The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
The AI Revolution in Real Estate: Adapt or Disappear with Vanessa Alfaro
Vanessa Alfaro shares how her company Venus Capital Partners has acquired $55 million in assets under management using cutting-edge AI technology, and explains why real estate professionals who don't adapt to these new technologies will be left behind.
• Real estate is traditionally one of the slowest industries to adapt to new technologies
• AI implementation helps investors analyze deals faster and optimize assets more efficiently
• Only 10-15% of real estate investors are currently using AI technologies
• Common misconception is that AI is just ChatGPT, when it encompasses much more
• AI chatbots can handle tenant inquiries, schedule tours, and send lease agreements at a fraction of human cost
• "Success loves speed" - taking immediate action is crucial for entrepreneurial success
• Marketing should be directly tied to revenue-generating activities, not vanity metrics
• Biggest opportunity lies in acquiring properties managed with outdated methods and optimizing them
• The difference between fear and hope is that both are thoughts, but fear focuses on failure while hope focuses on success
Join Vanessa's free 5-day event to learn more about implementing AI in your real estate business and start scaling faster with the right tools.
You can buy property faster, you can analyze deals faster, you can optimize your assets and save money in payroll marketing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I am your host, Mario Lamar, Our guest on today's show. She is from Venezuela to the United States of America, From marketing to AI. Her journey is just incredible. She has built six, seven to eight figure companies across three different countries. I present you Vanessa Alfaro.
Speaker 1:Hello, hello, Mario.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for being on the show with us today.
Speaker 1:Of course, I'm super excited to be here and having a value conversation for you and your listeners.
Speaker 2:Yes, vanessa, the concept of the podcast is very simple. I ask five questions, either about real estate or business, and we get straight to the point you ready.
Speaker 1:I'm ready. Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2:So Vanessa Venus Capital Partners has acquired $55 million in asset under management using cutting-edge technology. In the intro I spoke to you about you, about AI. How do you see AI shaping the future of real estate investing?
Speaker 1:Well, I believe that real estate by itself is one of the slowest adapters in technology and changing industry period.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's so slow, all of the process and everybody keeps doing the same thing that we have been doing for 20 years, right? So innovation is not part of the language in real estate and I believe that people that is not adapting these technologies, artificial intelligence and putting that in all the process, these operators are going to disappear very soon. I actually read an article last week that says real estate operators that does not embody these technologies are going to actually says the fast will eat the slow, the fast will eat the slow and the slow will die very slowly. Because in reality, what's going to happen is that people that does not embrace this is just going to be left behind. You can buy property faster. You can buy property faster, you can analyze deals faster, you can optimize your assets and save money in payroll marketing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So moms and pops operators are going to be buy for companies like my company, we're going to optimize those deals and we're going to make more money, anybody else I 100 agree with you.
Speaker 2:If you don't adapt to the technology that is being put in front of us, you'll be left behind. The people that put in place the tools and technology, such as AI, will win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some people don't see that because you don't know what, you don't know Right Exactly. And when you start seeing the capabilities of what you can do in your company, you are like, wow, I just didn't understand. So I always encourage people to at least explore and understand what you are not seeing that can actually move the needle in your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that brings us to our second question, and talking about AI. Lunax AI is dedicated to helping corporations and entrepreneur harness AI. What are some common misconceptions business owners have about AI and how can they use it effectively?
Speaker 1:Wow, a lot, a lot of misconceptions. Ai has been here for a long time, mario. The reality is that AI is not a new technology. Large language model has been here, has been used for companies for years Netflix used AI, amazon used AI, apple used AI. What is new is that open AI has made it available for us, the regular people, the small entrepreneurs, and now there's so many other AIs that are being built on top of, like the API of ChatGPT, and there's so many advances in just like two years, in just one year. The way that this advance is so fast.
Speaker 1:That is really hard to catch up. It's really hard to catch up so so right now we have the opportunity, as small entrepreneurs, to use technology that before it was just used for the biggest corporations. So that's one thing a misconception. The other one is that people believe that AI is chat GPT, and it's not. It's more than that right.
Speaker 1:So there are different levels that you can utilize AI for real estate, you can use chat GPT as a conversational and use it for marketing. It's a low-hanging fruit, but there are also. You can build your own chatbots that do things for you in different levels in your company. One of the biggest right now that most of the people are starting to know is the chatbot that can actually help you list in the units. So it's the chatbot that is going to take the phone call of the potential tenants. It's going to have a human-like conversation with those tenants. It's going to schedule a tour for you. It's going to put it in your calendar and then it's going to send the list agreement. It's going to remind this person to show up. Okay, it's going to like practically taking the job of one full time person, right.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:A funny comment on that. Like we do have a property that people come and ask for Lisa. Like, hey, I just I talked to Lisa, I has been talking to Lisa, but Lisa is our chatbot. Actually Lisa is our AI, so they go and meet with Tache, but there is no Lisa. But it's such a human-like conversation and it's not about misleading the tenants, okay, it's just about optimizing, like this is a job that can be easily delegated to a trained chatbot for $100, $200 a month and instead of a person that charged $2,000, right.
