The Future of Real Estate Investing: AI & Tech Innovations | Dev Horn

Dev Horn (00:00)
We’re working on AI.

It’s going to give us unbelievable

productivity gains,

it is a game changer kind of the way web technology or the internet was a game changer.

it’s going to do is to make us more productive.

I don’t think AI in the near term is replacing any of

we’re going to start to see that some people are able to take advantage of this and scale bigger than those who don’t.

Michelle Kesil (02:01)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Dev Horn, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate tech space running the we buy houses.com business. So really glad to have you here on the show, Dev. The listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re a

approaching creating such a stable brand and tech company in the real estate investing space. So let’s dive into all of that.

Dev Horn (02:39)
Thank you, Michelle.

nice to be here. And I hope it is valuable for you guys that ⁓ that are able to join us. Thank you

Michelle Kesil (02:47)
Yeah, absolutely. So first off, for those who are not familiar with you and your world, can you just give the short version of what is your main focus these days?

Dev Horn (02:59)
well, thank you. Yeah. I, I run the day to day operation of the weebyhouses.com business. It’s a, it’s like a franchise, but it’s really called a brand license. have exclusive licensees and territories all around the U S and those are my clients. So I’m helping them with their marketing and you know, the system set, what I call the front of the funnel, you know, finding the motivated seller, capturing them and then getting them.

in so that we can do what we do. So ⁓ that’s kind of my focus is really just marketing and using technology to help our guys have an advantage over those who aren’t with We Buy Houses, quite frankly, yeah.

Michelle Kesil (03:45)
Yeah, and for those that are not familiar with We Buy Houses, can you share a little bit more about what this platform entails?

Dev Horn (03:55)
Yeah, thank you. think, you know, the brand has been around for over 20 years. We acquired it in 2012. Excuse me. And so we launched it under our ownership in 2013. Really what the package is, it’s kind of the brand. So as opposed to a franchise where you might share a brand with say 10 or 20 or even in Dallas, 40 people, you know, we’re all using the same brand in our market, in our model.

the ⁓ our client is the exclusive user of the we buy houses.com brand in their market. Sorry. And so, ⁓ you know, that that’s a big part of it is just a brand that people trust. And you and I were talking a little bit before this started. And what I’ve found over the 12 years I’ve been running this is that whether people have seen we buy houses.com before or not, they think they have.

Like they know what we buy houses mean. So it’s a huge advantage. But what we’ve married that to is kind of the web

systems, know, websites, landing pages to capture the leads, as well as an integrated phone system so that we can put phone numbers on billboards or Facebook or wherever, know, Google business profile and all that incoming activity comes into their account and can be managed. So it’s that, like I said, it’s the whole front end of the funnel and that’s.

that’s what we focus on is enabling our guys to do that better than anybody else.

Michelle Kesil (06:14)
amazing. I love that. And how do you work with real estate investors throughout this process?

Dev Horn (06:21)
Well, you know, again, I’ll position us next to a franchise. A franchise will train someone to be a real estate investor and then give them a system to follow, and then they’ll take a portion of the proceeds. In our model, we work with professional real estate investors. They already know what they’re doing. They’re generally looking to scale their business to get bigger.

we do with our model is we, like I said, it’s an exclusive model in our territory and with an established business. A big part of the promise of what we offer to consumers is that you can trust these WeBuyHouses.com people. One of the reasons we know that is many of these people have been doing this for 10, 20 plus years. I think what we’re really trying to do is help

professional real estate investors to scale, to get to the next level. And that’s very different. The other thing that we’ve noticed about pros is they often have a brand name of their own, but they don’t necessarily want to join a system where they’ll share a well-known brand name they want. If they’re gonna use our brand, they want it to be their brand and their market. And I think that is another thing that we uniquely saw for these professional investors that…

really wouldn’t be attracted to a system that teaches people real estate investing. These guys already know what they’re doing and they really just want to exploit technologies, brands and systems that we provide.

Michelle Kesil (08:01)
Yeah, that makes sense. So what has been the key to keeping this business running smoothly? know you’ve been around, I think you mentioned 20 years.

Dev Horn (08:11)
Oh yeah, we’ve been doing this for quite a while. In 2012 when we launched webuyhouses.com, well really 2013 is when we went out with our version of it. The real estate market was just starting to pick up and we just went through from 2013 to 2023 the hottest real estate, residential real estate market I’ve ever seen in my life.

And, you know, so it was a pretty exciting time, you know, just, but it was almost battling growth because every year, you know, things were kind of up and to the right, you know. But I think, you know, what we’re seeing today is that real estate slowed down a little bit. I think we all know that the housing market kind of started to slow

a couple of years ago.

