AI Finds Better Deals: How Real Estate Investors Can Underwrite Rentals Faster

Laird Miller (00:00)
Yeah, absolutely. think the only point that we didn’t really touch on is, you know, how when you’re doing something for yourself, when you’re building, when you’re creating, you know, the actual mental and physical boundaries that you hit. ⁓ like to call it the dumb tax. And I consider the dumb tax as the amount of effort, time and money that you have to spend to do something for the first time, because you’re learning it. There’s a learning curve.

⁓ For example, when I was building Rental Calc, I needed to build a backend, which is like what holds all the user data and has all the functions and everything like that.

Quentin Edmonds (02:08)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest and y’all know what excites me. It excites me when we get a chance to learn from someone’s, someone else experience, right? We all can literally be doing the same thing, even though we’re not.

But even if we’re doing the exact same thing, we’re still going to do it differently because we are different. Our operation is different. Our process is different. And so I’m excited today to get to learn from this gentleman. And listen, he makes it very easy to utilize AI and to show you how to use AI in your business today. And listen, if you’re not using AI right now, like get adjusted to it because it’s an incredible tool. I don’t want to shame you. I don’t want to say, what are you doing? Why you haven’t done it yet?

I want to let you know it’s time to start using it because it’s going to help make you more efficient, more productive. And listen, I’m going to this gentleman let you tell you all about that. And so I’m so excited today to introduce you all to Mr. Laird Miller. Mr. Laird, how you doing today,

Laird Miller (03:07)
I’m doing great. I’m glad to be here. I think we’ll have a really good conversation.

Quentin Edmonds (03:11)
Absolutely, man. I know we’re going to man and I’m excited to have you here. And listen, I’m the type, sir. I like to dive right in. Right. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in and then tell them what part of the world you’re in. People love to know what people are geographically. So what’s your main focus, your origin story and where you are. This Laird, sir, you have the floor.

Laird Miller (03:38)
All right, so I’m out of Scottsdale, Arizona, born and raised. like to say my origin story starts at birth. My name Laird actually means Lord of the land. It’s Scottish, meaning Lord of the land. And my parents were in real estate. I’m in real estate. The moment I turned 18, I got my real estate license. And I think that’s when the that was kind of my cannonball moment, my pivotal moment of really getting into it. My mom does flips and she was sitting down.

at the computer looking at Zillow, trying to find properties to potentially, you know, get a deal. And she asked me to help her. said, all right, sure. Why not? And she sits down and gives me a sheet of paper and a calculator and a pencil and says, all right, I want you to, to calculate these numbers out. And I, looked at her really confused and was like, mom, you know, why aren’t you using a Excel sheet or a Google sheet or something like that? And she was like, well, I just never really had the time to build one. So I said,

I’ll build you one out and I’m going to make it great for you. And it’s going to be really easy. And she was like, all right, thank you. I started working on it and became extremely dedicated to making this unbelievably good real estate underwriting sheet for rental properties. And it became so advanced to the point where I had to write a three page manual on how to use it. Tons of buttons, multiple features, a full amateurization calculator within it.

And at that point, I said, this is getting too complex. I need to figure out a way to make this easier, at which my dad told me, you know, thinking, it just be the easiest thing in the world.

He says, why don’t you just code AI into it? And at that point was kind of the start of me really getting into AI involvement in real estate. And I built out this sheet with a cell where users.

could type a question into the say, I’m looking at the property 111 investment street in Phoenix, Arizona. How does it perform? And what do these metrics look like? And the AI would be able to control my sheet, change metrics, change values, and then spit out a full response, giving the entire ⁓ synopsis of that property. And it was a great MVP. MVP stands for minimal, like it’s like the

first product you come out with. And it was perfect because I could show people exactly what I was doing and how it worked. And from there, I had people say, hey, I would pay for this. I think you should turn it into a website. Started learning how to code more, got really involved with it, had a few buddies help me and teach me how to use AI to write code and became an expert over the course of the last year and a half to two years. From there,

Quentin Edmonds (06:42)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Laird Miller (07:06)
I hosted the site Rental Calc AI, which I’m now the founder and proud owner of, where anybody can go on to type in a city and state. It’ll scrape the best estimated for sale properties in that city and state and underwrite all of them to see which would perform the best as a rental property.

