How Real Estate Agents Can Benefit from AI

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Lauren Schulman. Lauren, thank you so much for leaving us a five -star review. And for all of you listening, if you leave us a five -star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Ray Luan. Ray is the CEO and founder of New Oaks AI.

Ray, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Ray (00:31)
Thank you, Aviva.

Aviva (00:32)
So Ray, before we get into New Oaks AI, which is the meat and potatoes about why we're here, you have a really interesting background that I think really ties this all together. So if you wouldn't mind sharing with the audience who you are, your background story, and what you do today.

Ray (00:56)
Okay, thank you Aviva for the introduction. Hi everyone, my name is Ray. I'm originally from China. I started my first job as a software engineer in the US at KBB .com. And then I spent about six years in the US and got my MBA at Dartmouth College at Tuck School of Business.

And then after graduation, I started my own business. So in 2014, I created my first venture. I would always want to become an entrepreneur. So my first venture was a used car e -commerce online business. And then I was able to raise about $6 .5 million US dollars from one of the top tier Silicon Valley VC firm. And then I...

You know, build up the company for another six years until the COVID hit. And then I, well, it wasn't successful, but I learned a lot from my first venture. And then I joined TikTok. I was managing their used car online business. So it's kind of like my second venture. I started from scratch, from ground zero, and I hired...

hired, I'm the first employee in that business and eventually when I left last year, we have about 500 employees and I grow the annual revenue up to 200 million US dollars. And then the interesting story is that in 2023, the Chet GBT just comes out and just gave a shock of everybody in the technology industry. So I left it to talk.

Aviva (02:35)
Wow.

Ray (02:49)
on in May of 2023 and wanted to start to build my third venture, which is NewOaks AI. But back to then, I did not know what I was building or I wanted to build. Interesting story is that I happened to have a real estate agent friend, JC, who is in Irvine, California. And she knew that I'm keen about AI and want me to help her to build something.

to automate her business in real estate. So therefore, I had an idea, say, hey, JC, I know that you're doing residential real estate business. I think what AI may be able to help you is to automate your whole business and to give you an AI assistant. How does that sound? So she was really happy and.

She already has an assistant. She also wants me to help her to reduce the cost of operational costs. Because think about it, when you hire someone as your assistant, you've got to pay like $2 ,000 at the monthly salary and with incentives and commission. So in general, she will have to pay about $5 ,000 every month. So yearly is about, yeah.

Aviva (04:12)
Yeah.

Ray (04:14)
you know, 60 grand. So with that, but with an AI, so my vision, my goal is to help her to reduce the cost from, you know, $5 ,000 to like $100 every month with the help of AI. So that's how I started the business. And then we, me and a partner, so, you know, I have a partner who is also in the SaaS business for over 10 years in the US. And then we, you know, we together,

we built our first product, which is called chatrouter .ai and launched at a part of hunt and got top two over the day. And then we have JC to test out the AI chatbot, which was really helpful. And it can literally take the custom inquiries online from real estate platform like Zelo.

and then engage with the customers and then convert the customers' information, collect the information and convert that to a leads and eventually make an appointment online. So that's how it works. And then later on we have, we evolved the first product into NewOaks .AI, which is a more general chatbot for all different industries, not only real estate, but e -commerce, automobile.

and healthcare and all the local professional service business. So that's the whole story. And then I got to know you on Twitter. I think you're doing a great job in TikTok. So I think maybe there's something that we can talk about that how AI can help you or the whole real estate industry to automate the whole business. Yep.

Aviva (06:04)
Well, Ray, you know, your history and your experience is fascinating. And when I say a real estate agent, I mean for both residential and commercial because I know that as commercial real estate agents, we like to separate the two, but the reality is that our jobs are the same. We facilitate.

transactions between buyers and sellers, whether it's a house or a warehouse, it's the same thing. As a real estate agent, how do I use New Oaks AI to get more leads and integrate it into my life as my virtual assistant?

Ray (06:50)
Yeah, good question. So as a real estate agent, what we can do is that basically what we do is that we connect the large language model in the backend such as ChatGPT or cloud or Google Gemini. And then we utilize the AI's capability or talent to help you first to get traffic online.

