AI for Landlords: Harrison Stevens on TurboTenant,Tenant Service, & Smarter Rentals

Harrison Stevens (00:00)
And whatever time I get that message is a bad time. Like I’m probably at dinner, I’m helping my children, I’m at work, I’m in a meeting. It doesn’t matter. I’m sitting doing nothing. It’s a bad time to receive it. And so we built something where the AI will automatically respond at any time that they comes in saying, all right,

Which toilet? Where is it leaking? Could you take a picture for me? Oh, could you turn off the water? You don’t know how, here’s how. The AI can answer that question.

Scott Bursey (01:59)
Hi everyone and welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today in studio, we’re joined by a person I’ve been really counting the days to chat with. Harrison Stevens, who is the big player in the real estate technology space. Whether you’re navigating the high tech side of property management or helping families find their perfect spot in the choice city. He’s a wealth of knowledge. Welcome to the show Harrison.

Harrison Stevens (02:28)
Thank you for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (02:30)
Yes, it’s our pleasure. Please give us the backstory. How did you start your career and what are you focused on today?

Harrison Stevens (02:39)
Yeah, I started as a front end developer, designer, went to college for that, and then started building things for a company I worked for, actually online dating software. So very relatable to real estate, right? And we built things, and then it was built, and then our owners go, cool, get us customers. And then all of a sudden I became a marketer. And I found that I actually really enjoyed that part of it, and got into that, grew that company quite a bit.

moved into personal finance industry and education, credit repair, got into that, grew that company pretty well, moved into health. And I jumped honestly from industry to industry, home to core, but always something that was consistent is B2C. I’m always marketing directly to consumers and often subscriptions. And while I was doing all of that in my personal life, my sister is a realtor in South Florida where I’m from and she got

talked me a little bit into buying a place and renting it out and becoming a landlord. So while I was doing all of this marketing for B2C subscriptions, I was doing, know, investing and, you know, becoming a landlord on the side. And when the opportunity at TermaTent came to me to run a marketing team for a B2C subscription software for landlords, it ⁓ was a pretty quick fit for me. Came in on day one, having a lot of opinions.

⁓ and I told people them. And it’s been really enjoyable to help grow this company from 500,000 landlords that have used the platform to two years later, over a million, doubled in size in two years. ⁓ That has been a really fun ride.

Scott Bursey (04:22)
And I can see the company’s in good hands. What markets are you operating in?

Harrison Stevens (05:14)
We’re US based. as long as the property itself is in the US, we’re a good fit specifically for midterm and long term rentals really long term is our sweet spot. If you have a lease and you want to screen and collect rent and screen tenants and collect rent. ⁓ That’s what our products for the Airbnb is that does the screening the finding that all that they’re graded it use them for that. If you want to buy a rental property and manage it yourself on the long term side midterm as well.

We’re a really good fit for independent investors.

Scott Bursey (05:50)
And Harrison, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to bridge the gap between high level real estate tech, like your work with TurboTenant, and the actual boots on the ground mentality of the market. Curious, with everything shifting in real estate, what’s the one thing that shouldn’t change in your view?

Harrison Stevens (06:15)
And the way that we look at owning rental properties is you are providing a service to a customer, which is your tenant. And now they’re paying you and all that, just like a normal customer would, but it should feel like a service to them and they should be providing rent and taking care of your place. And that personal aspect shouldn’t go away. Like my tenants, I’ve known their names. I knew that they had a daughter. Like I know what color they pay in the room, purple. ⁓ Those are the things that I think

differentiates an independent investor that’s a landlord versus these corporate giant enterprises that own 50,000 rental units. You’re a number if you’re a renter versus you’re a person that I’m providing a home to. That’s the part that our software really helps create a better space for. And I think that’s the part that really is a big part of the housing industry of that personal aspect and that service aspect that I really would.

like to enhance rather than see diminish.

Scott Bursey (07:18)
So absolutely, excellent breakdown by the way. also something that’s been on my mind in today’s noisy market. What is the one hard truth agents are ignoring right now in your mind?