Quentin Edmonds (07:23)
Mm. Laird, man. Whoa. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you for taking me through the journey. Let me know kind of how you got to where you are and where you are now. I love it, man. And listen, I’m an active listener, man. So as you was talking, I’m writing things down. I’m tracking what you’re saying. And so I want to give you a brief summary because I want to make a statement to ask you a question. All right. So brief summary.

born and raised Scottsdale, Arizona. And your name literally means Lord of the land. Did I get that right? Lord of the land. So it’s like almost destined, right? And so ⁓ mom does flips. And so mom asked you to help out and she wanted you, she actually sit down and told you, listen, I want you to calculate this. Pen a piece of paper, old school calculation, right? And you said, well, mom, why we don’t have spreadsheets, stuff like that. And mom’s like,

Laird Miller (08:01)
for.

Quentin Edmonds (08:17)
Well, I never had a chance to build it. Never took time to. So you kind of introduce mom to new systems. You got proficient at dad, got proficient at doing underwriting. And then dad stepped in was like, Hey, you need to add AI to that because that’s going to take it even further. So that kind of expanded it even more. So that became a great, you know, MVP. People wanted you to build a website and now you’re kind of an expert at what you do. You’ve built this business, this AI business. So that’s pretty good summary right there, Laird. And so we know.

Laird Miller (08:43)
Yeah, that’s a great summary.

Quentin Edmonds (08:46)
that everything you just mentioned didn’t just happen like that. It was a process to all of that. Right. And so here’s my statement that I, that I make Laird. I always say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Destiny has no wasted moments, meaning we are building momentum to the people we are now. We’re learning from the journey. We’re learning from the failures. We’re learning from the success. We’re reinforcing out our systems and our mindset. So what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, humility?

Has it changed your mind with innovation? Laird, what has the journey taught you about you,

Laird Miller (09:19)
man, Clinton has taught me so much. ⁓ It would take me forever to list everything, but I can absolutely give you a top three lessons that I’ve learned just from my journey. Yeah. And I think I’ve learned the most about just being a founder and wanting to create something, being a builder, a creator. absolutely number one is belief in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself and you don’t have if someone comes up to you and they say, hey, do you think this

this will work,

you have to 100 % be certain in yourself that when you say yes, it’s true. I would say that as a founder and business owner, you almost have to have have like delusional belief in yourself to the point where if someone asks you, hey, can you do this? You you say yes, no matter what, because you believe in yourself to have the capability to learn, to execute and to perform. I think that’s absolutely number one.

And with that belief, I think comes a combination of discipline and obsession. Obsession creates a sort of aura that you hold within yourself where, you know, there’s nothing else that’s important to you. You you want to spend all your time grinding on this one goal. And the discipline aspect comes in whenever something else pops up that you might want to do that you know you shouldn’t be doing. A great example of this is I was in college my freshman year.

And one of my professors went on a tangent and asked us to show our screen times. And now my phone, I have an Apple phone and I have an Apple computer. there my screen times are linked. So how much time I spend on my computer will show on my phone. And one girl shows her phone and she had like eight hours on TikTok, something unbelievable. Right. And I showed my phone and that day or that day previously.

I had clocked 16 hours on my electronics. I spent 16 hours in combination of probably two classes and then the rest of the day just being in a study room, working on my code, grinding on my project, building my vision. And he freaked out. He was like, I can’t believe it. What could you possibly be doing? And I just had to sit and say, I’d love to tell you, but it would take me forever to explain this whole thing to you, Professor. ⁓

But yeah, think belief and discipline are absolutely very key. And you have to sacrifice too. Huge sacrifices. I went to a, I guess you’d call it like a function. One time my freshman year. The rest of my time, I like to call it, you know, was just grind time. Yeah. drank, never smoked, never partied, no drugs. It was just pure focus on what I built.

which I think is why I was able to move so fast. ⁓ That and then just being able and knowledgeable in the AI field was huge for me. I had the ability to listen to an hour long AI podcast and I would do that pretty much almost every day, every other day during dinner. And from there I would write down notes of things that were coming out, potential software that I could use to improve my business, to improve my flow.

