AI Real Estate Underwriting: Analyze Deals Before You Buy

Herold Pierre (00:00)
And for all the realtors that are listening, ⁓ I think that provides you significant value. I mean, if you’re in the space, you know how important it is for the person that you’re working with to actually be able to close. ⁓ you may spend weeks and months looking at home and

only to find out this person cannot purchase, that’s a major letdown, right? And so this gives you an opportunity, you log on, you speak to the AI, you ⁓ type if you prefer, and you obtain ⁓ you know, you obtain ⁓ the prequire and and now you work now you know you’re working with someone that can actually purchase. And there’s zero obligation to utilize one of the mortgage brokers or mortgage lender that’s on the platform now.

Quentin Edmonds (02:21)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited today. I’m excited to be here today. I’m excited about my guest. He’s coming to us from Fort Lauderdale. This gentleman has a bachelor in finance, an MBA.

And he loves to serve the real estate space. And right now he’s serving it, which you know, hot topic right now, AI, right? AI is making us more efficient, more productive. And this gentleman is serving us in the AI space. He has under Lytix and Trader Lux. And so I’m so glad to have this gentleman on with us today. His name is Herold Pierre, Mr. Herold. How are you doing today, sir?

Herold Pierre (03:05)
I’m doing well, Quentin. I ⁓ really appreciate you having me on and I look forward to our conversation today. ⁓

Quentin Edmonds (03:11)
Absolutely. Me too, man. ⁓ me too. And so, Mr. Herold, I am 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. And then also give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space where you are now.

Herold Pierre (03:29)
Sure, sure. Absolutely, absolutely. ⁓ so, you know, I mentioned to Quentin earlier that I got into the space ⁓ a little different from how most realtors get into the space, right? ⁓ so for me, I ⁓ while I was in school, I I ⁓ as Quentin mentioned, I have my bachelor’s in finance and I also have an MBA. But while I was in school, I realized that ⁓ the opportunities in real estate.

Was significantly greater than the other opportunities presented to me at the time. Now, mind you, ⁓ I ⁓ graduated, I received my MBA in 2003, so that was a while back, right? Things have since changed, right? But nonetheless, at the time, I thought the opportunities were great. And so ⁓ while in school, I decided I would move into the space of ⁓ real estate. So I went out and obtained my realtor’s license and ⁓ subsequently my mortgage broker’s license.

And ⁓ with the idea of building a company that served ⁓ not just ⁓ clients who were purchasing property, but clients who needed to finance those properties in addition to ⁓ performing the title work and even appraisals and ⁓ and also as well as ⁓ inspection. I soon realized I couldn’t have a conglomerate that provided ⁓ services to all aspects of the business.

Because that would be a conflict. And so I had to, you know, dial it back a bit and focus primarily on real estate, finance, and subsequently I added my title license and operated my title company. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (05:06)
Yeah. Herold I love it, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for telling us where you are, kinda how you got there. Now I I always kind of try to peek into the mindset of the business owner a little bit. And so Herold, I often say destiny has no wasted moments.

Right. Destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning we nothing’s nothing’s random. We’re building on the people that we are now, reinforcing who we are as the journey goes on. Right. And so I would love to know, man, as a business owner, going through the journey, going through the ups and downs, what have destiny taught you about yourself? What has the moments taught you about yourself? Resilience, discipline, what has it taught you about you?

Herold Pierre (06:31)
Absolutely. You know, it’s funny you would use the word resiliency. So ⁓ you know, business when I started my business, things were great, right? I was able to, I had ⁓ both the real estate, the mortgage, the title, and each business was serving the other business. It was perfect, right? ⁓ could not have found them a better situation. Now, right before COVID, I decided to expand my operation a bit. ⁓ I also added ⁓ I went into the restaurant space.

And so I purchased a franchise, Burger Burgafy. I’m sure a lot of you may be familiar with with the company Burgafy. So I purchased ⁓ one of the franchise. I became a franchisee of Burgafy ⁓ out in Hickory, North Carolina. Now, this is pre-COVID, right? unbeknownst. This is in 2019 and ⁓ mid-2019, and then of course we all know sentence. What happened back then?

We all know our world changed in 2020, right?

Quentin Edmonds (07:32)
Thank you.