For example, if you have a website called Aviva .com or warehouse .com, we can create a chat bubble on the bottom of your website so that when you have visitors to your website, the chat bot can engage with your customers and answer all kinds of questions regarding to your business and then collect information like name, email, phone number, or even

the visitors social media so that you can follow up later after the competition. Even better, we recently, we also integrate with Facebook. We can finish the integration with Facebook so that you can deploy the AI chatbot on your Facebook messenger. So when you're busy with other customers, for example, you showcase your property or residential or commercial property to your customers.

the chatbot can reply to your potential customers message on Facebook and also on WhatsApp or Instagram in the future. Those are on my road map. So in one sentence that we will build up a smart AI agent, virtual assistant agent for you so that you have a very intelligent agent can collect information and connect leads and even

even by the end make appointments for you online, but in all different, we call it omnichannels, not only your own official website, but social medias also in the future, we're also working on integration with TikTok so that when you publish your videos on TikTok and the chatbot can do automatically comments and engage and follow up with your TikTok followers. So that's basically how it works.

Aviva (09:12)
You know, I've been having this conversation. I'm so curious. How do you find the general public response to the AI chat bot? Are they hesitant? Do they like it? What are you finding the response to be from folks?

Ray (09:32)
Okay, yeah, so let's talk about How it was before and how it was today, okay? So last year when I really started we used it depends on the model Okay, so the first model we use is chat GPT 3 .5 turbo You know it can answer general questions about your business and collect information and make appointments with people so many of my customers like it, but it's more

Or less like a, you know, it doesn't have a human touch in it. It doesn't, it's, it's not sentimental. So, even though commercially or in terms of business, it works well for people, for folks. but still I think people's expectation for AI is that, you don't feel like you're talking to AI, right? You don't want to feel like you're talking to the machine, but you want to feel like you're talking to someone.

who has personality and who knows the business better than you do and be able to solve your problems. So that's how the latest update with OpenAI, I'm not sure you heard of that, on May 14th. So Chat GPT has a very latest model, it's called GPT -4O, O stands for Omni. That model is fantastic. So.

it even can talk to you with emotions, with sentiments, right? And with tones. So it's more and more like human. It sometimes even scares me, you know? so it's getting very close to AGI, which means artificial general intelligence already. From my perspective,

I think we're getting there. So one more thing, one more features in AI products we're building is that we're also building voice AI assistant. So that if you list your commercial property or residential property on the platform like Zillow or Realtors .com, when someone calls you,

Aviva (11:24)
Wow.

Wow.

Ray (11:46)
the AI assist actually pick up the call and answer the call with your tone, with your knowledge, and with a sense of personality that you wanted to have. So that's what's good happening. So what I'm saying is that with the evolution of the technology, I think the AI agent will be more and more like human beings instead of like machines.

Aviva (12:16)
It's so crazy. I

You know, I think people are generally really hesitant about technology and adapting new technology. I think that's human nature. But what's fascinating to me is how much it can improve our lives, how much time it can save us, and, you know, the efficiency that we can create as a result, because the reality is we don't have control over.

the technological advances in the world, right? The world is moving forward, right? We are not going back to writing physical mail. Okay, there's a place for physical mail, but it's not like email is ever gonna go back to pre -email the Stone Age. Just kidding. So, what do you think the future holds for

Ray (12:54)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, sure.

Aviva (13:17)
the agent with AI capabilities.

Ray (13:20)
I think the future for agents with AI capability will perform much better than the agent who doesn't have AI capabilities. So I think I got your point that sometimes humans are afraid of that AI will replace them or will replace the jobs. But I think that's not true because I think what AI will replace is the tasks.

but not humans jobs. But AI will free us, either you as an agent or myself as a CEO or engineer, from our repetitive daily jobs or tasks, so that we can do something better or be more creative and more fun. So I think in the future, think about it, what AI can do is it's going to automate the whole process from,

Publish your videos online and publish your products online and then engage the customers and to make appointments so when the only the only Scenarios that Human is needed is what we want to talk to a customer face to face, right? I'm sure that your well customers doesn't want to talk to a robot yet I mean in the real life, but so what I picture what's gonna happen is that?