Speaker 1:So this is another level of AI. And the other level is when you go and you put on top of that other AI technologies in every aspect of your business. So what are you doing with that? Are you replacing humans? In my case, we are not replacing humans, but we are like having human on estero steroids because now they can do more. Exactly, okay, they have less of the job that a computer can do and do the job that a human yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you still need to supervise what is being done, but you can do things a lot faster and a lot more per, let's say, per hours per week. You can accomplish more tasks.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. So what we do with Luna X AI is that we tell entrepreneurs hey, entrepreneurs in real estate, I have done the whole work for you. We have been doing this for two years. We know exactly what you need to implement in each step of the business and if you want to come and we can tell you what to do, okay. Now, I do believe that everybody listening to this podcast is smart enough to learn this by themselves. Okay, so you can go on YouTube and you can start researching. Okay. However, it has taken us two years to actually nail it down to everything that we have to do. Okay. However, it has taken us two years to actually nail it down to everything that we have to do. Okay, and if you have two years to do it, that's fine, but if you want, if someone says, like I understand that success love speed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I need to get this right now because I'm scaling my business, so that's the type of people that is working with us on our next.
Speaker 2:It's the same as coaches in real estate, right? You can take 20 years and learn how to do real estate on your own, or you can go get yourself a coach who's been doing it for 20 years and he's going to teach you in a matter of months and you're going to avoid a lot of costly mistake. So, having a company like Luna X, well, you're going to achieve your results much faster than if you go on YouTube and learn it yourself.
Speaker 1:Right, and what we do is very simple. We just like this is what we are doing, this is what we have done, this is what is work. It is working. Okay, take it and now do it. And now you can buy deals faster, you can analyze this faster, you can capital raise in a different way. So it's mostly for operators that want to scale okay, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs that we focus a lot in productivity, mario, because I think that productivity for solopreneurs is such a challenge. You know how to be productive, what AI to use in order to optimize your time if you are a solopreneur. So saving time is a big thing for us, saving in processes, so something that I really like, because, as an entrepreneur for 20 years, I have done things in the other way, and now that we are all AI technology company, I see how that can change your entrepreneurial life.
Speaker 2:You see the results.
Speaker 1:I see the results. Yes.
Speaker 2:Talking about results. That brings us to our third question. You were recognized as one of the top most successful real estate investors. Recognized as one of the top most successful real estate investors. Now can you tell me what strategies or mindset do you think separates the top investors from the rest of the investors?
Speaker 1:That's such a great question. I think that what separates entrepreneurs from people that are not entrepreneurs are actually two things, and people ask me this question all of the time how do you build five, six companies that are eight figures in three different countries? And it's not that I come from a family with money. I started from zero. When I was just recently divorced, I had my two years old. I was 22. I was really young, and that's what I start building my businesses.
Speaker 1:But I believe there are two things. One is innovation. What is that thing that you can do? You don't have to reinvent the whole wheel, but what is that thing that you can do that can over-deliver to your clients? In this case, with Venus Capital, what we are doing is we're doing all these AIs and technology in our business so we can over-deliver in results to our investors. We can over-deliver in more returns to our investors, right? So? And the second thing I believe is speed, speed, and I always say success, love, speed. If you know me, you will know my husband will tell you this. Like I'm not that type of person that you have to push me, you have to hold me back. I'm all about doing things now. Doing things now and I would like to share a very quick story. Yeah, mario, do you know who W Clement Stone is?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is really exciting. So W, clement Stone was a BFF of Napoleon Hills. Okay, okay, he was a billionaire billionaire in that era and he started from zero. But when he built his company, he attributed his success to one phrase only. You know what phrase was that?
Speaker 2:I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 1:Do it now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Do it now, and he said that he will say that phrase a hundred times a day.
Speaker 2:It's such a Remind yourself saying that, yeah, and it's such a small phrase, but so powerful at the same time.
Speaker 1:So it was do it now. And he will say that a hundred times a day in the elevator when he was going from the first floor to his building in New York. He will make his employees to say that phrase as well Do it now, do it now. Do it now Because he believed and understood that the secret of success was not mindset, it was actually delay.
Speaker 2:Delaying your tasks.
Speaker 1:Delaying everything that you have to do, and that's like part of the things that we have in our company. Like everybody in the company, they know this. It's like do it now, do it now. Do it now my husband and I. It's like, do it now.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Because we know that's part of the success. So I would say that these two is actually what makes a great entrepreneur being a great entrepreneur taking action takers, we call it yeah our fourth question for you, vanessa.
Speaker 2:Marketing has played a huge role in your success. Also, with so much noise in today's digital world, what is the secret to?
Speaker 1:So that's such a good question that I didn't expect. Yeah, I've been in marketing for 20 years. My first company was a marketing company. There is so much noise right now in the digital space. So much noise. Right now.