Herold Pierre (07:32)
2020, March of 2020, ⁓ the government mandated for everything to close. And so ⁓ I got involved in I was I had the restaurants operating. We had to close like everybody else, right? And we had to follow all the COVID guidelines. And so I I needed to figure this out and I needed to figure it out quickly, right? ⁓ and so ⁓ but as luck would have it, AI was just around the corner, right?

know, Chat GPT, there was some noise about the space. The space was becoming more viable and more open to the general public as a whole. And so ⁓ the minute, you know, Chat GPT initially released ⁓ their AI platform, I was one of the first one to sign up. I was on there, I was ready to go. And ⁓ the beauty of it is ⁓ it was a new space. So not many people knew more than you did at the time, right? So we’re we’re all kind of at at the same space in terms of

learning AI. And so I have to I have to self-talk. And so I went through a lot of, you know, difficulties, right? Cause I I don’t come from a technology background, right? My my space was real estate and finance. And so that transition, you you do have to become resilient in order to make these type of transition. You have to have this belief where at times the even the people around you may think this guy is crazy, right? And you you you’re going into a completely different space here.

And so but nonetheless I’m I’m I’m grateful that I did it and I’m thankful that I’ve done it and I’m happy for where we are today. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (09:05)
Man, I love it. Thank you, man. Thank you for answering that question. I always say, you know, at the center of any business owner is the business owner, right? At the center of each every business is the business owner. So sometimes we had to reflect and think back to, where do we get how do we get here? What’s going on? What’s our mindset? Because we’re always gonna be pivoting and doing something, right? And so man, I appreciate that reflective answer. ⁓ so what’s one operational thing?

you’ve put into place the last two years that’s made the biggest difference in how you do business.

Herold Pierre (09:38)
Well, it’s the only thing. It’s the core of the business. It’s the engine behind the business. And it’s AI. It’s it’s it’s it’s the ability to enable me to perform multiple tasks, right? To do multiple things, yeah, with the assistant of the apps. You know, ⁓ one of the major bottlenecks I had, and which is one of the reasons I started this particular business, Underlytix, which is a

pre-underwriting software that allow realtors and investors alike ⁓ to determine whether a deal, a purchase deal, right, is feasible. Right. Because at time, you know, prior to the creating this this app, ⁓ what I experienced being in a space for 16 years was realtors would call, you know, at different times, different hours. And a lot of time realtors, a realtor receive a client and they’re excited, they’re thrilled about the opportunity.

to facilitate this deal, only to be disappointed when the the file, you know, after they submit an offer and then the file gets a ⁓ a loan officer or lender to find out that the client cannot purchase this property. They do not qualify. It wastes a lot of time for the realtors, right? It wastes a lot of time for the client and and often it costs money, right? Because people order their inspections and things of that nature and then the files fall through and you know, a lot of disappointment.

And also a lot of money spent. So I wanted to and and and I know there’s a lot of there’s a lot of software that assists realtors with marketing, that assists mortgage broker with farming and ⁓ finding client, but there’s nothing in the space that I could find that allow a realtor, not a mortgage broker, a realtor, to obtain their own pre-qualification, either through text or speech.

And and have it based on the actual lending guidelines. And so that’s what I wanted to create. And that’s what I created. Not only does the ⁓ analytics make it significantly easier for realtors to simply log into the platform, create an account. It’s free. They receive two weeks free to create to ⁓ run any scenarios and they can either speak to the to the AI and give the AI their scenario.

And ⁓ in the scenario would ask them additional qualifying questions if some are missing and then provide them an accurate answer in terms of whether or not their client is capable, is able to purchase the property that they’re looking at or that they want to look at.

Quentin Edmonds (12:11)
Yeah. So it sounds to me analytics is really giving people some time back, like really saving.

Herold Pierre (12:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓ the the idea was to make the pre purchase, the pre qual ⁓ process much more efficient. And whenever you deal with efficiencies, you definitely get your time back, right? Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (13:06)
Yeah.

I love it. I think that’s one thing AI is doing is making us all more efficient and without time, if you’re using it right for sure. ⁓ what’s next for you, man? What’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next?