For example, AI will improve our productivity at least 10 times. For example, say, for example, if you manage, say, 100 commercial real estate by yourself, just for example, take it as an example, but with assistive AI, I think you will be able to manage at least 1 ,000 commercial properties.

with the capabilities of AI because I'm sure you are very smart, but you cannot remember every details of the 1 ,000 properties information, right? You cannot remember every single price or facilities or the purchase price or the selling price and all the details. But with the help of AI, I think that the beauty of the AI is right now with our training to the AI with your property information.

Aviva (15:27)
Of course.

Ray (15:45)
the AI can access your info database in real time and then answer customers' questions and even recommend your properties to potential customers and improve the conversion rate. So I think with the help of AI, you're going to increase the scale of your business, but without increasing the cost of your business. So that's how I perceive that what's going to happen.

Aviva (16:14)
Yeah, I think, you know, somebody, an entrepreneur or a real estate agent or an investor, every day we have a list of tasks, right? And it ranges from anything from admin all the way to growing the company or, you know, a managerial or, you know, the top of the funnel tasks and...

I have found that if I can find a way to take care of my admin tasks and take care of the tasks that take a lot of brain power and take a lot of time but don't necessarily bring the company or the clients as much value, if I can delegate those or use AI to help me make my...

day more efficient, I'm able to create and then follow through on more high level work, which ultimately benefits our clients, our tenants, and helps us be more creative and happier overall. And that's the beauty of AI. I think about sometimes I'll have real estate terms and I'll...

have to write an email to somebody explaining to them a real estate term. And, you know, I'm not a textbook, I'm not a lawyer, but what I can do is I can jump into ChatGPT and say, write an email explaining what a seller's property disclosure is and why it's important. And ChatGPT will write something in 10 seconds, in five seconds, that is far more proficient and efficient than what would have taken me maybe 10 or 20 minutes.

And it just pushes us into this new level of discovery mode to ultimately just enhance the customer experience and make it a, you know, it gives me the opportunity to hop on a podcast like this and talk to somebody like you so more people can learn and we can do more for the greater good for people as opposed to me working on, you know,

making invoices or tasks that have to be done, but take time, but are not efficient to maximize our time. So I love AI. I think it's the coolest thing ever.

Ray (18:48)
Yes.

Yes, I think what you described is exactly what AI has benefited to you and to me together as working professionals. I'd like to use an analogy that you can actually outsource the repetitive tasks to AI versus also to a real human. For example,

what I like to use that you can hire a Stanford graduate, but for only like $20 a month, right? To do your admin work and to understand your legal documents, to explain the real asset jargons or terminologies to your visitors or potential customers, but without needing to manage the, you know, the...

I mean, the repetitive works yourself, right? To free yourself from the really boring, I mean, you know, the boring works and to do more creative and customer -facing works. For example, for you, I think you would rather spend most of your time to, you know, to think about how to promote your business and, right, focus on the really high -value works instead of the, you know, repetitive works.

and then eventually scale your business, but still having fun and even have like personal life, right? You don't want to focus your, spend all of your time, I mean, 12 hours a day on jobs, right? You can want to spend your time with your family. So that's how AI can help us to do.

Aviva (20:37)
I think it's fascinating and one of my favorite parts is like you said, chat GPT just really hit the mainstream in May of 23. It's a year ago and we're just getting started. So technology can be our friend. We just have to be positive about it. Ray, what makes you happy in your...

Ray (20:52)
Yes, yes.

Aviva (21:07)
day to day as the founder of New Oaks AI.

Ray (21:10)
Thank you for the questions. It's really exciting questions that I would like to answer. So what makes me happy is that what you know what called me in the morning, right? What's caused me up to wake up in the morning is that customers. So I remember I read the first thing I woke up in the morning. I go to my mailbox.

check out the list of my customers who's using my product using chat box. So I have a list of the customers, right? So who is, I categorize my customers into three categories. Who is using that every day? Who is using that? The last customer who's using my products is that if it is a month away that I need to email him and ask, hey, you know, what's, how's everything going? How can I help you?