Harrison Stevens (07:36)
I mean, there’s a few. the service aspect, think all agents really can take advantage of and using technology to provide that service. I think there’s still a lot of agents and there’s still a lot of investors that are still using older tools. And the expectation of your clients, whether they’re tenants or investors, is that you’re using technology to make things better for them, finding them better deals, finding them better processes, saving them time or money.

That’s the thing that you can’t look away from and you have to embrace. And I am not saying that you just hand it off to AI. Saying use AI for certain aspects or use automation for certain aspects to make it better in a meaningful way, but don’t give up that service aspect that really differentiates you from everyone else.

Scott Bursey (08:26)
Those are some really good words of wisdom. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from a deal that maybe went sideways for you?

Harrison Stevens (08:36)
So from personal investing or from the software aspect of what we’re doing, what would be a thing for your audience?

Scott Bursey (08:42)
personal investing or whichever way you know any sort of hard knocks that you experience that you could share with us no business is perfect anything that you could illustrate for us.

Harrison Stevens (08:57)
I’ve learned to love long detailed contracts. The more put in writing, the better, even if it’s with a friend of mine or someone I know personally, just the more that we have in writing, the less ambiguity. The handshake deal is only a matter of time before it becomes a problem. And my last rental property, I sadly wrote my own lease from a template I found online and it worked well. I had a tenant for five years, good relationship and…

when I went to sell it, there were little stipulations that I didn’t really think about that caused gray areas that caused stress between not really me and my tenant, but actually me and my tenant’s wife. And that’s where I could see her take on it legally too, as well as my own. And it was this gray area that wasn’t defined. And if I would have just gotten a lease that was written by a professional, we provide them as well, a term of tenant.

These things could have been accounted for. And when I look at business, you know, contracts for term of tenant, anything that isn’t very clearly stated, I have put in writing just in case, even to protect my partner, you know, the person that I’m working with starting to deal with, if it’s better for them, at least I know exactly what it says. That’s why I love really long detailed leases. just covers it.

Scott Bursey (10:50)
Right there was a really good example. You know, sometimes the biggest positives come from those tough lessons. Thank you for sharing that with us. Harrison, what’s the one piece of advice you wish you’d known when you were first starting out that you could share with us?

Harrison Stevens (11:11)
I mean, from a career standpoint, even an investor standpoint, like this is actually advice someone gave to my roommate in college that I’ve used forever since. And it was a CEO of a very large company telling a 21 year old at the time. So it was a little while ago for me. And where do you want to be in five years? And I’ve narrowed it down maybe to two years these days, two years in a long time, but you know, it’s really hard to get to where you want to go if you don’t know where that is.

So I wanted to own, you know, have a certain amount of investments by the age of 30. I wanted to be a certain level of position or make a certain salary by 30. You know, now I’m looking at 40 and what steps can I take to get there? And sometimes it might be a step back to put me on a better path forward. Sometimes it’s a pivot. Sometimes it’s this isn’t working for me and I should take a short loss to get to a better game.

That’s the things that have gotten me further in my career is just strategically making decisions on my end goal. And I see a lot of people in my team, companies, people I work with, friends, they’re just, what’s gonna help me win tomorrow? And they’re just winning small steps every month. And my friends that are planning further out or my colleagues that are planning further, they’re making meaningful gains over time. And I think that’s…

That’s something that I really try and think about. It’s what I ask any new hire that joins my team. Where do you want to be? As I said, five years is too hard for average people to say, but like, where do you want to be in two years? What do you want your role to look like? What do you want your investment strategy to be? What do you want your life to look like? Those are the things that will get people to think maybe a little bit further out and start making longer term decisions to help benefit themselves.

Scott Bursey (13:00)
Absolutely, Harrison playing the long game makes so much sense. Now I know a lot of our audiences either earlier in their journey or looking to level up and I think they’d benefit from hearing this from you. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Harrison Stevens (13:23)
And it is growing the network and not just finding people that can help you, but finding people you can help. I think it’s the dual sided aspect of it. And also playing the long game, you know, I, I once worked for a company that I really disliked. And when I went to find a job, my network was kind of weak. And I began to talk to as many people, engage with many people, like personally like LinkedIn for business aspects and easily to build a community. And.

