How AI Cuts Real Estate Construction Bids From Weeks to Overnight | Rich Lamphere

Rich Lamphere (00:00)

I was bidding a project and it was a multi-million dollar project, hundreds of pages of plans and specifications. And I send it to my son just saying, “Hey, this is something I’m bidding right now.” And I couldn’t believe it: I sent it to him at 11 o’clock at night. I get up in the morning, I open my email—it’s like six in the morning—and then here’s a full bid spread Excel, five, six tabs of information. And I was like, “What in the world?” And then I looked at it, and I looked at the formatting of it, I looked at the numbers, and it was something that I needed to refine. But the bottom line is I had something to work with, which normally would have taken me at least a couple of weeks to get to that point.

Meghan Escobar (01:15)

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host today, Meghan Escobar, and I have the pleasure of sitting down with a gentleman who has an incredible story, and I’m so happy to have him on the show. He comes from the background of construction, has worn all hats in the real estate construction world. He’s got lots of projects going on, he’s into integrating AI into the business, and of course, I’m gonna let him tell his story. But Rich Lamphere, thank you so much for being here and joining us on the show today.

Rich Lamphere (01:47)

It’s my pleasure, Meghan. Thank you for asking me.

Meghan Escobar (01:51)

Come on, yeah, it’s nice to have you here. And we got an opportunity to chat a little bit before we get on here, so I got to hear your story and I’m so excited to have you in here and to just talk directly to our audience. I do believe that they’ll be able to walk away with some incredible insights from you today, from your real-world experiences to the journey into entrepreneurship and how you’re continuing to grow and scale in this digital world. So again, I’m very thankful to have you here and for you to be able to take the time out of your day to be here.

So diving in, for those who might not be familiar with who Rich Lamphere is or what the owner and operator of TL Pacific and a couple of other companies we’ll mention down the line—but that’s where it all started. Give us a 30,000-foot view of what your focus is these days in the construction management world.

Rich Lamphere (02:48)

Primarily, we focus on ground-up, large multifamily and commercial projects. We also are doing some tenant improvements in some of the shells that we’ve built. I also do a lot of budgets and schedules and kind of wear a lot of different hats for owners and developers. And I’ve most recently started working with court-appointed receivers, being involved in distressed properties where you go in and you literally turn over all the rocks, look at all the documentation of the current status of the asset, and then determine what the best next moves are.

And that’s been a really cool niche block of business that has come over just the last few months, and it’s growing pretty quickly right now. And with the use of AI, able to get through hundreds of files and thousands of pages of information and be able to accurately decide and determine where the property actually is. And it’s been a really cool experience, and look forward to that block of business growing a lot.

But historically, over the last, say, 13 years with TL Pacific, I’ve managed large commercial and multifamily projects, primarily in Los Angeles, but also in the Bay Area of California, and in Orange County and San Diego County.

Meghan Escobar (04:10)

Nice. So you’re doing some major things out there on the West Coast. And one thing that really caught my attention from our conversation was the way that you are building a bunch of umbrellas underneath what you’re doing. And I think there are a lot of people that are incorporating some of the things that you’re doing, but I also think there’s a huge opportunity for people that aren’t integrating AI into their programs, into their businesses. And so you just said something that I think is really powerful: pages and thousands of research, hours and hours on end of research that you would have to do without having this artificial intelligence that we have at our hands.

Can you talk to us a little bit about how the systems that you have built have personally saved you time, and how you’re integrating it into these deals to analyze these deals that could potentially save others time and essentially money?

Rich Lamphere (05:14)

Well, I have to give credit to my son. He’s super smart and very techy. He’s actually a tradesman as well: he’s a journeyman electrician and a site supervisor, but he has gotten into AI a lot. And just a few months ago, I was bidding a project, and it was a multi-million dollar project, hundreds of pages of plans and specifications. And I send it to my son just saying, “Hey, this is something I’m bidding right now.” And I couldn’t believe it: I sent it to him at 11 o’clock at night. I get up in the morning, I open my email—it’s like six in the morning—and then here’s a full bid spread Excel, five, six tabs of information. And I was like, “What in the world?” And then I looked at it, and I looked at the formatting of it, I looked at the numbers, and it was something that I needed to refine. But the bottom line is I had something to work with, which normally would have taken me at least a couple of weeks to get to that point.

So when I saw that, I called him up and I was just floored. I said, “How in the world did you do this?” And he gave me all the prompts that he used, and I’ve really learned a lot from him. And since then, I’ve been using AI on nearly everything that has to do with budgets and schedules and estimates and all of those kinds of things. You still have to have your human element, your experience, refine everything, but the work that you can get done using AI compared to what I used to do back in the old days when I’d go through paper sets of plans and I’d highlight—it’s just phenomenal the tools that you can use with AI.

