Revolutionize Property Management: How Automation Transforms Real Estate

John Harcar (00:01.04)
Okay, hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host John Harcar and I’m here today with Chris Coleman and Chris is out of Arizona and what he’s gonna share with us today besides, you know, his journey in business and in real estate, but he’s also gonna talk about a cool tool he came through, created with his family. That’s AI automation for real estate businesses, you know, not just agents, but investors, all types of real estate businesses. So I’m excited to talk about that.

Remember guys at investor fuel we help real estate investors service providers I mean all real estate entrepreneurs 2 to 5x their business, you know We’re providing tools resources the community to help scale your business up and really grow and live the life that you want to live So Chris man, welcome to our show

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (00:51.49)
Thank you for having me and look forward to share and excited to be here.

John Harcar (00:55.726)
Yeah, I’m excited to learn more about your platform. know, anything that can make any of our lives easier. think we all want to partake in. But but before we kind of talk about that kind of stuff, tell our audience about you. You know, what got you into real estate? What what what got you into business? What brought you to today?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (01:03.809)
Absolutely.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (01:09.688)
Yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (01:14.094)
Yeah, yeah. So I think I have a interesting, unique story that may be different from a lot of realtors or investors. When I was in college at Howard University, it was going into my senior year, I was a journalism major and I was writing these tech blogs about Facebook and Uber and Airbnb back in 2010, 2011. So before this was as big as it is now.

It was very strange for people to think I’m going get into a stranger’s car and take an Uber or stay in a stranger’s home. So was writing about these articles. Exactly. Yeah. So it wasn’t commonplace. So I’m writing about these businesses and, you know, seeing how they’re starting and how they’re raising all this funding. So I taught myself how to code going into my senior year of college. And that summer I decided to drop out. Started building a web platform.

John Harcar (01:46.574)
Right? I’m gonna have someone, some stranger deliver my food.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (02:10.958)
Um, to help people swap and barter items, moved to San Francisco, got venture capital funding, um, and did that. And unfortunately my business failed. Uh, but what I did learn was how to give a pitch out to, um, you know, meet the demands of investors. I would, I’d have raised money. Yeah. How to, um, promote my, company on social media, because once again, Facebook, Instagram, wasn’t like it is now.

John Harcar (02:28.378)
Time to raise money.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (02:41.006)
So through that I got hired to do that for other companies and other corporations. So I got to work with Sprite, the NBA, Shaka Khan, Draymond Green, a lot of amazing people creating content and telling stories. And so within that I was always using tech and always using automation. There wasn’t AI like it is now. And so my family back in Philadelphia, I was doing this in California.

John Harcar (02:55.865)
awesome.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (03:11.01)
They, have a real estate portfolio of 22 plus doors with short term, midterm and long term rentals. And so I came back one summer and they were doing things very old school, I would say the antiquated way getting deposits. So they were getting checks sent to the PO box. They were still giving.

John Harcar (03:25.52)
What do you mean like what what doing what old school

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (03:36.59)
and then when someone had to sign a lease, they would come to the property, sign the lease, give them the key. And so was like, listen, if I’m joining this, gotta evolve. We gotta get with the times. So we started using tools like Bildium to put all of our tenants in, requiring them to pay all their rent online, using the actual system to put in tickets for maintenance.

John Harcar (03:43.504)
Mmm.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (04:05.002)
Creating virtual tours for all of our properties, automating all of the lock systems at the property. So I kind of brought that to the table and this spurt. Yeah, I love building and we still use it today. Yeah. Yeah.

John Harcar (04:12.974)
How did you like, how did you like buildium?

Did you? OK, yeah, I was using it for one of my properties, my last property, actually. But yeah, it was OK for me.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (04:21.997)
Yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (04:26.314)
I mean, I’ve worked with like at Folio and some of the other ones and I think they have a lot of things for larger organizations that make sense. But like for where we’re at for under a hundred doors, we don’t need some of the bells and whistles. We have what we need and then it does what we need it to do. And we’ve connected it to some other things that just make it a lot easier, such as open phone. We do our E-Leases. So all of these kinds of tools are

plugged into what we’re already using. And so that’s kind of like been my journey into real estate. I did not want to do real estate, had no desire. My parents had been doing it for 30 years. And so yeah, here I am now, blending real estate and tech.

