In this episode of The Science of Flipping, I share powerful insights from a panel I recently joined at the IMN conference, where we tackled one of the hottest topics in the industry right now: AI in real estate. From hedge fund managers to mom-and-pop investors, everyone’s asking the same thing—will AI take over our space? My answer: no, but it will play a massive role. I break down the areas where AI is helping (like underwriting and tenant screening), and the places where it simply can’t replace human judgment—like negotiation, construction, and title. I also share a personal story about buying my home that underscores why human interaction will always matter. If you're a real estate pro, this episode is your wake-up call to use AI as a tool—not a replacement. -- Thank you to Mando for supporting today's podcast! Stay Fresh, Stay Confident with Mando! Tired of body odor? Mando Whole Body Deodorant keeps you fresh for up to 72 hours—pits, feet, and everywhere in between. Grab the Starter Pack and get $5 off (over 40% off!) with code [COLBY] at ShopMando.com. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence. Get yours today! -- About Justin: After investing in real estate for over 18 years and almost 3000 deals done, Justin has created a business that generates 7 figures in active income through wholesaling and fix and flipping as well as accumulating millions of dollars of rental properties including 5 apartment buildings, 50+ single family homes, and 1 storage facility Justins longevity in real estate is due to his ability to look around the corners, adapt to changing markets, perfecting Raising private capital, and focusing on lead generation which allows him to not just wholesale and fix & flip, but also accumulate wealth through long term holds. His success in real estate led him to start The Entrepreneur DNA podcast and The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, and REI LIVE where he’s actively doing deals with members. He has coached and mentored thousands of aspiring and active investors over the last decade. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Welcome back to the Science of Flipping Family. This episode is all about AI. I just recently had the blessing and fortunate opportunity to be speaking in front of a large group of real estate investors from hedge fund managers to syndicators to small fix and flippers. And the entire subject matter was about AI. How is AI going to affect our lives? precious real estate vertical.
Chapter 2: How is AI expected to affect the real estate industry?
And the cool part about this event is there was three other speakers, so to speak, we had a panel that we really had a lot of time to answer different ways that we believe AI can really impact us. And so I want to give you guys a little insight on what went down on this panel and how we were able to show AI being so powerful in the real estate space.
Now, I know AI is kind of that key word right now, and it's the buzzword, and everyone's talking about AI and what platforms can do what. And trust me, everyone knows the major platforms. I get that. We didn't get too far into the major platforms like ChatGPT. Now, we did talk about prompt AI, right? Where you're prompting certain AI technology to do certain things. We talked about it.
But really... where we took the conversation was in a much larger scope, a much larger frame of the impact AI is going to have on real estate as a whole. One of the first questions the moderator asked us as the panel was, do we believe that AI is going to basically take over the space for real estate?
which depending upon where you're at in your journey of real estate, that could be something you're thinking about. Maybe it's not, but it is something that some of the big players, the hedge fund managers, the very, very large syndicators, some of the banks, they had intrigue on that question. And the reason being is because if some of these larger players
The hedge funds, the banks, the syndicators, insurance companies had a really big intrigue on this question. Um, property management had a really big, uh, interest on this question because some of these larger players, and I'm talking about national property management, not mom and pop. I'm talking about national because they still rely so heavily on human capital. Okay.
And so I actually was the first one that spoke up about this and I kind of went off. Um, and the reason why I went off is because I believe, and it's just an opinion. I believe there will be no way to fully automate the real estate space. Now, do I firmly believe AIs come and is gonna play an impact and impact the real estate place? Yes. It's just too big, too smart, moving too fast.
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Chapter 3: Will AI fully automate real estate transactions?
It is gonna have a massive impact. I'm not ignorant to that. But still, my belief within the space is there's going to always have to be some human component inside each transaction. Right. We were talking about title companies was another one that had a massive interest in understanding is AI just going to take it over. And let me give you my perspective on this one thing.
I run a company called Rocketly.ai. Rocketly.ai. I built a company with my co-founder and you guys should check it out. If you are a small operator in the real estate space, I'm plugging it now. Rocketly.ai. It will help you massively if you're doing any level of marketing spend to your company, okay? Now, so I'm very familiar with AI, the impact of AI and where it can go. But I don't believe...
For the operators, and I'm talking about the people operating the insurance companies, the title companies, the real estate, you know, mom and pop, fix and flippers, and even the hedge fund companies, the people actually operating it, I don't believe they'll ever be able to be fully removed. The reason being, there's a lot of nuance within real estate.