And so what we’re thinking about as things slow down, number one, think they pick back up. Every real estate goes in cycles. We all know this. We went through a 10 year straight, you know, upward cycle, which was kind of unusual, kind of fueled by very, very cheap money. ⁓ And so now I think we’re going into a new stage of the real estate.

market, it’s a little slower, it’s a little more ⁓ rate sensitive and all that kind of stuff. But we’re going to be heading into a new up trend, I think. And so all of us, whether it’s here at webuyhouses.com and what we’re doing or what you guys out there should be doing is preparing for the next ⁓ phase.

know, doing what you, taking advantage of the deals we can right now and the opportunities we can right now.

but recognizing that we’re in a little bit of a slow period and that never stays that way forever. Things are gonna pick up and we want to be ready, particularly with the newest technologies and stuff, ready for this next phase that will happen, I think, in the next 24 months.

Michelle Kesil (11:00)
And what do you see those newer technologies and things that you need to prepare with them? Like what do you kind of see for that future?

Dev Horn (11:11)
Yeah, know, obviously, I say obviously,

working on AI. think everybody these days is doing some degree of work with AI. And I think it is a game changer kind of the way web technology or the internet was a game changer. It’s going to give us unbelievable ⁓ productivity gains, you know?

the boring things that, the things that used to take a while, we can now offload to AI. And so I think that’s a very exciting opportunity. But I also, as we go into this next phase of technology ⁓ growth and ⁓ basically what we’re seeing is that the early examples of AI are often kind of ⁓

Just for show, like once you start digging into them and like, okay, I want to implement that thing. You find that it really wasn’t ready to implement. It was ready to demo. And I could give you a bunch of examples, but I think right now we’re still in kind of a research ⁓ phase, but ⁓ there is definitely technology that’s coming out that will give us the power of say an acquisition manager or social media marketing manager.

or all kinds of tasks in our business that in the past we would have hired somebody. We won’t necessarily have to hire somebody. Now, I don’t think AI in the near term is replacing any of us. think what it’s going to do is to make us more productive. Now, maybe you go five, 10 years out, maybe it does replace us. Maybe people just sell their house to artificial intelligence, but somebody’s got to go out there and look at it, you know, and somebody’s got to.

fund the contract and all that kind of stuff. I think there’s, ⁓ you know, we’re going to go through a phase with AI kind of like we went through with the web or internet in general. and the other thing I was going to mention as we, as we broached this subject was, I think we need to be careful in the next couple of years because my most talented

Clients I mean investors that are doing 50 to 200 or 300 deals in a year ⁓ These guys are so good They don’t really want or need AI to Do what they do. They don’t want AI to talk to the homeowner ⁓ They don’t you know, maybe send a text and get an answer but as far as conversation, you know, that’s what these guys do They’re so good at it. You know, they can’t imagine that

they would give that task over to AI. And then I think on the flip side, we’re going to see that consumers, homeowners, we’re going to go through some stages of acceptance of talking to and dealing with AI. So there’s two takeaways I have there. One is,

As we build AI systems that could ultimately be a real estate investor in a box, you know, maybe you don’t have to know anything about real estate investing because I could give you the whole thing from

to the homeowner to doing the deal to the, you know, planning the renovation to the whole thing. I could put that in a, in a box for you and sell you that box. And you wouldn’t have to know anything about real estate investing. I think that actually is something that’s coming in the future.

I don’t think my clients today are the clients for that. They are never going to want AI to replace them or what they do because they are good at it. Whereas I think it’s going to enable, maybe it’s like wholesalers on steroids, where anybody could really tap into a system that has all these AI components and kind of be a real estate investor like that. I think the world’s…

going to change. Initially it will be about productivity and how helpful these things are and then a few years out we’re going to start to see that some people are able to take advantage of this and scale bigger than those who don’t.

And I think that that’s what’s coming around the corner.

Michelle Kesil (16:29)
Yeah, absolutely. How do you see this helping people with their scaling efforts?

Dev Horn (16:35)
Well, I think the main thing is not, not having to hire as many people on your team. And again, I don’t look at AI as a way to just replace humans, but I think it’s more like, I, if I, know, if I, as a business owner don’t really have currently the budget to hire somebody and, but an AI can do a lot of that. And I can now tap into that. It’s.

It gives me an advantage over somebody that doesn’t use it, doesn’t ⁓ take advantage of that technology. ⁓ yeah, look, I think we’re gonna be going through some significant changes, but I think at the end of the day, I saw something, Michelle, the other day. was ⁓ on YouTube and it was a song, it was music on YouTube.

And it had almost like a little logo on it said, no AI. And what they were saying is that this is real music made by real humans, not AI. And I think over the next few years, we’re going to enjoy incorporating AI for our own productivity. We’ll enjoy working with it. If we call the bank and they use AI instead of the horrific system they have today, I would way rather talk to AI, you know, but,

But on the other hand, I think we’re going to start to value human interaction. so one thing I often say to people who are asking me like, okay, when are you going to do this AI stuff? I tell them my most successful clients are talking to that homeowner within two minutes of them submitting their lead. My most successful clients, some of them multimillionaires are answering phone calls on the second ring.

