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What RIAs Really Want From Real Estate

AI for Real Estate

Release Date: 12/02/2025

Why 50% of U.S. CRE Listings Pass through Buildout show art Why 50% of U.S. CRE Listings Pass through Buildout

AI for Real Estate

Most commercial real estate brokerages are still running their operations on Excel, PowerPoint, and three separate tools that don't talk to each other. Every time data moves between them, something degrades. The broker pays for it in time.   Helen Calvin, CEO of Buildout - the platform that processes roughly 50% of U.S. commercial listings - sat down with me to walk through what end-to-end brokerage operations software actually looks like in practice, and where AI fits into it.   Three things from the conversation that are worth sitting with:   ...

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The Data Layer Reshaping Real Estate Decisions show art The Data Layer Reshaping Real Estate Decisions

AI for Real Estate

Most CRE firms do not know how their data is performing. They know the assets. They do not know whether the numbers coming out of their ERP, their property management system, and their third-party data feeds are consistent, auditable, or actually connected.   When AI gets layered on top of that mess, it produces confident-sounding outputs nobody can verify.   LD Salmanson, co-founder and CEO of Cherre, has spent seven years building the infrastructure layer that sits underneath the AI. The alternative is manual - and it breaks. Teams of consultants collect, distill, and...

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Turning Lease Documents Into Intelligence with AI show art Turning Lease Documents Into Intelligence with AI

AI for Real Estate

My podcast/YouTube show guest today, Cameron Steele has spent the last several years tackling a problem most commercial real estate firms don’t realize they have.   As the co-founder and CEO of Prophia, his focus is simple: turn the most important documents in CRE - leases - into usable intelligence.   The issue is that much of the economic blueprint of commercial real estate still lives inside legal documents. And most firms are still extracting that information manually.   In our latest conversation, Cameron walks through how AI is beginning to change that.   ...

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Real-Time Asset Management, Finally show art Real-Time Asset Management, Finally

AI for Real Estate

Most multifamily asset managers are still assembling reports.   Colin Green built software to eliminate that step entirely.   Colin is the founder of BubbleGum BI, a business intelligence platform designed specifically for multifamily asset managers. Before launching it, he built the tool for himself - nights and weekends - to solve the frustration of pulling rent rolls, cleaning spreadsheets, and waiting on Monday Morning Reports.   The result is a real-time operating layer.   In our conversation, Colin answers five important questions for serious CRE operators: ...

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Data Is the Real AI Advantage show art Data Is the Real AI Advantage

AI for Real Estate

The firms that win with AI in this cycle won't be the ones with the best models. They'll be the ones with the best data.   My Demo Day podcast/YouTube guest today is Michael Mandel, co-founder and CEO of CompStak.   Key takeaway: clean data is the moat - AI is the multiplier.   CompStak spent 14 years crowdsourcing lease and sales comps from nearly 50,000 brokers and research professionals. That foundation is what makes their AI tools actually useful rather than just impressive.   The practical applications worth knowing about: natural language search across 1.3...

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Amazing Pitch Decks with AI show art Amazing Pitch Decks with AI

AI for Real Estate

Most pitch decks are failing because PDFs no longer match how investors actually consume information, especially on mobile.   That is the problem Avi Solomon and his team at Pulse are solving with AI.   In brief: • Interactive decks increase conversions • AI now makes advanced pitch decks economically viable • Investors increasingly expect interactive, mobile-native formats   Pulse feels like a category shift because the decks behave like interactive web pages not documents where on-screen motion captures attention, information is layered so investors can skim or...

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AI Automation for Hotels show art AI Automation for Hotels

AI for Real Estate

Hotels are not underperforming because demand is weak, they are underperforming because the economics of the guest relationship are still being managed manually.   That is the central takeaway from my recent Demo Day conversation with Luca Zambello, Founder, and Jason Lopez, VP of Revenue at Jurny.   [Full disclosure: I am an early investor in Jurny]   In brief: Hotels are leaving meaningful NOI on the table by treating guest experience as a cost center rather than an operating system.   What stands out Personalization at scale is an operational advantage that...

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Underwriting CRE at Speed with AI show art Underwriting CRE at Speed with AI

AI for Real Estate

Want to screen (waay) more deal flow for your acquisition pipeline than you do currently? Here is exactly how to do that with AI (and I'm NOT talking about some clever new way to use ChatGPT).   𝘐𝘯 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢...

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Deal Screening on Steroids show art Deal Screening on Steroids

AI for Real Estate

AI in commercial real estate is usually framed around predictions and pricing.   In brief: Underwriting delays come from manual data extraction, not Excel. Institutional CRE teams automate the data layer, not the model. Parsing rent rolls and T12s is now a scale problem, not a staffing one. AI underwriting is being adopted first by lenders and servicers. Speed and consistency are emerging as underwriting risk controls. This Demo Day conversation with Parag Goswami, CEO of Clik.ai, focuses on something more fundamental: how underwriting actually gets done.  ...

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Underwriting and Marketing With AI show art Underwriting and Marketing With AI

AI for Real Estate

Most CRE teams are not losing deals because of capital, talent, or market access.   They are losing because they move too slowly because initial underwriting and deal marketing are still painfully manual across much of the industry.   Spreadsheets. Templates. Design tools. Email chains. Outsourced vendors.   All stitched together by habit.   That friction costs time, and time costs deals.   In my latest AI/CRE Demo Day show Anton Zajac, CEO of IntellCRE, demonstrates (onscreen) what happens when those bottlenecks disappear.   What stood out...

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More Episodes
Jeff Brown has spent the last 15 years building exactly the kind of platform most sponsors say they want and very few actually execute: niche, disciplined, and trusted by the wealth-management channel.
 
As founder and CIO of T2 Capital Management, he’s grown a $1bn platform focused on three things: bridge lending, student housing, and B/C multifamily ‘on the banks of the Mississippi.’ Most of his capital comes from RIAs – a channel many sponsors talk about but rarely crack.
 
In our conversation, we talked about what it really looks like when investors are bruised, liquidity is scarce, and the opportunity set is quietly improving.
 
Here are five questions Jeff answered that matter for anyone raising or allocating equity today:
  1. What separates a real bridge lender from the “tourists” who entered the space in the last cycle?
  2. How do you underwrite B/C multifamily and workforce housing when markets are working through a supply glut from the ZIRP era?
  3. What’s actually happening inside student housing?
  4. Why have RIAs made T2 their real estate allocation?
  5. How should investors think about 401(k) access to private assets?
If you’re trying to make sense of where capital will actually move in the next phase of this cycle and what it will reward, this episode is worth your time.
 
Jeff is candid about the scars, clear about the opportunities, and refreshingly sober about what it takes to earn and keep investor trust.
 
Tune in to the full discussion with Jeff Brown of T2 Capital Management to pressure-test your own thesis for the next leg of the market.
 
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In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing.
 
With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. 
 
Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today’s volatile real estate landscape. You’ll get:
  • Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.
  • Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.
  • Insights from real estate professionals who’ve been through it all before.

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Email: adam@gowercrowd.com
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