I don't believe there'll ever be a one size fits all analysis AI component. This question led in directly, you know, the question regarding is AI going to take over the real estate space led in directly to, you know, is there a program or an AI that can just make analyzing properties faster and accurate? That one task alone, in my humble opinion, and listen, I'm not the smartest person out there.
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. I just have a lot of experience in real estate. I don't believe based on the nuance of real estate, right? A storage facility versus apartment, a four unit versus a five unit, a single family asset versus a duplex, a 400 door complex versus a 1200 door complex. There's so much nuance. And there's so many people on the money side, right?
The people who invest, the companies that invest, the hedge funds that invest, that have different buy boxes. They have nuanced criteria that will fit their buy box. I just do not believe that there'll be any type of technology that is a one size fits all. Do I believe there could be 42 versions that might be implemented? That might be a possibility.
But then my point to this entire scope of questions was you have to inspect what you expect. I'll say that again. You have to inspect what you expect. So if you expect this technology to be 100% accurate 100% of the time, the only way to know that is if you inspect it manually with people that it hit the target on a bullseye, right? And so...
It was a big talking point just about the component of analysis that I just really firmly believe there could be 42 or 4,000 different versions of some automated bot that is going to calculate the returns and do all this kind of stuff. And some of it is already out there. Do I believe this can take over? No. Right.
I just anyone that is going to be investing in the asset, anyone that's going to be putting the money out. And that includes hedge funds, small mom and pops, et cetera. They're not going to 100 percent rely on technology because technology itself can fail. Right. That is it's foolish to think that just because technology is 100 percent accurate.
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Chapter 4: What role does human interaction play in real estate?
Title companies, you know, there's always been conversation around even not Bitcoin, but blockchain. Blockchain replacing title companies, replacing escrow officers. And all this stuff can now happen on the blockchain. So that's been happening for years. Now we have AI technology.
Now everyone's leaning into this idea that, you know, okay, well now we can remove escrow agents and title agents and all these different things. I got to be honest with you guys. I don't see that happening at all. Now, again, I'm not saying that there aren't going to be components of AI or even blockchain coming into the real estate space and playing a part.
But this crowd in our room filled up fast. If you guys have ever been at these conferences, this was the IMN conference, not the Inman, but the IMN conference. There are some rooms that have eight people and then some rooms who have, you know, 100 people. Our room had 100 people. Everyone wanted to hear about AI.
And I just, again, believe that the nuance of title, insurance, coverages, going and finding, you know, any liens, there's a lot of technology that can do this stuff. but is largely dependent upon human capital, human resources to get the job done and over the finish line. If you've ever done deals, you know that at the closing table, it can be frustrating.
Buyers don't show up, sellers don't show up, all sorts of different things, right? It's not just spitting out, you know, title insurance and a HUD, right? There's actual, this is why many states, uh, fiduciary states, there's closing lawyers, like quite literal lawyers. Right. Um, and so I just fully dismissed this idea of title.
Um, because I just think again, just like anything, there's not going to be A robot transacting the deal, just like sales, right? Just like negotiation. There's just not going to be. And by the way, I sit here today, the year's 2025, right? Like, okay, fine. In the year 2090, maybe.
Maybe this episode will be totally obsolete, but the reality is I believe in my lifetime, in the lifetime I'm going to be doing real estate, I don't believe it can fully take it over. And quite honestly, if it does, I think we have much bigger problems and I think our society is going to change so drastically.
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Chapter 5: Can AI replace negotiations in real estate?
And I'm not trying to get my opinion too far on this episode, but I mean, I just think society in general would be in a way different place if all of a sudden AI and technology and blockchain just fully take over all this stuff. As many of you know, I'm constantly on the move, juggling multiple businesses, traveling, and ensuring I get my morning workouts in.
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Chapter 6: How does emotional intelligence factor into real estate transactions?
Do you think you have some feelings, emotions in the idea of selling your home? Some pride of home ownership, some frustration of your home, whatever it may be. Do you think that plays into the role of how you would sell your home? And the answer is going to be, of course, right? And so it kind of just boils down to that basic concept of
Think about your own home when you're thinking about can AI take this industry over? Is AI, we went all the way into property management, right? Is AI fully going to integrate into property management so that there's no human component? How?
When the two people that either own the home or live in the home are people and there's emotion and there's stuff that goes on, how is AI going to take this over? Right. And I do believe AI can play a part in some of these bigger companies like insurance. Right. So that they can underwrite a property a little bit quicker on the location and and, you know. stuff of that nature.