And so now, I have my son doing a lot of stuff within TL Pacific. A lot of the projects that I’m doing, he’s right alongside me with coming up with summaries and estimates, and then all I have to do is just refine them. You go back and forth several times, but still, it just saves you, I would say, thousands of hours in some cases on some of these projects.

Meghan Escobar (07:05)

Yeah, I agree. And it’s used in a lot of industries, but I feel like the way that real estate is so analytical sometimes, and it can free up a lot of space for you to do the money-making things instead of like the—I don’t know what the word I’m looking for is; maybe you could help me out here.

Rich Lamphere (07:26)

Well, in addition, let me tell you this: he’s most recently got himself an AI assistant. So now I’m getting emails and text messages from his AI assistant. Obviously, he’s guiding the information that’s going back and forth, but the time and the efficiency is just unbelievable. He’s doing the work that I would normally have two or three people doing. It’s just very…

Meghan Escobar (07:47)

Efficient. Yeah, that I think is a really good word for it, and probably what I was looking for: just the efficiency of it and the organization, and just to help you keep yourself on track to hit goals. And the wonderful thing is you can go back and refine it, because not everything is gonna be written in stone, right? And we’re gonna come across situations and things that are probably gonna create some kind of bump in the road along the way of our plans, our goals, and our projects, but it still gives us so much space and leaves very little room…

Rich Lamphere (08:24)

It really does, yep. And as long as you’re giving the AI the right prompts and you’re checking everything—I still read through everything. I look at every spelling, every verbiage, grammatically, everything, because I want it to sound like it’s coming from me, because it is coming from me, yeah. But you just have this as an assistant to kind of guide you through the results.

Meghan Escobar (08:45)

Yeah, absolutely. All right, where I want to go next, Rich, is something that we talked about a little bit before the podcast. And this is: every operator, every entrepreneur has pivotal moments in their life where things go left, things can go south really fast. And we talked about a situation that happened with you, and we don’t have to get into too much detail about it, but I think it’s important to bring up because we live in a world where we see all the highlights, right? You’re talking about all these projects that you have going on, but what about what it took you to get there? Can you go back to a situation that happened in your life that maybe had you question moving forward, keeping the light running, or if you will?

Rich Lamphere (10:14)

I’ve actually been through a couple of downturns. Things went extremely well in the mid and late ’80s. I had transitioned from being a union carpenter to starting my own framing company, to then starting my own general contracting company, to then starting to do development. And then in the early nineties, there was a downturn, and it was like, wow, I wasn’t used to that type of a challenge. I was used to succeeding and having things go well. Obviously, you always have challenges running a business, but I had a situation where it was just dramatically different, and I had to really work through that. And eventually I did, just like a lot of other people that were in the trades and in that industry.

And then things got really, really good again into the late nineties and early 2000s, started doing development again. Did a lot of development stuff as I was doing general contracting stuff: was buying, entitling property, selling it, and having some really good returns without even putting a shovel in the ground.

And then one of the projects that I got involved in 2005–2006 timeframe, I had a mutual friend of a gentleman that wanted to do a 1031 exchange. And he was desperate, because the properties that he had identified to do his 1031 exchange with were not going to close, and he had a window that he needed to be able to close. So long and short, I brought him in on one of my development projects that was just going through entitlements, and then I brought in—so I sold him half of the property, and then eventually I brought in another partner.

And then 2008 hit. We could kind of see the writing on the wall; I was starting to get concerned. I’d kind of pulled back doing some of the development stuff. Long and short, we ended up losing that project, and I lost a lot of other projects as well during that period. And the one partner was friends with the local district attorney, and he went to the local DA, accused me of things that I didn’t do, and got criminal charges brought against me. And then the other partner joined.

And the long and short: I fought a criminal case that had to do with real estate fraud and securities fraud for five years. Along the way, the district attorney gave me two plea opportunities. I didn’t want to take them. My attorney says that the DA is trying to put you away for eight or ten years, and I said, “I’m not going to take a plea or admit to something that I didn’t do.” And so long and short, I fought it for five years, went through trial with five charges—four of them stuck, one of them did not—and I ended up getting a five-year prison sentence.

