56:12 – 01:42:03:22
Alex Blackwood
The pros and the cons of investing in real estate to make sure they’re fully educated on what they’re going to get into.
01:42:03:25 – 01:42:32:28
Rod Khleif
And we had a conversation about this before we got started because, yeah, you know, my lowest investment investors are the most amount of work because it’s typically a big part of their amount, the amount of money that they have. And so there are a lot more work and I and I, and I, you know, I told you, you know, my hair stood on end a little bit when you described how much, how little money you’ll take from people, you know, you know, you have these investor onboarding calls, which obviously mitigates that, hopefully some.
01:42:32:28 – 01:42:44:27
Rod Khleif
But do you do you plan to implement AI into that process at all into that. So I mean you need the human interaction I get that. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe not I don’t know.
01:42:45:00 – 01:43:14:20
Alex Blackwood
I would say personally what I think I can’t replace right now at least is that, I mean, that diving deeper into it like the kind of passive brand mentality, right. The idea being that, I mean, we 90% of our brain compute power is done by a brain that’s not thinking right, are walking, are sleeping, are all that. And so I think that I can’t fully replicate the human emotion that comes with talking.
01:43:14:20 – 01:43:31:03
Alex Blackwood
I think that it does a great job of almost mimicking it. But I think as humans, we actually can intuitively say, oh, that was off. And I don’t think it’s there yet. Maybe it will get there eventually. I think it will. Yeah, I think it will eventually. But I think that right now you need humans on the phone.
01:43:31:08 – 01:43:40:04
Alex Blackwood
And honestly, how many times have you gone to a platform and been like, speak to agent, speak to agent, speak to it like you try and bypass all the AI that leads up to you.
01:43:40:04 – 01:43:41:15
Rod Khleif
Started on UberEats.
01:43:41:17 – 01:43:42:06
Alex Blackwood
Yeah.
01:43:42:08 – 01:43:55:23
Rod Khleif
I by the way, UberEats, I’m I’m giving you the middle finger right now. They screwed me on my last two orders. I’m going to DoorDash. So there you go. That’s what you get. That’s what you get. I was so pissed off. My God, I spent a half hour trying to anyway, I digress.
01:43:55:28 – 01:44:02:16
Alex Blackwood
I mean, I got in a car crash on Uber and the Uber got in the car crash and they literally they didn’t even comp me the drive.
01:44:02:19 – 01:44:30:06
Rod Khleif
No kidding. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Bastards. All right, so, so I, yeah, I mean, I, like I said, we’re we’re all coming out of our skin with what it can do and, and and save and improve and, and it just so exciting. And if you’re listening and you’ve got one of those jobs, like my daughter doing my SEO or social media or frankly, damn near anything in front of a computer, you better be thinking about a side hustle, okay?
01:44:30:08 – 01:44:46:09
Rod Khleif
Because a lot of these jobs are going away when a company as small as mine is starting to think about it. Sure, a lot of jobs are going away, so, you know, get started in something, for God’s sakes. You know, start thinking about how you can, you know, start a side hustle before the for the ax drops because it’s coming.
01:44:46:09 – 01:44:54:29
Rod Khleif
And I don’t want to scare you, but have some reality. I know change is scary. Even a lot of people are saying, oh, it’s not going to happen to me. Well, like, you might be wrong. So,
01:44:55:01 – 01:45:18:01
Alex Blackwood
So I actually have like a little bit of a theory around that, that I’m again, I’m working out. So forgive me if it’s got. But basically, obviously when servers became a thing and cloud compute became a thing, you got a lot more companies and people are starting a lot more companies. And you had the Zuck, the social network, and everyone basically came up with this idea that startup life is the life to pursue.
01:45:18:03 – 01:45:28:21
Alex Blackwood
Now, I think right now we’re in a pretty interesting world that you can almost replicate an entire factory of a company with one person using AI and cloud bots and whatnot.
01:45:28:21 – 01:45:29:00
Rod Khleif
Right.
01:45:29:04 – 01:45:40:26
Alex Blackwood
And so I think it’s almost get you get to the point where I everyone’s talking about the doom loop and talking about employees being laid off from companies. And I agree that there are going to be shrink shrinking headcount.
01:45:40:29 – 01:45:51:12
Rod Khleif
Where whatever the new name just laid off half their workforce. Exactly. A thousand people. Amazon, meta. They’ve all laid off tens of thousands of people. I mean, it’s and then of course, they’re on the forefront.
01:45:51:17 – 01:46:16:27
Alex Blackwood
So you’re going to see a proliferation of smaller companies started by 1 to 10 employee headcount, maybe that. And they’re going to be selling back to the AI providers and all the different companies. So all these companies are going to become B2B focused. And so yeah, you’re going to see a lot of laying off right now. But when people adopt the technology and realize, okay, my job has almost been rendered obsolete, then I think that a lot of these companies are going to start selling.