Quentin Edmonds (12:38)
Yeah.

Laird Miller (13:04)
And that just kind of skyrocketed my ⁓ success, I guess you could say, and my efficiency, absolutely.

Quentin Edmonds (13:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Learn man. Thank you, Brett. Man. You literally hit on why I asked this question. Like I asked that question of what the journey has taught people, because like you said, belief in yourself, you know, things can change when our businesses systems can change. There’s going to ebbs and flow with how much income is coming in. How much we grow, gross and how much we netting. But one thing that stays constant at your business at the center of it is you. You’re at the center of your business, right?

And you need to be able to sometimes reflect back and kind of follow the path on how you got to where you are. Because tough times sometimes are ahead and you got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and be like, Hey, I got myself here. I can get myself to the next level. So I love man, how you synthesize belief in yourself. That’s literally why I asked that question because I want people to be in a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset.

Understand that the same thing that got you here is the same thing that’s gonna power you forward. We’re gonna change tools, we’re gonna change strategies, but you are still the person that’s gonna wield those tools and strategies. Does that make sense,

Laird Miller (14:17)
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. think another thing that you could add onto there is creativity. I really harp on creativity for a founder. ⁓ And I don’t mean creativity in necessarily like an artsy sense, but I creativity as in the way to think differently, to think outside the box. Because when you’re building something, whether it be, you know, a new multifamily development, whether it be a flip, whether it be an AI software,

you’re going to run into issues that you never thought you would have seen. And the ability to be creative.

allows you to think outside of the box and come up with new solutions, new possibilities, new ways to solve problems that you’re experiencing in the day to day.

Quentin Edmonds (15:35)
Yeah, you nailing this, sir. So let me ask you this, what’s next for the business? What are you looking to solve with Scale Next,

Laird Miller (15:40)
Yeah, well next for the business, think ⁓ for Rental Calc AI would absolutely just be user growth. ⁓ I love seeing people use my software. I don’t mind giving out free accounts. I do that all the time. ⁓ I just like seeing people utilize what I’ve built and I got a good user base so far and they seem to love it. I get feedback all the time on it. And I think for ⁓ the younger

you know, entrepreneurs out there, the younger real estate minds out there, it’s really kind of built for them because my software is extremely intuitive to the point where you almost have to know nothing about real estate to use it. And if you want to know something, I have fine tuned AI built into the system that will teach you how to use it or teach you what these metrics mean or if it’s good or if it’s bad. So I think overall, just for a

starting software, you you saw a house and you’re curious about how that house might do, it’s perfect.

Quentin Edmonds (16:41)
Yeah. Yeah. I love it, man. I love it, sir. Thank you, man. Now I love to give everybody’s perspective that comes on the show on this word. So I want to get your perspective on this word. When you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to use? Of course, specifically around business. But when you hear that word, kind of what comes to your mind, what triggers in you?

Laird Miller (17:02)
You know, it first comes to my mind when I hear relationship is absolutely ⁓ network. I think those two words are completely tied together. I think that to really do well in business, especially if you’re first starting out, ⁓ you got to look at what you offer or what you can offer. ⁓ For example, I see people go to these real estate meetings and they go up to CEOs and agents and all these important people and they’re like, hey, can you

Tell me about what you do. Can I get your phone number? Can I get a contact information? And it’s almost like, you know, the agent or the CEO is doing charity work in a case because they’re not getting anything out of it. You know, you got to you got to look into yourself and figure out what you can give to someone that’s worth them giving you their time because time is valuable. So when I would go to these meetings, I would say, hey, you know, I’m a software developer. I use AI. You know, I’m a great connection to give you this

Quentin Edmonds (17:50)
Yeah.