Right after I was convicted, they remanded me. They said no bail originally, and then they said, “Okay, well, we’ll do a million dollar bail.” Now this is for a white-collar crime, not a murder case. Million dollar bail! Long and short, I made the bail, came back a week later for sentencing, did a replacement of my attorneys, brought in somebody else to then do a motion for a new trial. We did that for a year, lost, and then I got sentenced, and I got a five-year prison sentence, which is a split sentence: three years in, two years out. I did eighteen months, which satisfied the three years. I got out, did probation two years. As soon as probation was ordered over, I hired an attorney to get my case expunged. And two and a half years later, it got expunged. All my charges were dropped, and the case was dismissed, and it no longer exists.

So it was a challenging situation, but in the end, you prevail. And I’ve written a book about this, and in the introduction, I talk about a quote from Napoleon Hill. And in essence, it says: through every adversity is an equal or greater benefit. And I firmly believe that, as long as you’re always looking for solutions and you’re always looking for ways to make the situation that you’re in better, and have an open mind to know that it can be better, and just look for all those areas that things can be better, and then work towards creating those.

And it ended up being a very challenging situation for me and for my family. But at the same time, you know, those years that were the hardest years of my life, I was able to find calm in chaos, as you can imagine, being incarcerated. And then at the end of the day, I spent—from the time I was accused to the time I got my case expunged was 12 years. So that was lingering over me for all of that time.

But I had all the people who believed in me; I never missed a beat. All the people I was working with or for—there’s a lot of people that stood by me, my family stood by me. And now I’ve written the book. The book is just about really principles and applications that you can utilize to—even in the worst scenario that you ever can imagine in your life, you can work through it, and you know that it’s always gonna pass, and things will be better because of it if you believe it.

Meghan Escobar (15:28)

That is such a strong conviction, telling your story, and it’s most certainly not an easy thing to go through. And I really, really appreciate and respect you sharing that here so much. I know it’s a little bit of a vulnerable story, but I’m a big believer, Rich, that our power lives in our vulnerability. And you don’t know who needs to hear that story and how much it could impact them and help them really take the next steps in life, because I feel like when people go through situations like that, more times than not, they fall into victim, right? And being able to overcome that and continue to fight the fight—because the statement that you said, “I fight when I’m right”—I think that’s such an incredible thing, to have that strength and not give up on yourself because you know deep down inside who you are as a person, and that this wasn’t you and your doings, and you’re not just gonna sit down and take whatever these accusations are.

And not to say that there aren’t many people out there that also do make mistakes, and that also doesn’t define you: you can still overcome them even if you’re wrong, right? You can still overcome it and recreate yourself.

Rich Lamphere (16:35)

Right. And also, I’m not saying I was perfect, because I feel like if I would have communicated better, maybe the partners could have been more calm or appeased. I just had so many things going on; there were times when it was just like, “What’s gonna happen next?” So I’m not bitter and I’m not resentful at all—it is what it is. At the same time, I look and see, well, what could I have done differently, or what could I have done to prevent that? And I think it boils down to communication. I believe that if I would have communicated more thoroughly, maybe it wouldn’t have…

Meghan Escobar (17:11)

But maybe, and we’ll never know that.

Rich Lamphere (17:13)

Right, exactly, yeah, exactly. But I’m just saying nobody’s perfect, but I’ve certainly learned to communicate a lot better since then. And lessons learned—there’s a lot of lessons learned. So even, like you say, victim—I’ve never thought of myself as a victim at all, because everything happens for a reason, and I know that things are always gonna work out better on the other side. So I love that I’ve been able to thankfully keep that positive mindset all the way through.

Meghan Escobar (17:37)

Yeah, I love that you said that: lessons learned. I just recently heard somebody say there’s a lesson learned in every situation. And so when you put two L’s together, what does it make? It makes a W. It’s a win.

Rich Lamphere (17:50)

Very good. Right?

Meghan Escobar (17:52)

Yeah, I like that. So thank you for sharing all of that. And I’m curious to know: what’s the next big move for you, Rich? We talked a little bit about that, too. You got a lot of things that are going on here: you talked a little bit about the expansion of the partnership, I think we mentioned a little bit about the Project Risk Intel. But what’s the next biggest opportunity coming to you that you see taking off?

Rich Lamphere (18:19)

Number one, continuing to grow and scale TL Pacific alongside of growing a general contracting and electrical subcontracting business that I’ve recently partnered with a gentleman who is very experienced as an electrician. We really started it as him being an electrical contractor with more knowledge than most people I’ve ever worked with—great guy, worked with him for many, many years. So that entity—we have some very, very lofty goals on growing that company, and we have some wild aspirations over the next three years.

And one of the reasons is not just to do work for other people, but also to be able to build our own projects in-house. I’ve constantly got development projects, either negotiating them, entitling them, building them. So I want to be able to have that entity where we can do a lot of our own things in-house also.