So I think what's really making me excited about the job is that I feel that I can use AI to create values to my customers. I can give you an example that we just finished Facebook integration literally last week and then I am so happy to email out the latest updates to my customer base through our company emails and then.

I received feedback right away within like 10 minutes that they're so happy that it has raised. So I thank you so much to bring the Facebook integration. And I didn't know that a lot of our customers have already started to deploy the chatbot into Google Voice so that when customers text message them, they do not need to answer the repetitive questions.

Aviva (22:44)
Wow.

Wow.

Ray (23:04)
But if they figure out there's some important question they need to jump in, they can just interference in the form of what we call the live chat feature of my product. So those kind of like value creation make me very excited every day. So that's the beauty of entrepreneurship and that's the beauty of starting up a business. So I like to talk to my customer day and night.

Yeah, hosting webinars and even create tutorial videos. I'm not a video person. I did not know how to edit video myself, but since I launched the product, I'm very happy to learn all the new skills every day that I have not touched before. So it's really refreshing for me, that whole experience. And I can...

Yeah, I can work like 12 hours a day just like you did.

Aviva (24:06)
It's funny because it's like people are so afraid that AI will replace the human connection, but it doesn't. It just enhances the human connection and it gives us better abilities to connect.

Ray (24:16)
Yes.

Exactly. So the beauty of AI is that think about before 2023, if for example, if a company wants to build up a lot online product and make it publish, then a business will hire someone who know how to do Google ICO. You need to hire someone who can edit videos or create marketing materials.

and you need someone who can do online sales and host webinars and also to do the follow up and customer service. So interestingly, with the help of AI, I can do everything by myself. So I'm the customer service guy of my business. I am the sales guy from my business. I am the marketing director of my own business. I am the branding director of my own business. So...

Aviva (25:03)
Yeah.

Ray (25:17)
I basically do everything by myself, even though I'm not a designer, even the logo of NewOaks AI, I create that within 10 minutes by using ChaiJVT. I create the logo. And so, literally, I become a soldier, right? With the help of AI, I become a, I can do everything almost, even with coding. I didn't code program for a long time, but it...

Right now, I mean, with the help of AI, I can code any time. So it really scale up everyone's expertise. And you do not need to know anything about coding anymore. So that's how AI can help us. And then the AI can free us from learning the hard skills, but make us to really be able to focus on the soft touch of the...

Aviva (25:52)
So...

Ray (26:16)
the work right to meet more people, more fun people like you or or to meet people in the same business, even though to meet people online with with the customers. So I can I I did a little calculation that I almost do one online meetings every single day. I can do that every single day without any like feeling tiring or anything like that, because I know that AI is behind my back so that I can spend time.

on the most interesting part, which is meeting customers, collect their demand and requests for features. And then so that I can publish the, I can do the code overnight and publish the feature the second day to really improve the speed of production release. So that's the, that's, that's, you know, that kind of thing has never happened before.

Aviva (27:09)
It's big.

Ray (27:09)
Yeah, it really is. Yeah, speed is huge.

Aviva (27:12)
Yeah, that's cool.

Ray (27:15)
Right. And yeah, and also, you know that there are a lot of AI startups that can create annual revenue of like 100 million US dollars, but not with a lot of people, for example, mid journey, right? They have only like less than 20 people, but their annual revenue is like a hundred million US dollars. So that's how AI can do a lot of revenue creation, but without...

increase the cost of the business. So that's fantastic.

Aviva (27:48)
Wow.

So interesting. Ray, I really appreciate your time and your knowledge and your expertise. Where can the listeners learn about you and New Oaks AI and connect with you online?

Ray (28:04)
Yes, I think the listeners or the audience can find the website of my business. Just type www .newoaks .ai, Google it or type it out. Or you guys can find me on Facebook, just search Ray Luan or NewOaks or LinkedIn. So we are on Facebook, Twitter, and also LinkedIn. But...

The most effective way is to just to go to our website, www .newoaks .ai and start a test, give a test out the product yourself so that it can give a sense that how you can help you to grow your business.

Aviva (28:49)
Ray, thank you for being on the show. You brought a ton of value today to the listeners and for everybody listening, we'll see you next week.