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Every Friday, join us as we dive into the latest in real estate multifamily with David Moghavem, Head of East Coast Acquisitions at Trion Properties. David invites top experts who know the ins, outs, and trends shaping the real estate multifamily market across the nation!
Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just curious about where the next big opportunity might be, Deal Flow Friday brings you the weekly inside scoop on what’s hot, what’s not, and what to watch for in today’s ever-evolving real estate scene.
David Moghavem (01:11)
All right, welcome to another episode of Dealflow Friday. I'm your host, David Mogavam. And today we got Jake Heller, the founder of AI for CRE Collective. AI for CRE Collective is a subscription-based community and learning platform founded by Jake Heller, specifically designed for real estate professionals, brokers, developers, investors, operators who want to integrate AI.
into their CRE workflows. It has almost 500 members and counting. ⁓ I am myself a member as of a week ago and I'm already enjoying it. And Jake, it's an honor to have you. I've been following you on LinkedIn. Even if you're not a member, you should definitely follow Jake on LinkedIn. He gives a little nuggets from the community, ⁓ shares it graciously with ⁓ the world. And I know this is a
type of community and membership that's gonna go rapidly, as rapidly as AI's growing. So Jake, it's an honor to have you on the pod.
Jake Heller (02:13)
Thanks for having me, man, and thanks for the nice words. Excited to be here.
David Moghavem (02:16)
Yeah, of course,
of course. And Jake is newly married as well. So he's got the the fresh husband glow going on right now.
Jake Heller (02:25)
I do, I do. Yeah, about a month ago. Join the club.
David Moghavem (02:28)
Yes,
exactly. Welcome to the club and it's going to be a good time. ⁓ Jake, I got to start it off. I want to hear just from your point of view. How did you start this community? It's really been taking off ⁓ and what really gave you that moment that you wanted to bring this about?
Jake Heller (02:52)
⁓ I'd be lying if I said it didn't happen by accident, like totally by accident. I had no intentions of building this to what it is today. ⁓ In fact, ⁓ my co-founder in this, Taylor Vacian, I think you also know. ⁓
David Moghavem (03:07)
Yeah, yeah, he was
on he was on the pod. We did a collab actually at in his space. Yeah, we did a little deal flow Friday Nova you can see collab and he's always a great time. He has an amazing pod as well.
Jake Heller (03:11)
really?
Totally, yeah, he's a household name. So he was pitching me on building software. He's like, dude, we could totally build software right now. And I was like, nah, no chance. In fact, no expertise, no bandwidth. mean, he's a broker. He does really well, has a tremendous amount of... ⁓
David Moghavem (03:22)
He is, he is.
Jake Heller (03:43)
activity going. So he definitely doesn't have the bandwidth, but ⁓ we decided instead of building software that maybe we could bring together other individuals who are thinking about this stuff the same way that we are. And ⁓ he and I would geek out on this stuff all the time. ⁓ When ChatGBT first came about, we were all over it. ⁓ It was life changing for the both of us. And so we thought by maybe bringing together other individuals who geeked out on it the same way that we did, we could learn some stuff.
incorporate that into our business. come from the development side, I'm third generation from a production home building family here on the West Coast, now sort of quasi family office. But we kind of launched this community and had just a bunch of people sign up on day one. I don't know the exact number, but maybe a hundred people signed up on day one and we were like, whoa, what the heck's going on here? ⁓
And fast forward to today, we're almost at 500 people. It's steadily growing. ⁓ We're learning a ton. We're still not exactly clear what to do with this whole thing, ⁓ but we have a ton of ideas. So we're fired up, excited about it. Our members, everyone that's a part of it's really excited and fired up about it. So it's a good thing.
David Moghavem (04:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And I really feel like geeking out on these type of cutting edge is the only way to be an expert. Right. I don't think there's a degree that you can go to college and get an AI. You got to be in the trenches. You got to be in the front lines. You got to share your knowledge with the with the community and they share theirs with you. And I think the fact that you guys launched it and got over a hundred
Members day one you're really you're really striking a chord there people want to learn people want to integrate They hear all these different Type of tools and type of people that are like wow AI is amazing as amazing. They don't know how to use it They don't know how to integrate it what was like the early aha moment or the milestone that you said, okay, this is really special
Jake Heller (05:54)
I mean, day one, we realized it was special. And I think when you look at PropTech as a whole, property technology, ⁓ it struggled.