Is it close to water? Is it not close to water? Are there fire hydrants around? I'm very aware that there is going to be components AI can play within insurance, title companies, property management, even building these buy boxes. I'm aware of there's a component of it. I would dismiss the entire idea that it's going to be fully taken over. Now, I'm not the biggest tech person.
I'm not the biggest AI person. There are people listening to this right now. You guys are emphatically way further down the road on understanding and learning AI. You may be fully disagreeing with everything I'm saying. You may be thinking AI is coming over and taking over everything. Okay, that's fine. I just, maybe it's intuition. Maybe it's a gut feeling.
Maybe it's just the concept of, again, owning your own personal home. The feelings you have about your personal home. If I were to sell and I'm not looking to sell, you know, I have emotion behind it. If I am met, my emotions met with a black and white cold machine, a bot, AI, whatever.
then i'm i'm gonna go cold and a lot of times then we're gonna have a standstill whether we're gonna get sold sell something because it does become black and white it doesn't become emotional i'll give you a short story real quick about how i bought my home it was a for sale by owner on zillow um very difficult neighborhood to get in there was nothing listed and i said oh wait a minute maybe there's people selling it for sale by owner not on the mls
so i found a beautiful home i live in i bought it right the reason i was able to buy it is because i reached out to the homeowner directly the there was it was currently an escrow the buyer and the buyer was kind of balking a little bit and wanted some things the seller was kind of like i don't really feel like doing this i built a very good relationship with the the seller the seller basically said justin if you are 100 in
and you're willing to put a $40,000 earnest money deposit, then I'm going to draw a fine line in the sand with this buyer. I'm not going to be giving. He's asking for a lot. I'm not going to be giving. It is a yes or no on my side and he is going to either have to accept it or not. The buyer did not. The buyer wanted, I forgot what he wanted, but he wanted some things.
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Chapter 7: What are the limitations of AI in real estate?
Chapter 8: What is Rocketly.ai and how does it relate to real estate?
there needs to be empathy, there needs to be emotion, there needs to be some stuff that just a black and white technology bot, although sure, you can make an argument that all these voice AIs are just as good, I just don't believe that for a second. They're fine for what they are, but they aren't ever gonna replace us, right? That's my belief. This went into the conversation about title companies.
Title companies, you know, there's always been conversation around even not Bitcoin, but blockchain. Blockchain replacing title companies, replacing escrow officers. And all this stuff can now happen on the blockchain. So that's been happening for years. Now we have AI technology.
Now everyone's leaning into this idea that, you know, okay, well now we can remove escrow agents and title agents and all these different things. I got to be honest with you guys. I don't see that happening at all. Now, again, I'm not saying that there aren't going to be components of AI or even blockchain coming into the real estate space and playing a part.
But this crowd in our room filled up fast. If you guys have ever been at these conferences, this was the IMN conference, not the Inman, but the IMN conference. There are some rooms that have eight people and then some rooms who have, you know, 100 people. Our room had 100 people. Everyone wanted to hear about AI.
And I just, again, believe that the nuance of title, insurance, coverages, going and finding, you know, any liens, there's a lot of technology that can do this stuff. but is largely dependent upon human capital, human resources to get the job done and over the finish line. If you've ever done deals, you know that at the closing table, it can be frustrating.
Buyers don't show up, sellers don't show up, all sorts of different things, right? It's not just spitting out, you know, title insurance and a HUD, right? There's actual, this is why many states, uh, fiduciary states, there's closing lawyers, like quite literal lawyers. Right. Um, and so I just fully dismissed this idea of title.
Um, because I just think again, just like anything, there's not going to be A robot transacting the deal, just like sales, right? Just like negotiation. There's just not going to be. And by the way, I sit here today, the year's 2025, right? Like, okay, fine. In the year 2090, maybe.
Maybe this episode will be totally obsolete, but the reality is I believe in my lifetime, in the lifetime I'm going to be doing real estate, I don't believe it can fully take it over. And quite honestly, if it does, I think we have much bigger problems and I think our society is going to change so drastically.
And I'm not trying to get my opinion too far on this episode, but I mean, I just think society in general would be in a way different place if all of a sudden AI and technology and blockchain just fully take over all this stuff. As many of you know, I'm constantly on the move, juggling multiple businesses, traveling, and ensuring I get my morning workouts in.
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