Herold Pierre (13:19)
Well, so the goal now is to scale, right? You know, like any business, you get involved in a business, you build it, you have this great idea, you come up ⁓ and you create it and you watch it in action and then now you look to scale. I mentioned earlier that the ⁓ that analytics serve ⁓ realtors, but also serve investors who are looking for lenders, ⁓ investors that need to understand whether or not the property that they’re assessing

whether or not, you know, the deal is feasible, whether or not they can qualify, ⁓ likewise. And then also the platform ⁓ provide a lot of opportunities for lenders because these deals could then be submitted to the lenders that are currently on the platform. ⁓ so it provide opportunities to all ⁓ to both investors, realtors, and lenders as well. So the goal is to scale, the goal is to, you know, ⁓ get the word out of course, right? ⁓ make life easier for

both the the in buyer, the sellers, the realtors and everyone who’s involved in the real estate space as a whole. as I mentioned earlier, you know, ⁓ the platform is free for fourteen days. You get an opportunity to try it. No commitment whatsoever. And even when you sign on, ⁓ there’s no contract required. So you can, you know, use it on a month to month basis. And I know it will provide opportun I know it would provide quite, you know, significant value

to anyone who’s involved in that space, because I’m also involved in the space and I understand what’s valuable. I know what’s valuable for the space, right? And so I think that I urge, you know, anyone who’s in a space to ⁓ give it a shot, give it a try and you know, and ⁓ and see how it helped transition your business as a whole. I look at it from the perspective of as I help your business grow, you’ll help my business grow. So it’s one of those things where we help each other facilitate further growth.

Quentin Edmonds (15:09)
Absolutely. Now I’m glad you went there with that mindset. You know, you if you help my business grow, I’m gonna help your business grow. It’s like we we that we’re forming ⁓ some type of relationship, right? Absolutely. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about relationships. ⁓ I would love to get your philosophy on business relationships. Have they served you well? ⁓ is there ⁓ relationships that come to mind that you can think of that you know that still help you out, that help you with referrals or clientele? Like I just want to get your philosophy.

speak a little bit on relationship hurl within business.

Herold Pierre (15:41)
Right. Absolutely. I think I think if you’re in business, right, irrespective of the space that you’re in, if you’re operating a business, and I think in life in general, right, I think that ⁓ the better relationship, the better the quality of those relationships that you have with ⁓ people, ⁓ whether it’s family members or business associates, the better your position to be influential, both to them and also helpful to self, right? And so my philosophy has always been, you know.

try to create value for my business partners, right? Whoever I’m in business with, try to, you know, offer them s ⁓ significant value, something that would truly benefit their business, right? And so understanding, you know, their situation help you become more valuable to them, which in turn benefits you. I think without ⁓ having great relationship or any space, it’s ⁓ extremely difficult to build anything because immediately when I thought of creating this,

I knew exactly where I can go, right? I knew all the realtors that I’ve worked with over the years, the mortgage brokers, the lenders that I’ve ⁓ established relationship with. I knew I can reach out to them and le inform them that I built this platform that cures this issue that I know we all experience in this space. And so I know it would be a bro a no brainer. And likewise when ⁓ colleagues come to me with different things, ⁓ you know, I’m as helpful as, you know, as humanly possible because I know that, you know, ⁓

You don’t grow. You may do it, you know, you may be in business by yourself in terms of you cre you’re the only owner, operator of the business, but ⁓ without those relationships, it’s impossible to f to to scale your business.

Quentin Edmonds (18:02)
Man, I love it. I love it. So listen, I want you to tell the listeners. I want you to be clear. Tell them why they need analytics. I want you, I want you to tell them. This is why y’all need Underlytix. Tell them, man. Tell them.

Herold Pierre (18:20)
Absolutely. So so reason why you need Underlytix. It’s it’s it’s it’s very simple, right? ⁓ now I’m speaking to my buyers. I speak to my to the buyers first. Any home buyer, any future home buyer, current home buyer, why you need Underlytix? Why your realtors need to be on the platform utilizing Underlytix Often, you know, we go to whether it’s Zillow’s or the realtor dot com, we see a property, we fall in love with the property, we save it.

And we start, you know, ⁓ mesmerizing as if we’ve already we’re already living there, right? ⁓ the one unique thing about the mortgage industry and the real estate space as a whole, I’ve always shared with people is in most space, in most businesses, like in retail, for example, right? If you see a television or you see an item, ⁓ in most items, you can just walk in the store and purchase the item. All you need is the desire.