David Moghavem (05:56)
Yeah.
Jake Heller (06:06)
Real estate as an industry has been slow to adopt this stuff. There's a lot of different reasons. I have my own theories, others have their own theories, but a lot of the people that are building those tools don't come from a real estate background, whereas Taylor and I do. And we understand what the people want, right? Like we're giving the people what they want. We understand the pain points. We've had so many different conversations. We see the different perspectives. And not that we're building software by any means. In fact, we don't intend to do that at all, but we're kind of playing matchmaker.
the sense and just sort of being ⁓ the hub of like, where all this stuff intersects. And now we realize that there's been a big mindset shift in the industry. think there's the perfect tailwinds for this stuff to get adopted. When you look the last, I don't know, three, four years, ⁓ maybe even longer than that.
the market was perfect, right? Interest rates were low, cap rates were compressed, deals were getting done. You could snap your fingers and make shitloads of money. yeah, people were making money hand over fist. And when that's happening, it's like, if it's not broken, don't fix, right? You don't need to know these tools. You don't need to do things differently. It's working. ⁓ You look at market conditions today and it's totally changed. ⁓ You don't have...
David Moghavem (07:06)
It was good times, right?
Mm-hmm.
You're working 10
times as hard making a tenth of the amount.
Jake Heller (07:29)
Exactly. And you look at different ways of creating value, which oftentimes like technological advancement, technology is what creates that value. And so I think the mindset has shifted from this stuff being ⁓ less of a want and more of a need.
Whereas previously it was, I want this, but I don't really need it. now like talking about brokers specifically, you see your competitors, right? Skip, trace and list with AI. see them creating marketing decks with AI. Beautiful stuff too. It's incredible professional grade stuff. You see them underwriting with AI. see guys like Taylor who are just, I don't know how many listings he has, but tons of listings and assembling a sort of AI first.
mentality and AI first team and others look at that and they're like, what the heck? Like I need to start learning this stuff. So I think there's been a big mindset shift. You have the perfect tailwinds, the perfect kind of recipe for this stuff to start getting adopted. And it's, there's some things that need to happen before mass adoption. feel like data being one of them privacy.
being another and we can kind of get into that as we go.
David Moghavem (08:45)
Let's get into that. Actually,
actually, that was kind of my follow up question. What do you think is the next step here with call it the internal race in our industry of adopting AI and having an edge? What's the next step here?
Jake Heller (09:01)
Yeah, well, so I posted a statistic, I think it was from JLL a few days back where majority of people in our industry are piloting this stuff. They know about this stuff. They're trying it, right? I think the number was, I don't know, 92%. But only 5 % are actually implementing it. That is a massive gap. And so the arbitrage today is really that delta. Now to solve for that, it really requires one of two
David Moghavem (09:18)
Mm-hmm.
Jake Heller (09:28)
one being technical expertise. I don't necessarily mean coding, ⁓ but enough of a technical expertise to actually implement this stuff or two, paying for that technical expertise.
You look at all this stuff and you might wonder like, why aren't the big boys, the Blackstones, the Lincoln property groups, the institutional shops really implementing this stuff top down? And there's reasons for why that is. I'm a firm believer that one is it's the data and then two, privacy. And I guess we could start with the second part. The privacy, ⁓ I did a presentation of Lincoln property group on the West coast, both Taylor and I did. And
We did a Q &A. It was awesome. We really enjoyed it. They enjoyed it as well. But every single question that we got was private was around privacy. And hey, know, I company policy doesn't allow me to upload this lease or, you know, I can't ⁓ I don't feel comfortable putting my information on the internet for it to get open sourced and spread all over the place. And so like
The mentality of that is obviously a problem and a hurdle that these folks need to get over. But also the whole compliance piece and these different tools, they need to educate these institutions, I mean, not even just institutions, but everyone ⁓ who's somewhat hesitant because of privacy.
you know, how all that works and that, you know, by just throwing a lease on the internet, it's not just going to go to all of your competitors are all over the place and in the deep dark web by any means. Some of these tools really aren't compliant. I'm not, you know, I'm not an expert enough enough to know like the terminology of the compliance. It's like sock to above my head type stuff. but there's, there's levels to this.