John Harcar (05:11.44)
All right, that’s interesting. You mentioned you watched some of my podcasts. I like to always ask, how did you get that bug? Where did that come from? And you grew up with it. Why did you not want to do it?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (05:13.73)
Yeah.

Yeah!

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (05:21.516)
Yes.

so, you know, I wasn’t born when this happened, but my dad got his first property for $1 in the eighties in Philadelphia. They had a, they, yeah, they had, yeah, they had, these homes, the stress homes that you could buy and he applied and got it. my mom also had her first investment property at 23. That doesn’t happen, you know, nowadays. that’s not my reality. I’m a, I’m a little younger than, than they are. but.

John Harcar (05:32.272)
Really? That’s awesome.

John Harcar (05:43.737)
Okay.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (05:51.758)
I would see all the work they have to do when someone left their keys somewhere, they would have to drive all the way down to the property, unlock the door. And the person is like, I got to pay you 35 or $50, but grudgingly. Before we had some of the systems in place, you get tenants that know the system. And in Philadelphia, it’s a very tenant friendly state.

so they can play the system and stay in the property for six months without paying anything before they’re evicted. So I got to see like those things. I’m sure there were really great things that happened, but you only see the bad. And I was just like, that seems crazy. I’m not going to do that. Yeah, so.

John Harcar (06:32.751)
Ugh.

So you left the tech world, you went and you kind of automated your parents’ business, joined that business together. So as you got into doing that and doing all this automation and stuff, what were some of the struggles you ran up against? Like, mean, were there just so many things, too many things you had to change? Were there just a lot of newer things that they didn’t understand?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (06:42.403)
Yep.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (06:58.454)
Yes, now that’s a great question. I think in general, the real estate world is always very slow to move towards technology. And this goes for both the participants in it and the people that we serve. So a lot of our tenants, you know, they were there for 10 plus years. So they’re used to doing things one way. And it’s like, no, no, no, please, I’m telling you, if you do it like this, it’ll be so much easier for you. You don’t need a check.

You don’t have to go to the bank to get a money order. So reeducating or educating them on the benefits of this was one step. The second was a lot of these platforms and tools don’t work well together. You have to really have a understanding of technology to finesse some things. And that’s very frustrating because you use other platforms.

Like you can honestly run your whole life just with Facebook with all the apps that it can connect with and all the things it can do and all the data that you have access to. Real estate does not like to share that kind of information. So that was probably like the two most frustrating things.

John Harcar (08:09.252)
I get that. what is it? So what does it look like now? I mean, it’s it’s you and your folks, right? Still in the business. Do you guys have multiple employees? How many doors do you guys manage?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (08:14.126)
Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So right now we manage 30 doors and I mentioned short term rental long term. We have a cleaning person and then we have city like local managers. We have two, one in Philly and one in Atlanta where our properties are. So we do work them remotely and everything like I said from the showings to the signings of the lease.

We even make our tenants now do the walkthrough. So if you don’t note it in that paper, we’re not going to note it either. So, you know, if there’s a hole in the wall at the end of it, and there was a hole there beginning and you didn’t do it, you didn’t fill it in, that’s on you. So we kind of try to make things as streamlined as possible. Also give our tenants, you know, the freedom to let us know what’s happening in the building, let us know, you know, how their unit is. And we found that.

It works really well and we now have average retention of six to 10 years. So essentially until people are buying a home.

John Harcar (09:19.376)
Yeah, no, that is awesome. And that’s very important is, you know, if you give those types of freedoms and you trust, right, and you communicate, yeah, you keep good tenants for a long time. So tell me about the need for Task Espresso. I want to make sure I say that right. Task Espresso. So let’s talk about the need for that. What made the drive to create that? And then, you know, tell us a little bit more about

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (09:31.254)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (09:39.118)
Yep. Yep.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (09:48.354)
Yeah, so I think as a property manager, you often get the same questions when someone is looking for a home. How much does it cost? Is it safe? Can I bring my pet? When can I move in? Do I need to do a deposit? These are frequently asked questions that if you had, let’s say an AI voice agent that can speak with these people and answer these, this now frees my time up to do other things. So it was scratching an itch that we had.

to be able to free up some time. And so that evolved into us saying, okay, how can we implement AI voice agents, AI chat bots, and now AI avatars to be able to have one autonomous voice? So your chat bot, your voice agent, and your avatar all sound the same. They are all saying the same things about your brand. They’re speaking as your brand would speak. So maybe you’re like Chick-fil-A. Yes, sir. No, ma’am. My pleasure.

