The AI Real Estate Hack No One’s Talking About (Because It Barely Works)
I went to an uncoference and all I got was this lousy inspiration
As a recovering tech entrepreneur, my email address is still out there in the internet ether on a number of interesting mailing lists. I recently received an email inviting me to an event called VibeCamp, a gathering of folks interested in the uses of AI to write software code. This event seemed like a natural evolution of the vibe coding trend, a movement born at the intersection of hacker culture, AI tooling, and ambient lo-fi playlists. It often involves quick iteration, non-linear thinking, and the occasional refactor inspired by a midnight shower thought. On this particular Saturday, I was curious about the state of things and how others in the space were engaging with new AI tools.
As my first unconference, I was immersed in my first participant-driven event that flips the traditional conference model on its head. Instead of a rigid agenda with pre-selected speakers and PowerPoint marathons, attendees co-created the schedule on the spot at the start of the day. My particular interest in this event was to learn how I can create leverage in operating my business by using AI. I wanted to approach this event with an open mind that is ready to test new tools in any and all parts of my work. Specifically, I wanted to understand what tools I could leverage to keep project planning and execution moving on-pace.
Walking to the event space in Manhattan's meatpacking district, I realized that I had been to this space before for a few events during the go-go days of crypto in 2019 and 20; Chainlink, Helium, and a couple of now-defunct projects. I was attracted to the event I was going to because it was designed for a collective investigation and sharing of ways participants are using AI. Being ever curious by nature, I wanted to understand how I could better use AI in my blog writing, video content creation, and construction project management. As a recovering tech entrepreneur, I was hoping to find tools that would let me turn my product ideas into functioning products.
As the day began, I listened to a discussion about using Claude AI as a personal assistant and a discussion about creating an AI-supported workflow using vibe coding magic to turn your product ideas into working demos. My first big takeaway was a new understanding of how to define and stratify tasks to get AI tools to accomplish larger tasks like writing stories or creating a web app. While this process was insightful in helping to create a basic boilerplate baseline that can be tweaked and modified to achieve the final goal, my ongoing experience was that the AI tools were just not "there" yet. My simple way of measuring success was the same as I would use for an entry-level employee: if it takes more work to supervise the employee than the amount of time they save to the organization, it is not a good fit.
While the progress was amazing, I found that most of the tools that were presented enabled users to make sub-par output very quickly. While that is helpful for those who are already subject matter experts, if you lack the ability to supervise and evaluate the work of an AI you are in no better position than hiring a person whose expertise you cannot evaluate. In fact, a professor in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon recently published a scientific research paper showing AI agents, across multiple large providers, fail to complete basic business tasks at an astonishing rate. I am reminded of the mythology that was built up around robots in the 50s and the 60s as the miracles of modernity soon to replace all drudgery and difficulty of manual labor. Let's be honest, it's 2025 and we still don't have a decent robot that can vacuum the floor without needing a human to first pick everything up off the floor.
What does commercial success really look like in everyday life automation? Look no further than the washing machine or dishwasher. True success is ubiquity. Automation that truly replaces human labor in the long term penetrates everywhere, like the ubiquity of washing machines and dishwashers across all parts of the globe. If you can't trust the automation to reliably set up meetings for you or look up the information and fill out basic forms, it's just not "there" yet. These are the types of basic tasks an intern or entry-level associate would be helpful with in a real estate business. When I can get "Hey (insert AI name), can you schedule a meeting with the Architect next week?" to execute correctly and show up as a meeting on my calendar, I will be ready to dive in. For now, I’ll stick with using Claude to copy edit my work, and ChatGPT to make pretty pictures of my pretend face.
So, what's the takeaway for those just stepping into real estate investing or property management? First and foremost, be open minded! Look for new tools and test them. AI may not be ready to replace an assistant today, but it may be in six months. The world is changing fast and it is not slowing down. Whether it's leveraging AI, systems, or people, the key is knowing what actually moves the needle. New investors should focus less on perfection and more on momentum. Build basic workflows that work even if they're clunky at first, question the utility of every tech tool, and measure progress not by novelty but by reliability. Because real progress, like a dependable washing machine, doesn't need applause, it just needs to work every single time.
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