Speaker 1:It's not about how much content you create, okay, or how much followers you have. It's about bringing that people to reality. And I'm going to tell you exactly what I mean with that. My marketing girl. She has specific goals as a marketing team. Her goals are only attached to revenue generating tasks Revenue generating tasks.
Speaker 1:So when people talk about marketing, people think about oh, I'm going to create content, I'm going to be on Instagram, I'm going to have 100,000 followers, and that's going to be great. And that's how they measure success how many people comment in my posts, how many views I have. In reality, that is nothing if you are not generating income with that in your company. So it doesn't matter if it's 100100,000 or if it's $10,000. But if you find a way to connect that to a generating income, revenue task, that's when the marketing is successful. Right now, it could be, for example, bringing people to your CRM or to your database. That's a very direct task.
Speaker 1:Okay, go with with marketing for us, okay, because that person then going from a social media channel, it goes to our database. That's very important. Remember that you don't own anything in those social media. That people is your people. Okay, that's my second favorite people. That's Mark Zuckerberg people. Yeah, so any marketing activity that we do, it has an associated generating revenue. Yeah, so attack to that. And then it's as I said, it's so much noise that the only way to make sure that you are not I always say this you are not a big brand, you do not need the noise. You need to do activities in market and actually related to your revenue.
Speaker 2:That's very, very good counsel, because a lot of people will lose time trying to, you know, create content, like you said, but it doesn't bring anything to them.
Speaker 1:It's just a waste of time, you know let me, let me put a cherry on top of that. They will say, well, at one point, in six months it will give me something, but in reality, okay, those six months, someone else is generating revenue with that person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm very strategic with the marketing that we do.
Speaker 2:That brings us to already our fifth and last question, vanessa. That brings us to already our fifth and last question. Vanessa, with your experience in AI real estate marketing, where do you see the biggest opportunity for entrepreneurs in the next five to 10 years?
Speaker 1:Exciting. The best opportunity that I see in real estate is actually AI. I'm going to tell you why. Right now, you see a lot of noise regarding transference of wealth. You know the millennials are selling businesses. Yeah, you know the millennials are selling businesses. Yeah, the mom and pops are selling the buildings because the kids they don't want it. Yeah, okay, they don't want to manage. You see a lot of these businesses, including real estate, being managed on Excel, on paper, on QuickBooks. This is completely old fashioned. Okay, on paper, on QuickBooks, this is completely old-fashioned. Now there are large real estate investors that they're still doing the things that they do because it works for them. They are not listening and paying attention to these technologies. Sometimes they're too large to implement change, so you're too small to implement change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're too small, this mom and pop that they're just not interested. They don't know what they don't know, right, all these business owners that are selling their businesses and their real estate. Then you have these larger companies that it's harder for them to change mentality, sometimes to change technology. It takes time for them to do it. But then if you, as a mid-size operator, can take the lead in using these technologies the same way that Venus has done, it can buy those businesses that are still managed on Excel and QuickBooks, those businesses that are still managed on Excel and Facebook, and can optimize that, put some value add and optimize those expenses, save money with all these technologies. This could be the biggest opportunity that you have in your whole life At one point. Other companies are going to do it, but this time only 10 to 15% of real estate investors are using these technologies.
Speaker 2:That's incredible.
Speaker 1:Very, very, very little. So I would say that the biggest opportunity right now is like learn this now, Do it whatever you want. You want to learn it on YouTube Go? You want to come with us? I have a five-day free event that people can go and at least understand, okay, these things. But also learn that now and start implementing so you can scale faster, and this could be the next two to three years. Okay, you could easily build a $1 billion portfolio if you have the right tools.
Speaker 2:The first people who take actions. When there's new opportunities or new technologies presented, they always are the ones who will come out on top, always, no matter what it is Facebook, bitcoin, take for example. Some people believe in crypto, some don't, but still the first people who bought Bitcoin today. They're on top.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. Now, there is a level of risk as well. Right, there is a level of risk that you're taking, but let me tell you, let me ask you this, mario, okay, what is the difference between fear and hope?
Speaker 2:Well, fear is going to keep you from taking the steps. Hope, maybe you don't know, but at least you're going to try, Because you believe that there might be something on the other end of the of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Very good, that's very good. Now I want you invite your listeners, okay, to think about this fear and hope are both a thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Your mind. They're both. The difference is that fear is the thought or failure, and hope is the thought or success very nice define where you're going to take these thoughts that you're having in your mind. Yeah, so when you're taking the rest, you can have fear or you can have hope. They're both a thought in your mind. You decide at that moment which one is going to be.
Speaker 2:Vanessa, it was such a pleasure to talk with you today. I had an amazing time, one of the best podcasts I ever recorded. I'm going to be honest with you Nobody, ever or not nobody, but not. A lot of people talk about AI for real estate. It's still, like you said, a new technology. Not a lot has been implemented, but you brought your knowledge and experience and I'm very thankful and hopefully our listeners take a piece of your knowledge in their journey.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much. I was so happy to be here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning into the five questions podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.