I think a lot of ⁓ founders, companies in general are really ⁓ focused on ⁓ solving for that compliance piece because they know that's preventing mass adoption. So that's the whole privacy side of it. ⁓ Things need to happen there. People need to get educated on how all this works. But it's also the data. And when you think about data,
I've been challenged on this and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about it myself. People start throwing around terms like data-driven decision-making. I think that's such a load of BS. at all, totally a load of BS. When I think about data-driven decision-making, I'll just kind of paint a picture for you, but.
You've been in the business a while, right? You have emails, you've sent out LOIs, you've gotten feedback on those LOIs, you've underwritten deals, you've had 10 different iterations of, ⁓ or versions of the model. You have DD files, ⁓ DD rooms, you have all this stuff and it's siloed. It's compartmentalized.
It's not communicating with one another. It's not being synthesized. It's not consolidated. And so when I think of data-driven decision making, I think of this perfect idea where all of this data is consolidated. You can communicate with it. You could use it in a much more meaningful way. So.
When I think about data, I think about that, right? Being able to use it in a much more meaningful way. Like for me, you know, we have these AI note takers and oftentimes ⁓ they take great notes on all these great conversations we have, but then it just goes in the graveyard. And that's just data that you never use, right? So like, how do we mush all this together? Yeah, that's the word. And so there's tools that are doing this. ⁓
David Moghavem (13:00)
Right. Then what? Exactly.
Jake Heller (13:11)
Those are some of the tools I'm most bullish on are these data tools where you could really use data. mean, think about these institutional shops. You guys, don't know if you consider yourself institutional or.
David Moghavem (13:23)
Yeah, institutional 7,000 units on a billion and a half under management. We're getting there.
Jake Heller (13:29)
Perfect. You guys are sitting on a goldmine of data. Goldmine. Your partners, your bosses, your associates, analysts, think of all the incredible emails and files they have and notes and conversations. Imagine just being able to actually utilize all that. And so I believe that that needs to happen before you'll see.
these institutions, groups like you guys really implement this from the top down. It starts with the data, I think. So ⁓ those are just two things that come to mind. There's a lot more.
David Moghavem (14:04)
Yeah, there's a lot there. would, want to start with the data. So one of the conscious efforts we've been doing at try on is taking our numbers and having them organized in our CRM tool, knowing that there might be some need today of, know, just the fact that it's organized, it's, you know, mapped it's, ⁓ it has its way, but we know that once the organization is the first step.
what happens after, there's gonna be tools out there that will be able to synthesize it. And the only way to really take advantage of that is if you have some sort of organized data, compartmentalized data, and it's almost like preparing for the next wave without knowing how big that wave or how that wave is gonna look like, just bracing yourself for it. And so we talk about that consciously internally. We're saying, how can we...
make our processes streamlined, our processes be matching one another that we can truly compare apples to apples so that when the time comes, we can put this all into a system that can aggregate this data and synthesize it to make the data-driven decisions that you're referring to.
Jake Heller (15:26)
Yeah, you're validating my exact belief and that's just we're in this period of cleanup for a lot of these shops, cleaning up their data, getting ready for this next frontier. So ⁓ is 2026 the year of mass adoption? Maybe, could be the year after. I think it's near. But this stuff is top of mind for everybody. It's a focus for everybody.
David Moghavem (15:32)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Jake Heller (15:54)
We're not even scratching the surface of any of it. We're not even close. We're not on first base. We're not in the first inning. There is so much that we don't know, so much that's possible. And the stats speak for themselves. mean, only 5%. I don't know how large the survey or sample size was for that JLL statistic, but only 5 % are actually implementing this stuff. So.
David Moghavem (16:15)
And I
think part of the disconnect between the ones who start and not finishing, like leads to the 5%. I think there's also curiosity that kind of gets you to that 5 % is being able to take an extra second out of your normal routine, your normal day. You're going to try to learn something during a busy workday. Not everyone really wants or has the time to do that.
