How AI Streamlines Real Estate Underwriting and Asset Ops

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Sep 4

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How AI Revolutionizes Real Estate: Streamlining Underwriting and Asset Management

The real estate industry is undergoing a transformative shift as AI technology begins to address some of the sector’s most significant pain points. In this deep dive, we explore how AI is redefining underwriting, asset management, and decision-making processes for real estate professionals. Drawing insights from a conversation with Nathan (co-founder and CEO of Built AI), this article will unpack the inefficiencies in traditional workflows, the potential of AI-powered solutions, and the evolving role of technology in real estate modeling and operations.

Introduction: The Case for Technological Evolution in Real Estate

Real estate professionals have long navigated a challenging landscape dominated by legacy tools like Excel and Argus. While these systems have been the industry standard for decades, they’ve become increasingly inadequate for managing the growing complexity and scale of modern investments. Nathan, with his background in real estate private equity and investment banking, highlights how inefficiencies such as manual data entry, error-prone models, and opaque workflows contribute to wasted time, resources, and missed opportunities.

Today, AI offers a solution that not only automates repetitive tasks but also enables better decision-making and collaboration. By leveraging AI, real estate professionals can streamline underwriting processes, improve portfolio performance, and unlock new opportunities with unprecedented speed and precision.

The Problem: Legacy Systems and Inefficient Processes

Nathan’s career, spanning roles at Citigroup, Benson Elliot, and more, provides a clear window into the inefficiencies of traditional underwriting and asset management workflows. One example he shared stands out - spending an entire weekend painstakingly building a financial model for a portfolio of shopping centers, only for his boss to dismiss the project outright on Monday morning. Stories like this illustrate the time-consuming and often futile nature of manual processes in real estate.

Key challenges identified in traditional workflows include:

Manual Data Entry: Extracting and inputting data from property brochures and lease documents is labor-intensive and prone to human error.
Opaque Modeling: The reliance on outdated tools like Excel, which often harbor hard-coded errors, makes financial models unreliable. Studies suggest that over 88% of financial models have material mistakes.
Limited Scalability: Teams are constrained by the sheer volume of deals they can evaluate, often leaving potential opportunities unexplored.
Lack of Standardization: Disparities between brokers’ and investors’ underwriting methods create inefficiencies, requiring redundant work to align assumptions and models.

These systemic inefficiencies not only slow down decision-making but also expose firms to financial and reputational risks.

The Solution: AI-Powered Tools to Transform Real Estate

Built AI, the company Nathan co-founded, was born out of a desire to address these pain points. By leveraging artificial intelligence, Built AI automates complex underwriting, asset management, and collaboration processes, enabling real estate professionals to work smarter, not harder.

How Built AI Works

The platform uses AI capabilities such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to:

Automate Data Extraction: Users can drag and drop property brochures into the platform, which extracts, structures, and populates the necessary data into an underwriting model.
Standardize Underwriting: Built AI creates a standardized financial model aligned with an organization’s specific assumptions, ensuring consistency and transparency.
Enhance Collaboration: Deals can be shared with internal teams or external stakeholders through a secure, sharable link. Investors can analyze opportunities faster, using their pre-defined assumptions, without needing to rework models.
Simulate Scenarios: The platform enables users to run multiple asset management scenarios - e.g., leasing at various rent levels or adjusting holding periods - at a fraction of the time it would traditionally take.

Using these tools, a process that previously took days or weeks can now be completed in minutes, freeing up analysts and associates to focus on higher-value tasks such as strategy and decision-making.

Impact on Real Estate Teams: Redefining Roles and Workflows

The adoption of AI tools like Built AI is not about replacing people - it’s about empowering them. Here’s how it’s reshaping real estate teams:

Enhanced Efficiency: Teams can underwrite more deals in less time, allowing them to focus on the most promising opportunities.
Reduction in Errors: AI minimizes the risk of human error by standardizing processes and flagging inconsistencies in assumptions or data.
Scalability: Firms can evaluate a higher volume of deals without needing to expand their analyst teams significantly.
Strategic Focus: By automating manual processes, team members can focus on strategic tasks, such as refining investment theses, market research, and relationship management.

Nathan emphasizes that while junior analysts still need to understand core concepts like IRR and equity multiples, AI ensures that their time is spent on meaningful analysis rather than repetitive tasks.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

While AI holds enormous potential, Nathan points out some limitations and ethical concerns:

Market Opacity: Real estate remains an opaque industry, with critical data - such as lease terms and capex requirements - often unavailable in the public domain. AI tools are only as effective as the data they can access.
AI Washing: The rise of "AI washing", where companies claim to use AI but rely on manual processes or superficial automation, could erode trust in the technology.
Human Intervention: Despite advancements, certain aspects of real estate - like inspecting a property’s physical condition - still require human expertise.

To navigate these challenges, Nathan advises firms to partner with established AI providers rather than attempting to build in-house solutions. This avoids the pitfalls of developing outdated or incomplete tools and allows firms to leverage providers’ expertise.

The Future: AI Agents and the Real Estate Industry

One of the most exciting developments Nathan foresees is the rise of AI agents - autonomous tools that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users. For example:

An AI agent could contact brokers to gather lease information or arrange property inspections.
It could synthesize data from diverse sources to recommend the highest and best use for a property.
AI agents could also autonomously handle repetitive asset management tasks, such as reconciling tenant expenses or monitoring compliance with lease terms.

These advancements will further integrate AI into real estate workflows, enabling firms to move faster, make better decisions, and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Key Takeaways

AI is transforming real estate workflows: From underwriting to asset management, AI-powered platforms like Built AI enable faster, more accurate, and standardized processes.
Efficiency is the new edge: By automating repetitive tasks, AI allows firms to evaluate more deals, allocate resources more effectively, and focus on strategy.
Adoption is essential: Firms that resist technological innovation risk falling behind as competitors leverage AI to gain a competitive advantage.
Real estate remains a people business: While AI can automate processes, human expertise is still crucial, particularly for tasks requiring judgment and creativity.
The future is agentic: AI agents could revolutionize real estate by autonomously gathering data, performing tasks, and enhancing decision-making.

Conclusion: A Call to Embrace Innovation

The real estate industry is at a crossroads. As Nathan aptly notes, "The companies that are going to be the winners are the ones embracing technology." AI is no longer a luxury - it’s a necessity for staying competitive in an increasingly complex and data-driven market.

By adopting AI-powered platforms like Built AI, real estate professionals can not only improve efficiency but also unlock new opportunities for growth and innovation. The future of real estate will be defined by those who leverage technology to its fullest potential. The question is: Will you be one of them?

Source: "Natan Lempert | How AI Is Transforming Real Estate | People Property Place Podcast | Ep 131" - People Property Place Podcast 🎙, YouTube, Jun 26, 2025 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqmIsas-Eo

Use: Embedded for reference. Brief quotes used for commentary/review.