These folks provide a human touch that is extraordinary because they’re experts, you know, and that’s what people want. When people contact us, they’re trying to cut through all the clutter and uncertainty of all these other people that say they buy houses, you know, they know if they contact we buy houses.com, they’re going to be talking to a real pro that can really do this for them. And I think the value, you know,

is going to be making that connection quickly and efficiently, not necessarily replacing it with AI.

Michelle Kesil (19:04)
Yeah, definitely that human connection piece can not be replaced. So let me ask you this, what is like that next real big goal for you and your business?

Dev Horn (19:17)
The next real big goal. That’s a good question. I think one of the things that I want to build is kind of let’s call it the, I call it the offer engine. It’s if I know every, you know, every time I’ve done all my research, I got a lead, I know everything about it. And that goes into

you know, we’ll call it AI or program or whatever application that it would compute what I should offer on the property. Uh, again, I don’t think this is necessarily what my current clients need, but if I could build this, I could really offer it like literally kind of soup to nuts from lead coming in to offer to doing the research, calculating the repairs.

coming up with the offer and kind of take in building that whole solution, I think this would accelerate my clients that I have today and it would enable a whole generation of clients that I don’t yet have. And so that’s really what I’d like to accomplish is to kind of get more people in the tent, using the brand and the systems that we provide for.

to help homeowners find a great real estate investor.

Michelle Kesil (20:49)
Yeah, absolutely. a lot of the listeners here might be investors themselves and maybe they’re looking for a platform. So what like kind of makes yours stand out?

Dev Horn (21:03)
Well, I think at the end of the day, look, there’s, in my opinion, there’s, there’s two big national brands. There’s We Buy Ugly Houses and there’s We Buy Houses, you know, and there’s a, there’s some others, but ⁓ I think I really consider We Buy Ugly Houses and us to be tier one. ⁓ And so ⁓ really what, what makes us different is

It’s not a shared system, it’s an exclusive thing. It’s a flat monthly rate investment versus sharing your profits. And it’s helping you not forcing you into a certain process. So if you want to use our direct mail systems, great, we’ll help you use them. You got your own, no problem. You know, wanna put 10,000 in marketing or 2,000 or 500, whatever.

That’s up to you. We’re not telling our folks what they have to do to play in our garden. And so I think at the end of the day, I have a huge respect for the Weeby Ugly Houses people. They’re here in Dallas with us. We’ve known them for years. But we really serve two different ⁓ clients.

Those who are looking to get into real estate investing, they don’t know much about it. They want to tap into a system and be taught. We buy ugly houses is a good opportunity for that. Those who really already know what they’re doing, want to scale, recognize our thought leadership and technology leadership on helping them to scale through technology. think the, you know, those are the people, it’s just two different groups of people. I’ve never felt like we were really competing.

head to head, but we are competing for the homeowner. And ⁓ when it comes to that, I saw something occur over the last 10 or 15 years. See, when I, when we were, I was early on in this, ⁓ we buy ugly houses was very ⁓ popular. And what happened was somewhere along the way, these I buyers into the market, like open door offer pad, people like that. And there became this clouding of

What’s an eye buyer? What’s a cash buyer? You know, what’s an investor? What it kind of can confuse the consumers. But what I started to hear from homeowners over the last, say, five to 10 years is they didn’t think their house was ugly. Even people that honestly had a very ugly house were not willing to concede that it was ugly and they didn’t necessarily want to be.

You know, acknowledging that and calling up ugly houses and saying, come by my ugly house, you know? And so I think, uh, at the end of the day, we are the two biggest brands, but ours is the more inclusive brand that people feel like they, know, we buy houses. Yeah. You know, I’ve seen signs for years. I know what this is. I know what they do. And I’m, if we pull up a truck in front, this is we buy houses.

That’s cool, but if the truck in front of your house says, we buy ugly houses, it’s not that cool. And so I think at the end of the day, cooler brand, more freedom in the system and really tailored to the professional investor that knows what they’re doing.

Michelle Kesil (24:30)
Right.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, makes sense. All right, so before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more from you, where is the best place they can find you?

Dev Horn (24:53)
Well, know, best place is just email. I’m just dev, D E V at we buy houses.com. And if you want to talk about whether an area is available or my business development guys, Mike, Mike at we buy houses.com. And so, yeah, we, we were talking to investors every day about all this stuff about marketing and you know, we, didn’t get into it today, but like, I’m a, I’m a

I’m a big nerd as far as systems go, but we recently put in a whole new direct mail thing and things are going really well with that. So it’s not just AI and all this fancy stuff, I think getting direct mail right, signage, brand, all kinds of stuff, we’re good at that. we look forward to working with people that are talented and can exploit this brand and these systems, because it’s a great…

It’s a great marriage between us and somebody that can really take advantage of it.

Michelle Kesil (25:53)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, story, and perspective. We need more people in this space doing things in this right way. So thank you for being here.

Dev Horn (26:03)
Thank you, Michelle. It was very nice to meet you today and to speak with you. And for all you guys out there, I wish you happy investing. And if you have any interest in We Buy Houses, hit me up.

Michelle Kesil (26:11)
you

Awesome. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Dev, who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on the next episode.