But if you have that extra curiosity to say, long term, second order consequence, this will help me in the long run be more efficient. It might not be the most efficient use of your time for that task at that second, but the second order consequence is clearly there. There's clearly some type of value by taking that extra second and having that curiosity to create a process that will make it more efficient later on.
Jake Heller (17:11)
⁓ 100%. This stuff requires a massive time investment. And so what I'm trying to do with the collective is just make that time investment for commercial real estate individuals exactly. And just less overwhelming, easier to do. I'm trying to just essentially feed this to you on a silver platter. I do a lot of the legwork. I'm testing these tools. I'm trying to figure this shit out. ⁓ Excuse my language. ⁓
David Moghavem (17:21)
Worth your time.
Mm-hmm.
No, you can curse here.
Jake Heller (17:41)
But that's the whole idea. It's like as commercial real estate professionals, you're so busy, you're digging up deals, you're raising capital, you got this to do and that to do. And it's like, when can you find the time to actually start testing and learning this stuff? And not to mention just the rate of advancement of this stuff, it's like, even for myself where I'm spending a very large majority of my time on it, I can't even keep up.
David Moghavem (18:09)
Right.
Jake Heller (18:09)
So
the average individual, you cannot keep up with this stuff at the moment. It is moving so fast.
David Moghavem (18:15)
So let me ask you, Jake, how much of the community are you preparing the tools and the workflows for your audience to learn versus the community actually providing their workflow and providing it to you and the rest of the community? How much of it is what?
Jake Heller (18:38)
Yeah, it's the first time I've been asked that question. ⁓ But I have been thinking about that quite a bit because engagement and. ⁓
I am preaching abundance mentality as it relates to this community, right? Like you get out what you put in, share ideas, share workflows, share your automations, share what you learned. There's no secret sauce or magic bullet in this business. At least I don't think so. And so at the moment, it is a lot of me sharing ⁓ what I see, what I've learned, ⁓ all the different tools I've tested.
But I have been having conversations with every new member that comes into the community. We'll do a 30 minute call ⁓ and they will share with me their pain points, their perspectives. I'm collecting all this data and I'm using it.
to then give back to the community. like, that's a tough nut for me to crack. It's like, share your ideas, share your ideas. People just are a little bit hesitant and guarded. With that, it's definitely not 0 % of members of the community
are giving information. There are a handful of others. This morning even, I was talking with an individual who gave me a new use case, which I didn't even think of. Last night, I was talking with another gentleman in the community and he gave me some good ideas and stuff. So I wish there was more that I was learning and I'm trying to make it a priority for
But it's tough, man. Like again, as busy professionals.
David Moghavem (20:21)
It goes back to
the study, right? That JLL has too, is that there's people that will join the community, but to take the extra time to really like learn a workflow from scratch can be tough. And I think it takes a little bit extra curiosity in that point. One thing, by the way, when I joined, you have a prompt that says, introduce yourself, what do you do? And then you say, what's like your biggest bottleneck? And I thought that was...
That was a great question for those joining because I always subconsciously think of that, but it was never in my conscious effort to say like, okay, how do I really spend most of my day? And it's always different things at different times of the day or different points. And it might be underwriting. And then we come up with a new way to automate that. And then it's okay, what's the next one? It's like, okay, emails. And now you've come up with a new way to organize that. So.
I wanted to ask you what has been the most common pain point and then what's your pain point during your day of your bottleneck that you're trying to solve.
Jake Heller (21:31)
It's a good question. think so what I've been trying to do is or a better job of I should say is really understanding who is in the community. What's their role? What do they focus on, et cetera? And I've been learning that the majority are ⁓ investors and brokers. And then there's a lot of miscellaneous.
appraisers and lenders, property managers, asset managers, et cetera. But as you would imagine, like it being heavy with brokers, what do brokers want? They want to close deals. How could I prospect more? How could I, you know, cold call more? ⁓ How could I get more leads? So I think prospecting has been a really hot topic, I'd say. Acquisitions.
for investors has been a really hot topic. So underwriting, market research, those are really common. And then for myself, like, yeah, I'd say the acquisition piece is sort of the pain point, right? Like, and I'm working with my partner, we're trying to build a very comprehensive and robust acquisitions operating system.