Laird Miller (17:59)
this free stuff, I could potentially upgrade your life in this way. For example, I gave a cold DM to a guy, ⁓ a good buddy of mine, Mr. Dettling, Andrew Dettling. And I told him about my software and said, Hey, would you like a free account? And he was like, I think this is really cool. Let’s meet up for, you know, for lunch, for lunch, hit it off really, really well, talked about, you know, what I did, what I could offer all this kind of stuff. He talked about what he did. He has an $8 million rental portfolio at 22 years old.

Quentin Edmonds (18:16)
Yeah.

Laird Miller (18:28)
Unbelievable. But now he calls me all the time and we go and get lunch all the time to talk about, you know, potential AI systems and he’s building his own system for his investors. you know, giving that exchange absolutely is what a relationship means to me. You know, a mutual understanding of exchange, of network is really what that is.

Quentin Edmonds (18:51)
Yeah, I love it. know, I miss later always equate relationship also with the word community. And community is when it’s common unity. It’s people doing different things at different times with one goal in mind. And so I love it, man. When you build a healthy, robust community around you, you get supported from all angles, man. You get supported mentally, financially, you know, physically, like when you build a healthy community, everybody is looking for everybody to win. And so, man, I

I love it, brother. I absolutely love it. Listen, is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Was there any other words of kind of like inspiration, education, motivation, innovation? Like, I don’t know. Maybe you came in with a thought on your on your mind that you want to make sure our viewers heard. kind of just want to create space if you want to land that.

Laird Miller (19:41)
Yeah, absolutely. think the only point that we didn’t really touch on is, you know, how when you’re doing something for yourself, when you’re building, when you’re creating, you know, the actual mental and physical boundaries that you hit. ⁓ like to call it the dumb tax. And I consider the dumb tax as the amount of effort, time and money that you have to spend to do something for the first time, because you’re learning it. There’s a learning curve.

⁓ For example, when I was building Rental Calc, I needed to build a backend, which is like what holds all the user data and has all the functions and everything like that.

And I couldn’t get it for the life of me. I struggled for two and a half weeks to figure it out and I couldn’t do it. I was willing to pay five grand to have someone come on board with me just to build it out. But I pushed through, I used AI to teach myself, you know, how to do it, what to do, what things it should include.

and I figured it out. And now I could build a backend in the next 15 minutes. It’s just that first time coming over that hump that you really got to push through. So I kind of just want to harp on the point that it’s not impossible. It’s actually really easy. You just haven’t figured it out yet.

Quentin Edmonds (20:39)
Yeah.

Man, that’s a nugget, bro. The dumb tax. that’s a nugget, man. I appreciate you, brother. Hey, listen, Laird, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Laird Miller (21:06)
Yeah, I’ve actually been improving my personal SEO a ton. So right now, if you go to Google and look up Laird Miller, I fill up the entire first page. I got my LinkedIn, Instagram. I got a personal website on there too. I got a ton of contact information too on my website, LairdMiller.com. Super simple. ⁓ I should have my LinkedIn and Instagram and a ton of contact information on there too. So feel free to reach out with any questions anytime.

Quentin Edmonds (21:30)
Absolutely. Well, listen, my friend, let me say three things to you, One, thank you for your time coming on the podcast. think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for your story, sir. Thank you for planting seeds that we may not know when these seeds are going to take root and grow in a person, but you plant the seed, the seed is there and it can take root and grow five years from now, two years from now. But you planted the seed. So I thank you for coming on planting seeds.

And man, lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for what you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on today,

Laird Miller (22:04)
Yeah, thank you so much. It was a great time.

Quentin Edmonds (22:06)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Laird, Laird, I’m sorry, sir. His information is in the show notes. So get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you subscribe here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people. So thank you, sir, again, for coming on and everyone else. Y’all have an amazing day.