To purchase it, right? the ability usually is not so substantial where it requires so much to purchase it. And the real estate space is a bit different, right? You need ⁓ although the desire may exist, without the ability to do so, it becomes impossible, right? And so I wanted to, you know, provide enough information to people to allow them to understand why certain decisions are made in that space.

why certain things aren’t feasible. And I and I wanted to do so ⁓ with a platform that allowed them to do it in their own convenience. Right. So, you know, I know the mortgage process, the pre-qualification process as all can be daunting at times, right? You have to submit all these documents to a mortgage person often, more often than not, this person is foreign to you. And you’re giving them, you know, your bank statements, your pay stubs, tax return. It’s it can be intrusive.

Right. ⁓ but this allow you to input the information. You can only just input your first name. It doesn’t have to be your entire name. You just input the information. It gives ⁓ and by inputting the accurate information, the output that you receive would also be accurate. Right. So it’s non-invasive, non-intrusive, right? And and you can do it in the comfort of your home at midnight if you choose to, right?

And so, and unlike you know, some of the things that I’ve seen online, the the calculators, this is not a calculator. This is not a mortgage calculator that tells you whether or not you can qualify. This is a full qualification that assess your income, it assess debt to income ratio, which is what mortgage people use to determine whether or not you can purchase, right? ⁓ it assess of those items to give you a decision that’s based on the current lending guidelines. And so the decision that

It provides provided that the information you enter is accurate, that decision will also be accurate.

And for all the realtors that are listening, ⁓ I think that provides you significant value. I mean, if you’re in the space, you know how important it is for the person that you’re working with to actually be able to close. ⁓ you may spend weeks and months looking at home and

only to find out this person cannot purchase, that’s a major letdown, right? And so this gives you an opportunity, you log on, you speak to the AI, you ⁓ type if you prefer, and you obtain ⁓ you know, you obtain ⁓ the prequire and and now you work now you know you’re working with someone that can actually purchase. And there’s zero obligation to utilize one of the mortgage brokers or mortgage lender that’s on the platform now.

we hope that you do. We’d like for you to to do so because you can just submit ⁓ the result directly to them. It makes the process a lot easier. ⁓ however, there’s zero obligation to do so. And so I think that creates that, you know, that’s significant for a mortgage broker. If all the investors that want to purchase a property as part of your due diligence, you’re always looking for whether or not a deal is feasible. I know with ⁓ the

⁓ loans, the D S C R loans in particular, super popular now, especially for investors. it allow you to understand whether or not this would meet the D S C R criteria or any other loans, whether it’s ⁓ you know, prec ⁓ construction loan and things of that nature. So that gives you a solid foundation in terms of, you know, when you reach out to a mortgage person, you know this is feasible. And so I think that just these two value alone is, you know, ⁓ provide substantial

value for the space and it allow people that are in the space and ability to do things very efficiently without the wasted time that we often find in this space. And so these are some of the main reasons why you should use this platform ⁓ if you’re in the real estate space ⁓ in general.

Quentin Edmonds (23:20)
Yeah. Listen, Herold man, sir, I appreciate you so much for coming on. 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?

Herold Pierre (23:32)
So I’m rarely available. ⁓ you can visit ⁓ our site. You can ⁓ reach out to me on ⁓ social. I’m available across social media, underlytix, ⁓ at ⁓ Facebook, Instagram, underlytix.com is the actual website. Company name is Underlytix, it’s U-N-D-E-R-L-Y-T-I-X. Again, the U N D-E-R-L-Y-T I X underLytix. ⁓ sounds like underwriting, right? And so that’s the company. Fairly available I’m always available. So reach out to me. we can speak a little bit and ⁓ go from there.

Quentin Edmonds (24:12)
Listen, sir. ⁓ let me say three things to you, man. ⁓ first, thank you for your time. You know, I value people’s time. I know it’s the podcast, but I literally cannot do this podcast episode without you. So thank you for your time, man. I appreciate you being here. Secondly, man, thank you for your story. Thank you for showing up with authenticity, with integrity. And ⁓ man, lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. Herold, I greatly appreciate you coming on today, man.

Herold Pierre (24:38)
Hey, thanks a lot, Quentin. It’s been a pleasure and I look forward to doing it any anytime you want.

Quentin Edmonds (24:42)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard y’all heard Mr. Herold. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him, reach out to him, get on the website, let this thing help you save time. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Herold. So, sir, I want to say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.