John Harcar (10:45.392)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (10:46.998)
We can train the agent to do all of that stuff. And then the major thing was it has to work within the systems that people already use. Hence my frustration with technology. There are more ways to do this now, but yeah, that’s kind of what we do and how we do it. We create these tools to work within your business so that you can free yourself up to do other things.

John Harcar (10:58.778)
Right.

John Harcar (11:09.486)
Okay, and you probably obviously tried it in your business first. You know, when you guys did start it, what were kind of the some of the hiccups with it or, you know, maybe some of the things that took a little bit longer to really work through.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (11:13.218)
Yep.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (11:22.028)
Yeah, so I mean, the major thing is the technology has increased tenfold. So you mentioned you use AI, so I’m assuming that’s chat GPT, that’s Claude, tools like that. Well, within a matter of two years since chat GPT launched, it can pretty much run your life if you give it the ability to. And the voice agents have evolved in that same way. They sound better.

John Harcar (11:31.152)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (11:46.092)
They are very more nuanced. So you can give it a Southern accent. You can give it a Boston accent, an African accent. It can speak in 70 plus languages. So the ability to really create these almost human like agents and then connect it to platforms. So like your calendar, if you want to schedule showing, can do that. If you want the agent to send out text messages, it can do that.

The evolution has been pretty quick, but that was probably the major hiccup before. It was hit or miss on voices. Sometimes it would sound great, other times it sounds like it was a robot. Now it’s pretty thorough. It’ll sound just like a human being.

John Harcar (12:27.204)
Okay, so what are all the services that you provide? mean, I know you mentioned like, you know, a bot and some other things like what is everything that you provide to an investor like myself or a real estate agent?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (12:33.388)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (12:38.082)
Yep. Yeah, so our core service, our voice agents, our chat bot, and the digital avatar. The voice agent is the most popular, so it can connect to your CRM. So if you’re using Go High Level, maybe you’re using ClickUp, maybe you’re using Google Sheep, and you have all these numbers that you want it to call, we can connect it to that portal or to that CRM, and it will go through and call them in blocks of 20 concurrently. So.

The moment it finishes one, it will just go to the next list. And it provides you a summary of what the call was, next steps, the transcript, the call of recording. And like I mentioned, if you give it the ability to, it can send those follow-up texts as well as put events on the calendar. So that’s what the voice agent does. The chat bot is a kind of accomplice to that.

It’s a bit more limited in what it can do because obviously it can’t speak, but same thing. It can send someone down a funnel to create this lead, to pre-qualify them, to get the information you need to move this person to the next step. And then finally, the AI avatar is something we recently started doing, which we can clone your likeness or you can create this digital ambassador for your brand.

And now you have material for social media. You have material for YouTube. You have material for Facebook, talking about your brand, your services, and properties you may own or things you’re looking to buy.

John Harcar (14:14.032)
That’s incredible. Is that, is it, you know, like someone like myself, right? I’m kind of technologically stupid in a sense. I keep spreadsheets, you know, that’s what I, I’m old school. But like, what if I don’t know how to do any of that stuff, right? I mean, obviously you guys probably set it up, but like, do I have to bring a whole bunch of like, this is my text process and all this other stuff.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (14:15.565)
Yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (14:19.886)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (14:26.338)
I’m out of it.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (14:36.814)
Mm hmm. Yeah, so it’s a done for you service, a white glove setup service. So we kind of work on top of your procedures and operations. If you don’t have them, that’s fine. We’ll work with you to kind of set those up. But everyone uses hopefully something even if it’s just Google Sheets. That’s a start. Yeah, but we also give you access to a dashboard. So if you’re like, I don’t have anything, you can use our dashboard, you can upload your leads there and everything is housed in one place for you.

John Harcar (14:54.372)
Yeah, right.