David Moghavem (22:45)
I wanted to also ask you, what are some of the common pitfalls you see when CRE professionals are trying to adopt AI workflows and trying to adopt these underwriting and deal analysis? What are some of the pitfalls and traps that they fall into?
Jake Heller (23:02)
I think one of the biggest issues I see is that someone will try it and because it's not perfect, they'll be like, oh, that shit sucks, I'm done. It's not ready for me. Time and time again. I posted a tweet not too long ago that went viral.
and I was using Gemini's Nano Banana Pro, which is their image generator, to create floorplates. And ⁓ it was kick-ass. ⁓
David Moghavem (23:39)
think I saw that one.
Yeah.
Jake Heller (23:40)
It was kick ass and anyone who says otherwise is just not a serious individual in my opinion. It's not perfect, okay? And the idea was not that we use these as construction documents or ⁓ production ready drawings, right? It was just simply, hey, look what AI could do within a matter of seconds. And every architect on the deep web and Twitter was just roasting me like, yeah, ha, like.
David Moghavem (23:45)
Right.
They took offense.
Jake Heller (24:09)
that door doesn't close properly or like, this is such garbage. Like, oh, if you came to me with this, I'd laugh in your face. And I'm like, you're just not a serious individual. And like, these are the types of people that we're dealing with. And as part of our industry, right? Like why we're slow to adopt this stuff, right? Like get in there, play around with it, figure it out, accept and recognize that these are massive achievements. These are baby steps, right?
So like, I'm kind of sick and tired of hearing from people like, well, because that's not perfect, like, I'm just done with it. And so they give up and it's a massive step backwards. So that's a big problem I see.
David Moghavem (24:51)
Do you think part of that is ⁓ people just trying to keep their integrity in what they do and saying, hey, I'm worth more than that. I'm better than that. Scared, right.
Jake Heller (25:01)
They're scared, they're scared, they're scared.
The architects, I think, are a very sensitive group. I love the architects, don't get me wrong. They're the quarterbacks. They make the world go round, but they're generally a sensitive group. It's what I've... ⁓ Very emotional, very emotional. ⁓ 100%. So I learned my lesson with that. But I think like...
David Moghavem (25:17)
They're emotional. They're emotional. They wear their heart on their sleeve. That's for sure. I agree with that.
Jake Heller (25:31)
Broad, like generally people in our industry are, I think, hesitant with a lot of this stuff and they'll give it a try and then it's just not perfect and they give up. And so I think it's a big mistake that a lot of people make.
David Moghavem (25:45)
It's the fear of replacement.
I think it's the fear of replacement and you hear all the conversations and you, know, every pod interview that has to do with AI leads to the ultimate question of is AI replacing the human? And I think that's where some of the insecurities lie. That's where some of the hesitancy lies. ⁓ I mean, I have to ask you that as well, right? At what point
does AI replace the human? Do you think it ever replaced the human? And I'd love to get your perspective on the question that everyone always asks, right? It always ends up to that question and is almost the source for some of this hesitancy and the, ⁓ I guess, the pushback to adopt.
Jake Heller (26:35)
Yeah, it's a great question. One I've been thinking about for as long as I've been kind of in the trenches with this stuff, but.
I think AI is going to replace individuals who are not using AI ⁓ with individuals that are. But I think, and I'm most bullish on the solutions that...
multiply our existing capabilities as humans, right? That allow us to do what we do better or more efficiently or at greater scale. ⁓ So there's no doubt that we'll see layoffs ⁓ from companies because of AI, ⁓ especially in the whole real estate industry as well. think
we're not far away from a scenario that somebody has a billion AUM and it's really just them, nobody else. ⁓ I think that's a very likely scenario. I don't know if that's in two years, five years, 10 years, 15. I don't think we're far away from that. But I think the idea that AI is just gonna come in and replace you, I think it's kind of a load of BS.