01:46:16:27 – 01:46:18:08
Alex Blackwood
They’re all these people are going.
01:46:18:08 – 01:46:30:11
Rod Khleif
To create companies. They’re going to start selling. Is what you’re saying? Yes. Exactly right. I just told my dog not to do that. I said start, look and see what you can do. Yeah, you can make a hell of a lot more money than you’re making with me if you do it yourself. But I’m not just talking about that.
01:46:30:11 – 01:46:55:10
Rod Khleif
I mean, a lot of these people, you know, I get a lot of it. People that come to, you know, that they’ve become students of mine. You. I’ve got 2000 plus students around the country, and and a lot of it medical professionals, I mean, doctors, surgeons. I’ve got one of my top people is an orthopedic surgeon. And so, you know, a lot of these even legal, a lot of legal is is kind of been done, I mean, can be done by a and now you can’t go to the courtroom and argue, but damn near all the pleadings preparation can be done.
01:46:55:10 – 01:47:13:02
Rod Khleif
I used to own a litigation support company, so I’m very, very, very familiar with that business. But the point is, you know, there are other thing, you know, there’s going to be an incredible opportunity to buy businesses. There’s 10,000 people a day turning 65 in this country. They want to retire, they want to sell a business. So there’s an opportunity to buy businesses and bring in.
01:47:13:02 – 01:47:33:20
Rod Khleif
I bring in, you know, you know, under utilized social media marketing, things of that nature. So, you know, I think there’s a lot of opportunity too. But but I, you know, especially analytical people, they will sit in their little bubble and hope that the world doesn’t see them. And if that’s you, I love you. But by God’s, for God’s sakes, start thinking about something, okay?
01:47:33:20 – 01:47:41:06
Rod Khleif
How are you going to, you know, take advantage of this, really capitalize on it, rather than just survive. Thrive instead of survive. You agree?
01:47:41:08 – 01:48:10:21
Alex Blackwood
I would say to the idea being that if they’re not capitalizing on it right now, they’re doing a disservice to themselves. But on top of that, too, I do think that the idea being that so many people immediately with the idea behind entrepreneurship, right, solving a problem that means a great deal to you. Yeah, but so many people are thinking about it as, oh, this would be great if it existed, but is it actually truly a utility that in five years from now an AI is almost sentient in nature?
01:48:10:21 – 01:48:12:10
Alex Blackwood
And who knows when I already be?
01:48:12:11 – 01:48:12:23
Rod Khleif
Who knows?
01:48:12:23 – 01:48:35:09
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, but the idea being, will it be rendered obsolete then? So don’t start that. Start something for the next wave. Start something that basically you need almost like a paintbrush to a painter back in the day you need some like IDs. So windsurf, cursor all these different things. And again that’s like what the, the code is running on being piled on that.
01:48:35:15 – 01:48:45:22
Alex Blackwood
I was talking with our CTO the other day about he said that to me is never really going to go away because you always will need to see the code. You’re going to be able to.
01:48:45:24 – 01:48:59:29
Rod Khleif
Have to overlook it for sure. It’s a whole lot less work. Exactly. You know, and that’s what I told my daughter. My daughter’s like, well, someone’s got overlook all this SEO work and all that. And I said, yeah, but it’s not a freaking full time job, and I can’t afford to pay you full time if we can get this done elsewhere.
01:48:59:29 – 01:49:02:15
Rod Khleif
But but yeah, it’s got to have oversight for sure.
01:49:02:19 – 01:49:06:15
Alex Blackwood
And SEO not to mention is going to become AoE very quickly.
01:49:06:15 – 01:49:07:07
Rod Khleif
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:49:07:07 – 01:49:19:22
Alex Blackwood
And I mean, ChatGPT just, abandoned its efforts to use apps in its actual platform. So book a travel, actually do it in your platform. I know they’ve got agent mode, but happening.
01:49:19:23 – 01:49:20:20
Rod Khleif
Now, right? Yeah, it’s.
01:49:20:20 – 01:49:26:06
Alex Blackwood
Crazy, but they they just abandon their effort to do that. But that is coming. That’s going to be on the horizon for sure.
01:49:26:08 – 01:49:44:13
Rod Khleif
Wow. So I like to ask this question, especially in you basically put this brand new business together and I salute you for that. That’s cool as hell. I mean, that’s actually what I did with that litigation company I just mentioned. Nobody’s ever done what I did before. And and so, you know, my hat’s off to you, but talk about some moments that you might have had in that process.
01:49:44:13 – 01:49:53:04
Rod Khleif
You’re like, oh crap, we didn’t think of that. Or wow, this is amazing. Kind of a moment. Just a, you know, epiphany. If it were.
01:49:53:06 – 01:50:16:10
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, yeah. I mean epiphany more so using as the state of this is something that just completely changed my entire perception of the business. And I will say, of course, I did it with my co-founder, jelly. We were back to back in the lab, so to speak, for quite some time. But the moment that really stood out was 2023.