And then, like I said, within TL Pacific, the Project Risk Intel—I’m using that system with some of these projects that I’m doing with the receivers and interim trustees and some of the lenders, and even some of the private REITs that I’ve worked with. But overall, there’s just so many opportunities within our industry, and the fact that I think everybody in our industry knows there are a lot of commercial loans that are coming due in this country. And I’m aligning myself with capital partners so that we can go in there and buy some of these distressed assets and bring value-add to them, and hopefully have them double or triple in value by the time we are able to take them to market.

Meghan Escobar (19:50)

That’s awesome, and I can’t wait to watch your journey from the other side. A lot of our listeners are either very early on in their journey, or they are looking to just level up, and that could be simply getting over that fear of AI and integrating it into their business. And so I think they’d benefit from hearing this. And we talked a little bit about you building your relationships and being a part of masterminds and things like that. So for you, Rich, from your journey, leaving the union world and moving into entrepreneurship and to where you are today, what has been or made the biggest difference for you when it comes to creating the right relationships?

Rich Lamphere (20:35)

Well, first of all, staying grounded and humble: faith, family, and friends, and the people that you associate with. I’ve never been afraid of taking on a challenge, and sometimes to a fault. My wife has always been a lot more conservative than I am as far as business and business growth and those kinds of things. But growing up, I had a lot of encouragement from my parents; we had a great family foundation. And I played sports and did really well on a lot of teams with sports, coached youth sports when my son was young, and I’ve just been in the pattern and habit of winning by design.

But with that comes failure and losing. And so then every time I have a downturn or a failure or a loss, I’ve managed to be able to analyze that and see why it happened, and I take a hundred percent responsibility. Sometimes the fault of it may not be mine, but I’m involved in it. And so I take the responsibility of turning it around one way or the other, however that is. And there’s been a lot of situations like that.

And the other thing that I found: there are times when people may not understand your value that you bring to either the project or the marketplace. And that has been humbling a couple of times, even though there’s others that value you for a lot of reasons and continue to give you projects and continue to work with you. So every once in a while, if you feel you’re not being valued, or that somebody isn’t seeing the value that you bring to something, you gotta go somewhere else. And so don’t stay in the negative situation; always make it positive or remove yourself from it.

Meghan Escobar (22:18)

Very solid information and very solid—a very solid nugget. I think some people get so caught up sometimes in, well, the history of the relationship. Screw that! If it’s not benefiting you, it’s time to move on, right? So thank you for sharing that. And it really is: creating the right relationships is everything in business, especially when it comes to anything to do with real estate, so it can’t be faked. And I think it’s really important to make sure that you are creating the right relationships.

And so before we do wrap up, if someone listening in might want to connect with you, collab with you, learn more about your story and what you’re doing, or maybe even get some information on the book that you are getting ready to launch, we can definitely talk a little bit about how they can reach you and when that book is getting ready to be published for purchase.

Rich Lamphere (23:12)

Yes. Right now, we’re on track to launch the book April 7th of 2027. The book currently is titled *After the Verdict: What You Do Next Defines You*. Maybe it’ll tweak a little bit, but the subtitle definitely is gonna stay. We’ve got the cover design, we’re in final edits right now, and kind of aggressively getting ready to go to market April 7th.

Meghan Escobar (23:37)

Wonderful. And how would somebody connect with you on the current stuff that you have going on? Maybe they want to learn more about Project Risk Intel or the stuff that you got going on?

Rich Lamphere (23:47)

I actually am redoing my website right now and should have it up in the next two, three days: richlamphere.com. And that’ll be all the information of everything that I have going on will be on there. And I don’t do much on social media; I’m going to start doing more now because of the importance of that with the book launch. rich.lamphere on Instagram is my actual private account, but I’m gonna end up going public with that here in a few days also. We’re kinda adding some more content and making sure that it reads the way that we want it to represent everything that I’m doing.

Meghan Escobar (24:22)

Represent the brand, absolutely. Well, we’ll be sure to drop those links below so people can connect directly to you and they don’t even have to go searching and Googling. And so again, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing your time with us. It’s been an incredible perspective, and I truly believe that our audience is going to take a lot away from this. So I appreciate you for being here.

Rich Lamphere (24:47)

Thank you very much. And I’m really honored to be here, and hopefully your audience will get some value out of our conversation today.

Meghan Escobar (24:55)

Absolutely. And for those of you that are tuning in, if you got any value from this, please be sure to hit like and subscribe, because we’ve got more conversations coming in with operators just like Rich here, who are building real businesses in real time with real people. We’ll see you on the next episode.