⁓ you know, a very common, ⁓ question people ask, it's as it relates to underwriting, but is AI going to replace the analyst? I know, I don't, I don't think it is. ⁓ I think it's going to level the playing field. I think it's going to lower the barrier to entry. I think it's going to.
⁓ allow for analysts to focus less on data entry and more on Analysis, which is what they're supposed to do Right on on judgment. Yeah, I mean like think about it Not long ago were the days where you're extracting rent rolls and pnls and creating pivot tables and plugging in all this data spending 60 70 80 percent of your time on that and then just the rest of it being analysis like
David Moghavem (28:33)
Right? Not just plug and chug.
Jake Heller (28:55)
as humans.
We form relationships, we use judgment. Those are here to stay. That could never be replaced, right? But a lot of the other stuff before that can be solved for with AI, can be automated with AI. The data entry, as it relates to analysis. Like we're at a point where that...
can be done entirely with AI. There's tools like Quick Data AI, Index AI, Shortcut AI, which not a lot of people know about, but stop taking PDF rent rolls and T12s and spending an hour two throwing it into Excel. It's a waste of time. You don't need to do that nowadays. So anyways, kind of getting off topic, but back to your original point, like...
David Moghavem (29:41)
No, I think, listen, it's true. would just, one thing I'm seeing short term in our market right now in CRE is we're seeing growth in companies and I don't mean growth of like deal volume, things like that, but we're seeing growth in companies looking at more opportunities or doing more or being more productive as a company without the need to necessarily hire more staff for it.
And we're also a time in CRE where there's volatility. It's hard to add to your overhead. so AI is the bandaid to the problem that we're experiencing right now in CRE that you do have to be more productive to survive right now. ⁓ So I think short-term, maybe some of those entry-level analysts are feeling that. Some of those entry-level
architects are maybe feeling that where they're like, man, I can't get a job right now. And I think you are going to see a uptick in employment where maybe it's not massive layoffs. Like, like you said, there might be some, but you're going to see growth without the hiring short term. What does it mean long term? As you said, it's going to be a world where a lot of these mundane tasks, a lot of this knowledge based skill.
Jake Heller (30:41)
Sorry.
David Moghavem (31:09)
based work is going to be commoditized. And what's really going to survive is opinions, judgment, being able to make hard decisions. ⁓ And I think as you become more successful in the industry, those are the type of work that you do is making those hard decisions, critical decisions, and critical thinking with the data you have in front of you.
Jake Heller (31:39)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. something I've seen a little bit of, and I think we'll continue to see more of, I said this a little bit earlier, but leveling the playing field and lowering the barrier to entry, right? Once upon a time you hire a Harvard analyst, you pay him six figures, maybe a couple hundred grand, they're underwriting deals for you. Now there's tools which can allow you to hire somebody offshore.
who's never used Excel or maybe who has very little real estate experience to do what they could do, which is interesting. I'm seeing a little bit of it, right? But like folks in the Philippines and globalization, it's a real thing. Offshore, it's a real thing. Picked up a lot of steam since COVID, but like being able to my two, favorite tools, NDEX AI and shortcut AI to...
combined with somebody who's never really done this before and who's significantly less money, you can get the same result, which is crazy to think about. So.
David Moghavem (32:46)
Yeah,
you've mentioned a few times, know, index AI, shortcut AI for the listeners that don't know some of the nitty gritty of the tools. I'm sure they could join your community to get the tutorial, but high level, what's your favorite AI tool right now that you're using most? What is it?
Jake Heller (33:06)
Manus. Manus.
M-A-N-U-S. ⁓
David Moghavem (33:11)
And what is it?
Jake Heller (33:13)
It's an autonomous agent. So think of like a Claude or chat, GBT that could actually execute tasks and do things, which Claude and chat, they're starting to become that. ⁓ Shout out to Manus. The guys are incredible. I think they just hit a hundred million annual recurring revenue today. They announced that milestone, but ⁓ some of the things I've been able to do with Manus is just ridiculous. Like yesterday I was
⁓ You'll see a post in the community tomorrow. I'm to post the video on it. But I was doing a full feasibility study, which I've done in the past, but like, it wasn't anything to write home about. What I did yesterday with Manus and they just released the latest and greatest version of it, 1.6, was I took an address in Silver Lake and I did a full ⁓ highest and best use study.