01:50:16:10 – 01:50:53:07
Alex Blackwood
Beginning of 2023. We had been six months out of Goldman. We hadn’t been taking salaries. We had negative bank balance in the door, and we just kept hitting with, I mean, it just we kept getting hit by Black Swan event after black Swan event that fundamentally changed every single thing about the race. And in the span of two weeks, basically on a Friday, we got a call from Tim Draper, with Draper Associates that he was going to basically lead our seed round, take half of whatever we wanted, but contingent on us raising out the remaining amount.
01:50:53:07 – 01:51:11:23
Alex Blackwood
Now we’re sitting there with negative bank balance in the door, and Joey and I are thinking about like, how the hell are we going to even make it to that? And, and so I it was the craziest day because in the morning we got that news and in the afternoon we were scrambling and thinking, how are we going to pay our bills to keep the lights on.
01:51:11:29 – 01:51:12:29
Rod Khleif
While you’re doing it?
01:51:13:01 – 01:51:32:29
Alex Blackwood
And so we looked at where we try to apply. I get so many calls from lenders, but at the end of the day, I call my mentor, who was the earliest check in the company. And I said, listen, this is the craziest thing. We’re very paper rich, but we’re not actually cash rich. Is there any way you can put in place some sort of stint of loan?
01:51:32:29 – 01:51:46:08
Alex Blackwood
I swear to God will pay you back and honestly, was an incredibly emotional conversation between the two of us, and he was honored that I came to him for our first. He said, give me, a few days to think about it, and then I’ll come back to you. 20 minutes after we got off the call, I got a text.
01:51:46:12 – 01:51:52:19
Alex Blackwood
Hey, send me the wire info. I don’t even need anything. Just let’s get it done. We ended up paying them back.
01:51:52:21 – 01:51:52:25
Rod Khleif
That’s.
01:51:52:28 – 01:51:54:02
Alex Blackwood
Yeah, we.
01:51:54:08 – 01:51:55:07
Rod Khleif
Ended up paying it back. What?
01:51:55:10 – 01:52:04:02
Alex Blackwood
We ended up paying him back. The whole thing. Plus the interest that we owed him in the next two months. The seed round was four times oversubscribed. Wow.
01:52:04:04 – 01:52:05:19
Rod Khleif
Beautiful. Yeah.
01:52:05:21 – 01:52:06:06
Alex Blackwood
It was.
01:52:06:09 – 01:52:06:26
Rod Khleif
Cool.
01:52:06:28 – 01:52:08:07
Alex Blackwood
Highest highs and lows. Lows.
01:52:08:08 – 01:52:22:05
Rod Khleif
I get students that are like, I got to get $1 million raised in the next week. And, like, how many? You know, how many people you call today. You know, I’m kicking them in the ass and there’s freaking out and they always make it. But, you know, you got to roll up your sleeves at those moments that you get.
01:52:22:07 – 01:52:26:01
Rod Khleif
You know, when you get past those moments, it’s so fricking exhilarating. Yes.
01:52:26:03 – 01:52:45:12
Alex Blackwood
Yeah. I mean, it was that just compounded to the fact that do whatever it takes mentality. I mean, we one time at a vendor cancel on us on a Friday, our payment services and we needed payment services by that. And they said they were going to turn off the payment services by that next Friday. So we had a week.
01:52:45:12 – 01:53:07:18
Alex Blackwood
They told us it, Friday at 5 p.m. this is how crazy like we did. We ended up getting the the payment services set up by the next Friday. But it it took I reached out to friends of friends of friends. One of our college friends was actually, related to like a very famous, payment service provider.
01:53:07:21 – 01:53:14:05
Alex Blackwood
We jumped the list of 20,000 plus companies and were onboarded that by that next Monday, I got the.
01:53:14:07 – 01:53:14:19
Rod Khleif
Wow.
01:53:14:22 – 01:53:23:22
Alex Blackwood
Phone number off of a wedding website. The not for a payment service provider for ACH. Wow. And so I called that. Like it.
01:53:23:22 – 01:53:38:23
Rod Khleif
Just listen. It’s doing whatever you have to do to get it done. And and if you’re listening, I hope you got the message in that because that’s the bottom line, which is why I wanted to ask the question. Because are you going to get your nose bloodied? Are you going to get your butt kicked? Are you going to run into a wall?
01:53:39:00 – 01:53:51:03
Rod Khleif
It’s your grit and determination that get you freaking through it. Well, listen, Alex, it’s been a real treat for me. I really enjoyed this. Guys. Check out moguls club. And, thanks for coming on the show, my friend.
01:53:51:08 – 01:53:52:04
Alex Blackwood
Thanks so much for having me.
01:53:52:05 – 01:53:53:03
Rod Khleif
Absolutely. Thank.
