In part 3 of this series we interview a local CRE developer to learn their firm is currently using AI in daily practice.
MWM: Joining us here is Russell Pearson with BoxDevCo Real Estate, did I get that right? Russell, why don’t you start by telling us briefly what you do so the MetroWire audience has some context. Please be brief.
RP: Be brief you say? Ha! Ok, I’ll try. I founded BoxDevCo in 2016-ish timeframe, and we focus on medium-density and mixed-use projects. Those are the fun ones. But we also structure acquisitions of multi-tenant commercial buildings for some balance. We are a boutique firm which means I wear a lot of hats - for instance, in the last week I stood on the roof of a project in Merriam talking about air conditioners, negotiated several leases and sale contracts, reviewed property financials, evaluated several land sites, responded to attorneys - you don’t have enough time to hear all the things!
MWM: Sounds like a lot! Why don’t you start by giving us some examples of how you’ve used AI recently in your business.
RP: Shoot, so many good stories. OK, so for example, within the last 24 hours I used AI to help analyze potential uses on a land site we’re looking, I had it generate architectural facades in various styles for a residential project, I uploaded our latest offering memorandum and asked it to give me suggestions to improve, I had it generate an org chart and compensation structure for two different businesses I’m involved with, and last night at the Royal’s game I was sitting with my dad and asked it to come up with conversation ideas for a meeting he’s got coming up with some city staff. He’s a civil engineer so I got a crash course in various innovative wastewater treatment processes. Well, the org chart thing was a few days ago, but you get the idea.
MWM: Alright, wow. All the things. Why don’t you walk us through just one of those - let’s start with the site analysis you mentioned first.
RP: OK sure. So there’s a land site that a buddy of mine brought me and said ‘this might be coming available, and I thought of you. What do you think?’ So we talked and sketched out a few potential layouts, and then we had an architect do a conceptual test-fit. I wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anything, so I just asked ChatGPT ‘hey there’s a land site for sale of X acres in this specific city - what are some potential uses the area needs?’ Boom - it spit out 5 different suggestions - and guess what was the first one? Mixed-use residential with community greenspace or something along those lines. Exactly what we came up with on our own. So of course I then drilled down further and asked it to expand on the potential uses and draw me a sample site plan. The plan was pretty basic, but it’s almost scary how fast it came to virtually the same conclusion we did after spending several hours talking and walking the site.
MWM: You mentioned an offering memorandum? Tell us more about that.
RP: Sure. So I imagine this works with a variety of documents, but I’m just now getting the hang of ChatGPT and creating CustomGPTs so it’s all a little new. Basically our team creates these deal memos which start out as powerpoint files turned into PDFs. It’s used to explain a new project to investors and lenders. The forecasted returns, history of the project, etc. Like a deal summary. So after I thought it was ready, I uploaded it to ChatGPT and in seconds it told me what was great… and the things we completely forgot to include or mention - so now I need to go make those changes and try again. Obvious things like sensitivity analysis I just skipped over.
MWM: Can’t you just ask it to make those changes for you?
RP: Probably. Someday I’ll get there, but that usually requires a lot of training to do right. Easier to just make the changes manually, but I suppose I should give that a try and see what happens.
MWM: What do you mean by train it?
RP: Well if you pay for the ChatGPT Pro version you can create CustomGPTs where you can teach it how you want it to respond and then share the link with other people. So I loaded in the design guidelines for a TND project we are working on called New Longview, and now the sales team can take example photos from other projects and say ‘show me some alternative options in the Prairie School style’ or ‘help me figure out what architecture style this photo is’ and a variety of other tasks. It’s still far from perfect, but it’s a great tool for getting quick and dirty feedback and helping guide buyers down the right path prior to hiring an architect.
MWM: Would you mind sharing an example of the output so our readership can get a feel for it?
RP: Sure thing! This was me prompting it to develop a townhome block using the same guidelines - it’s a little quirky, but my prompt wasn’t very specific so I’m sure I could improve it with a few more attempts.
MWM: What other AI tools are you using right now?
RP: It feels like there is a new AI coming out every week so it’s hard to stay on top of it sometimes. The big LLMs out there are ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. My kids prefer Perplexity to help with schoolwork because it provides links to source websites and documents, but it’s a bit of personal preference on which people use. We also use Gamma for powerpoint presentations and HubSpot which is a scary powerful CRM tool. I also regularly use Otter.ai and the AI built into Zoom for taking meeting notes and creating transcripts and follow-up action items. Midjourney is great for photo creation and Canva has some AI tools as well that help.
MWM: Are there any other useful AI tools you think would be relevant for CRE professionals?
RP: Definitely. Almost too many to list. I’ve heard several real estate investors talk about their use of certain AI tools to generate business which I imagine applies to a lot of industries. I just listened to a podcast where the speaker had created a YoutTube channel on CRE investing entirely from AI content and had over 500,000 views by this point. He said he used ElevenLabs to clone his voice and HeyGen to create a virtual avatar, and had a CustomGPT that would scour news articles and send him an email every Friday morning at 10:00 AM with everything going on in a specific topic, so he’d put together and upload a completely custom-created AI video covering the topic in like 15 minutes. Sounded wild. I also know a lot of people are used the LinkedIn Sales Navigator or ContentIn to scrape information and then put it into Dripify or Podawaa to create prospecting or nurturing campaigns to connect with real estate investors.
MWM: Thank you Russell, this has been very informative. Any last words for the MetroWire audience?
RP: Well, if you are not actively using multiple AI tools per day right now, trust me that in a couple of years you will wish you started earlier. This will change the way each of us live and work on a daily basis, and I could tell you a dozen stories about how individuals and companies are already using AI in a variety of settings. You have to use it for a while to learn how to best prompt it so you get back exactly what you want - so my advice is to simply start out by chatting with it. It’s in the ChatGPT name after all. The more explicit you are, the better the output - so usually I’m writing a prompt just like I’m talking to someone, trying to provide some background on the ‘why’ behind what I’m trying to do and occasionally that means the prompt is several sentences for more complex requests. But after the initial prompt, you can start exploring and it’s great for generating ideas and simply organizing thoughts. Also great if someone asks you a question on a topic you know a little about but not everything and want to sound like an expert. Just be careful as AI has a tendency to do what’s called hallucinate, where it comes up with something completely random you didn’t ask for. Still very much requires a human element to double-check. For now at least.
MWM: Very helpful! Appreciate your time. For readers out there in the CRE community, how are you using AI in your business? Any additional tips/tricks to share? Send us an email as this will likely be a topic we will be talking about for some time!