feasibility study, I produced floor plans, I produced renderings, I did a bunch of site massing and concepts, ⁓ construction costs, underwriting, the full gambit. And it took some time, it took me, and I'd say I'm more advanced than others in this department, but it took me about 45 minutes to do, but what it produced, I kid you not, and I don't tell the architects, but like it produced the sexiest,
drawings, the sexiest renderings, ⁓ the numbers were so much more accurate than they were even just a couple of weeks ago. And I just can't, I was in shock. Like I just can't even begin to describe how capable these models are becoming. And like be patient because just two weeks ago, I didn't think that was possible. So I always say, and I preach like the software eventually catches up to you.
And I also have to mention another one of my favorite tools, NDEX, A-I-E-N-D-E-X. It's an AI agent that is native to Excel. It lives in Excel. It's an add-on. ⁓ And so you could extract rent rolls. You could do all your budgeting. ⁓ They're working on integrations with a lot of the real estate providers. I'm sure you've heard of Hello Data. They're integrating with Hello Data, ⁓ which does a lot of your rent comps.
David Moghavem (35:29)
Yeah.
Jake Heller (35:33)
trying to integrate with CoStar, they're trying to integrate with all the big and baddest 800 pound gorillas in the space. And so all of your underwriting, they can help do, but no more V lookups and hard coding within Excel. Like you could interface.
David Moghavem (35:48)
Now
you're getting all the analysts angry. You're going after the architects, now you're going after the analysts. no, it's, yeah.
Jake Heller (35:52)
You know what? so be it. It's like,
get on board with this stuff. I'm telling you, no harm, no foul. Start testing it, playing with it, learning it.
David Moghavem (36:03)
No, it goes back to what you were saying. It's not about AI replacing human, but it's about people leveraging AI, replacing those who aren't leveraging it. I think it's as simple as that. And especially in the near term, when everyone's looking for an edge, you have it here. You have it right in front of you. Just have a little bit of an extra curiosity. that 5%. Be that 5 % in the study and utilize it.
Jake Heller (36:29)
Yeah, I'm telling you right now that anything's possible with AI. Look, we're catching rockets from space. Anything is possible with AI. I'm telling you now, it's insane. Like to just be fighting this stuff, to be hesitant. Like if I'm telling you that you could underwrite 10 times the amount of deals as you normally can with AI, believe me, it's possible.
David Moghavem (36:38)
I love that. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think it also
frees up more time for you to have human interactions and human capability. And which is, as you said, that's where humans thrive. That's where we thrive the most and that's not getting replaced anytime soon. So why not leverage AI to free up your time to do things you like to do and is the most revenue generating work to do.
Jake Heller (37:16)
Totally. look, I think there's also like back to this whole statistic with JLL, I think it's a really important one. ⁓ We're in this period of like, where we're implementing it's really, really hard to do, but ⁓ that doesn't mean you shouldn't.
be trying these tools because you look at the different verticals in the space, right? Underwriting, cold calling, skip tracing, deck creation. And although it's not seamlessly integrated with one another,
look at them individually and just understand that with underwriting, like you could multiply your capabilities or with creating investor decks or offering memorandums or BOVs, you could do that a lot more efficiently, right? So like that's where we are with all of this. And I think that's an important distinction.
David Moghavem (38:03)
Yeah, so I guess to lead you with one of the wrap up questions, what's for a company that's like try on or bigger or smaller, what's your advice for implementing this type of AI?
Jake Heller (38:17)
Data, right? I mean, you know it as well as I do, but data, clean up the data, ⁓ understand the data, consolidate it, figure out how to communicate with it. I think a very kind of bandaid solution for that is ⁓ using a tool like Notebook LM, which if you're not familiar, it's a Google product. I don't even know how to describe it exactly.
David Moghavem (38:21)
Yeah.