I have gotten almost every job since from my network on LinkedIn. And when I had a coffee with a CEO of another company this morning, and we spent half the time learning about each other’s business, half the time talking about who we knew that could help each other. And it was fun. Not only that, like I enjoyed the conversation and you know, you know, that’s where it becomes enjoyable, but too, it just feels better. And if I can help him,

He’ll think about people that have helped him and I will come to mind when opportunities come. And that’s the network that I’ve built that I’m referring to him. So I’ve learned that from real estate agents. know, when I just bought a house actually two months ago and Hey, who’s your plumber? I asked my agent who’s who’s your right person for this. I trust her because she has a good network. And that’s a big part of why I’m working with her is her network. And that’s a value add that they have because

Now I’m going to work with her the next deal.

Scott Bursey (14:55)
Absolutely, those relationships in this space are everything. And that’s not just good karma, what you described. That’s a bulletproof business strategy. Harrison, question. What are you most excited about now that you want everyone to keep an eye on?

Harrison Stevens (15:55)
I think the increased velocity of innovation, thanks to AI, it’s got to be on everyone’s mind. And I think for us, the things that we’re using for AI is something I kind of touched on earlier, finding specific use cases where we can automate or take things off our users’ hands. So we released something a few months ago that, you know, typical landlord problem, get a text from my tenant, toilet’s broken.

Which toilet? There’s gotta be, there is more than one, you know, what’s broken about it? Is it leaking? Is it overflowing? Is it not flushing? What is clogged? ⁓ So many questions.

And whatever time I get that message is a bad time. Like I’m probably at dinner, I’m helping my children, I’m at work, I’m in a meeting. It doesn’t matter. I’m sitting doing nothing. It’s a bad time to receive it. And so we built something where the AI will automatically respond at any time that they comes in saying, all right,

Which toilet? Where is it leaking? Could you take a picture for me? Oh, could you turn off the water? You don’t know how, here’s how. The AI can answer that question.

Can it help you actually solve the problem without even getting involved? Maybe 25 % or more of our AI conversations get resolved without the landlord even getting involved and then they just see the report. But for the rest, it can’t be. But instead of trying to figure out what’s wrong,

The AI will collect all the information and hand it to the landlord and say, all right, now it’s time for you to go get a plumber. And how much time and headache has that saved you? And that’s really just the start, know, that’s just a toilet. Like all of these different things that we can build through that is solving maintenance, which is the biggest headache that we hear from our users. And then on top of that, can we then triage and actually find you that plumber for you?

are all the things that we’re doing, and then can we build an AI agent that can answer the phone for you? These are things that we’re really excited about. And the maintenance side we’ve had for a while, ⁓ all of these other things are investments that we’re exploring, and we’re testing to make sure it works well enough that we can release it to the large user base we have. And it’s really exciting because every new release that we have creates a stress release.

for our landlords and our investors and even for our tenants. It’s one o’clock in the morning, you have that problem, you’re gonna get an answer in seconds and maybe you don’t even feel guilty that you’re bothering your landlord. That’s great service and that’s what we’re really excited about.

Scott Bursey (18:35)
Absolutely. And that whole process is allowing things to run so much more efficiently. That is exciting. That is exciting. Love it. That’s huge. And that was incredible. ⁓ Thanks for those insights. That level of conviction is exactly what it takes to actually win in this market. All right, before we wrap.

Harrison Stevens (18:49)
I’m excited.

Scott Bursey (19:00)
If someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Harrison Stevens (19:09)
I mean, for the brand go to TurboTenant.com. We also have our YouTube channel. We do our own podcasts. We do a lot of free education. So TurboTenant, search for it. You’ll find a lot of a lot of what I just said. ⁓ But if you want to reach out to me specifically Harrison Stevens on LinkedIn, if you’re just listening, you can’t see me bald guy with a beard. ⁓ You know, there’s a few Harrison Stevens out there. I think I’m the only one that looks like that. ⁓ Happy to connect. Love to chat about marketing.

about investing and love diving in and learning about businesses too. That’s really fun as well.

Scott Bursey (19:46)
Huge thanks to Harrison for dropping those strategies. It was awesome having you on the show.

Harrison Stevens (19:54)
Fun being here, Scott. Thank you for having me.

Scott Bursey (19:56)
And for everyone tuning in, you found value in today’s episode, please make sure you’re subscribed. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everybody.