John Harcar (15:05.996)
Okay, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So what are the cons?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (15:07.17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (15:12.002)
The cons, well, some people will say it’s for placing a human. We like to say it’s assisting a human. If anyone uses chat GPT in the correct way, it’s not at least how I see it. It’s not something that like makes you dumber. Cause some people like, you’re not thinking critically. It’s like, no, I am thinking critically. I’m thinking of a better way to do the thing, which is sending an email or creating an image because that’s not my specialty.

specialty may be talking on stage, my specialty may be closing in front of people. So why not leverage a tool just like a virtual assistant or somewhere you’re actually going to pay an admin in America to do the same thing. So we’re kind of, that’s, that’s how we see it. A con is yes, it may replace a virtual assistant, it may replace the team member, but if you use it properly, you can use it as like an add-on to what that person’s already doing.

John Harcar (16:09.328)
Got it, got it. And how many clients do you have? How many customers do have using your platform right now?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (16:14.71)
Yeah, so we just signed up four new ones today. Yeah, all from EXP. Thank you, thank you.

John Harcar (16:18.292)
Yeah buddy, congratulations. We have a big exp realtor out of Detroit in our master.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (16:27.606)
who’s I don’t know if you’re allowed to say their name. No, no, but we’re actually going to Detroit with a future Davis and her team to do a training with some of the EXP members and Detroit. So maybe I’ll have the pleasure of meeting them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But right now we have about 20 clients. This has started in the last two months where we were actively going to get clients. Yeah.

John Harcar (16:29.584)
Dylan Tanaka.

John Harcar (16:42.985)
Maybe, yeah, or I’ll connect you guys too.

John Harcar (16:54.456)
Okay, so you’re brand new pretty much.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (16:56.63)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were testing it within our use case for a while to make sure like, okay, this works. And then people will actually pay for it.

John Harcar (17:03.909)
Awesome.

Got it. And are you guys still buying more properties?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (17:10.218)
yes. So my parents, that’s primarily what they do. yeah, yeah. So they, I’m more of the guy in the chair. So go down this alley. Yeah. So, they exactly, exactly. No, no, I love it. That’s what I am. I’m a tech nerd. I love every part of it. Yeah. But we are, we are looking to add more to the portfolio.

John Harcar (17:14.04)
Okay, there.

John Harcar (17:19.056)
You’re the tech dude. You’re the tech geek. Don’t take offense to that, but you’re the tech geek, man. mean, yeah, you’re a tech nerd, man. Climb it.

John Harcar (17:33.018)
Cool. Yeah, no, I mean, just in case some folks that are listening out here that they might, you they might have properties that, you know, they’re looking to sell in a year in what, Philly and Atlanta? Okay.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (17:42.434)
Philly and Atlanta, yeah. But we’re never scared of a good deal, so.

John Harcar (17:46.476)
Yeah, yeah, mean, hey, anybody out there, if you’re in those areas, you might have a buyer here. It doesn’t hurt. Plus, this sounds like a pretty kick butt tool. I appreciate that the information you came on and shared. If there’s folks that want to learn more about it, reach out to you and talk to you about it, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (17:52.845)
Yeah.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (18:03.586)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so they can visit our website, TASpresso.com, just like my shirt, T-A-S-K-S-P-R-E-S-S-O, or you can shoot us an email at hello at TASpresso.com and we can set up a call, a 15 minute AI audit to hear about some of your needs and then some tools that we can provide you with.

John Harcar (18:27.696)
Okay, but will it really be a call or will it be your AI? All right, I’m gonna hold you to that.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (18:32.27)
No, we’ll really be on there. We’ll really be on there. Yeah. See, remember I said smart tech with human touch. Yeah, but

John Harcar (18:40.8)
It’s human touch. love it. Nah, man. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on here, Chris, and sharing all that, man. That’s some good stuff. Guys, I hope you took some good notes, and I hope you reach out to Chris. And if not anything, just talk about how it could help your business, because it seems like there’s a lot of value in there, especially with the way AI is trending. Chris, man, thank you again, guys. Hope you enjoyed it. We will see you on the next one. Cheers.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (18:46.712)
Thank you.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (19:00.301)
Yeah.

Chris Coleman @ItsChrisColeman (19:06.094)
See ya.