Jake Heller (38:44)
I don't know. But what I use it for is I've created like a company brain almost. I like to call it a brain or like a digital twin of my company. ⁓
I fed it like as much information as I possibly can about us, as many conversations, as many deals as we've looked at, emails, slide decks, we have a board of advisors, all of our conversations that we've had with them. ⁓ And I've put it all into Notebook LM. ⁓ And you could start communicating with it then in a much more meaningful way. ⁓ Is that, you know, the...
the institutional solution to all of this by any means? No, but like, you could understand things in a different way. You could ask questions, and it kind of learns from itself. And as you guys ⁓ look at new deals and figure out new problems and identify solutions to those problems, feed this beast that.
and it'll start kind of taking a life of its own. And I do that with deals we're looking at as well. So a different kind of brain, I call it a brain, but like any new deal you're looking at, feed it all the files, right? Like ⁓ when you go into due diligence, your title reports, your environmental reports, ⁓ past deals that you've done, the mistakes that you've made.
Start consolidating all this stuff. And then you're asking questions like, are the red flags for this deal? like, what are the questions we need to ask? Or what don't we know? And all of a sudden, like you have this brain, this digital brain, which is so much smarter than you, right? Like that is an immediate... ⁓
sort of thing I tell people they can create like now, today. And I don't know if I'm doing it justice the way that I'm explaining it, but like, I do think that data is sort of the problem at the moment. And that is, maybe it's a bandaid to a much larger ⁓ solution, but like, it's baby steps, right? Like that can allow you, I think, to become a lot more dangerous, a lot smarter.
David Moghavem (41:10)
Yeah, I think
it's, it's whatever, like you said at the beginning with your own community, it's similar with AI. What you put in is what you're going to get out. And I, you know, I build, I build GPTs for myself on all my processes that I do, whether it's with the pod or acquisitions. And what I do is let's say it's a GPT for filling out a best and final questionnaire. You feed it all your company data. You feed it your.
past deals and you through the iterations, it learns and it starts learning about how you answer questions, what's important, how to pull from different sources. Now you've mastered that workflow. Okay, next workflow. Start feeding, get examples of, let's say you're making a post, you have it make one post, it's not perfect, okay, you correct it. You're like, okay, well, this was the correct version. Now on the second post, you correct it, know, feed it again.
Just keep in the iteration, the iterative process allows for something, this tool that might be okay or have mistakes rather than giving up, you have it learn and it takes extra patience, but what you put in is what you're gonna get out with these tools.
Jake Heller (42:24)
Exactly,
exactly. I couldn't agree more. And for you guys specifically, if you're not as an organization using these Excel shortcut tools, ⁓ index ⁓ shortcut, there's TraceLite, there's Crunch, like you certainly should be. ⁓ I think they're incredible. And they're going to continue to just get better and better and better and smarter. ⁓
So, but you gotta just start playing with these tools. ⁓ There's, and there's so many out there, but you gotta just, you gotta get your hands dirty. You gotta spend the time. That's the only way you're gonna get better.
David Moghavem (43:05)
Yeah, and nowhere better to do it than at AI for CRE Collective and the AI for CRE Collective community. So for those listening, hopefully you can ⁓ join the community and if not, just give Jake a follow as well. ⁓ Jake, it was really amazing having you on. It was a lot of fun bantering about AI and how to get it done. And hopefully ⁓ we can start embracing more of these tools.
Jake Heller (43:34)
Absolutely. I had a blast. ⁓ I'm so excited about this stuff and it sounds like you are as well so that's good. But yeah, community is great. We're learning a lot together.
David Moghavem (43:45)
excited
to give the community some of my hacks. think ⁓ I have a little bit to contribute for now. exactly. Okay, there we go.
Jake Heller (43:49)
We're ready. We're ready. We're ready for you. ⁓ Now,
you're one of the few as part of the onboarding, you said it yourself, but making the introduction like. It's not it's not so hard, but like you were one of the few, so I appreciate you doing that.
David Moghavem (44:06)
No, of course, of course. It's
like you said, what you put in, you're going to get out and it's good to share and be in the trenches together. Like you're not going to just go to a college and someone spoon feed you how this works. You got to trade notes. You got to be in the weeds. You got to talk to others and that's this is how you do it. So awesome, man. Great having you on and talk to you soon.
Jake Heller (44:14)
Yeah.
Totally, couldn't agree more, man. Well, had a blast.
Thanks.