Carlos Leal and Juan Leal, co-founders of Leasey.AI, shared their journey and insights in a recent interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Motivated by the inefficiencies they encountered while managing rental properties in Vancouver, Carlos and Juan developed Leasey.AI to streamline property management processes. By leveraging AI to automate tasks such as lead responses, tenant pre-qualification, and scheduling, Leasey.AI offers a comprehensive solution that addresses complex leasing scenarios overlooked by other platforms. Their innovative approach significantly improves efficiency, reduces manual tasks, and enhances the tenant experience, making Leasey.AI a crucial tool in addressing Canada’s current housing crisis. The platform’s success and positive impact underscore the founders’ dedication to revolutionizing the property management sector with modern technology.
Juan Leal, CPA, CA – Founder at Leasey.AI
At Leasey.AI, we understand that property management should be a seamless and efficient experience. Our essence lies in simplifying the complexities of property management through cutting-edge technology and personalized support. We envision a future where property owners can focus on what matters most to them while we handle the rest.
Carlos Leal – Founder at Leasey.AI
I’m an entrepreneur on a mission to create a future of trust, transparency, and meaningful connections. My passion lies at the intersection of business, technology, and innovation, where I explore how they enhance human experiences.
Right now, I’m building Leasey.AI, a game-changer in property management. Our platform streamlines leasing, saving time and effort. We’re targeting asset managers, property managers, and residential real estate operators, making leasing smoother.
What inspired the inception of Leasey.AI, and why did you feel there was a need for a new property management solution in a sector with long-established players?
The story of Leasey.AI began with a shared frustration. While managing their own portfolio of rental properties in Vancouver, Juan and Carlos faced a barrage of challenges. Advertising vacant properties across multiple platforms, dealing with an influx of mostly unqualified leads, and spending countless hours responding to inquiries and coordinating showings often disrupted their demanding day jobs in management consulting.
Existing tools only addressed specific pain points, necessitating the ‘stitching’ of multiple point solutions, resulting in major inefficiencies.
In his role advising some of Canada’s largest asset managers, Carlos identified that these gaps were widespread throughout the industry. Despite the use of legacy ERP solutions like Yardi or SAP, manual coordination among stakeholders such as leasing agents, dispatchers, and building managers remained a bottleneck.
Recognizing the industry need, Juan and Carlos began developing Leasey.AI part-time during the pandemic. In 2021, they launched a minimum viable product (MVP) pilot with over thirty landlords. The success of this pilot, coupled with securing their first enterprise client, marked a pivotal milestone and propelled them to commit to Leasey.AI full-time in February of 2022.
Can you explain the unique features of Leasey.AI and why clients prefer your platform over other solutions available in the market?
Leasey’s unique features include:
- Facebook Marketplace Automation: This feature automatically posts rental properties on Facebook Marketplace, the most popular platform for finding tenants in North America. It saves time and effort by eliminating manual posting, ensuring properties reach a large audience quickly.
- Instant Lead Responses: This feature responds to leads instantly with automated messages, regardless of which rental marketplace they are inquiring from. It increases engagement and reduces the chance of losing potential tenants due to delayed responses.
- Automated Pre-qualification and Scheduling: This feature pre-qualifies leads based on property managers’ specific criteria for a property and allows those qualified leads to schedule showings instantly. It streamlines the lead qualification process, ensuring only serious and qualified applicants are scheduled for viewings, reducing no-shows.
- Thorough Tenant Screening Leveraging AI: This feature analyzes applicant information using AI to provide a comprehensive tenant screening process. It enhances the quality of tenant selection by evaluating various factors, leading to more reliable and suitable tenants.
Property managers prefer Leasey.AI over existing solutions due to its user-friendly, modern interface that simplifies adoption. The platform’s advanced automation significantly reduces manual tasks, resulting in major time savings and scalability for property management operations. The platform leverages AI to deliver proactive insights to help property managers simplify and improve their decision-making and optimize their operations. Finally, Leasey.AI addresses complex leasing scenarios that many other platforms overlook, providing comprehensive solutions that enhance efficiency and effectiveness in managing rental properties.
What positive impact is Leasey.AI bringing to the rental ecosystem in Canada, particularly during the current housing crisis?
Leasey.AI tackles Canada’s housing crisis by streamlining property management to speed up tenant placements and improve service quality. Tenants frequently face frustration due to low response rates from landlords and cumbersome, outdated application processes, which intensify their difficulties and strain relations with landlords.
Leasey.AI ensures a 100% response in seconds, not days, and streamlines processes, enhancing the tenant experience and allowing property managers to provide better service. The property management industry, currently understaffed by over 50% and facing rising immigration, needs efficient solutions to manage increased workloads. Leasey.AI’s technology is essential for meeting this demand and ensuring timely, effective housing solutions.
How are you leveraging modern technologies like AI to innovate and improve efficiency in a traditionally static sector like property management?
Leasey.AI leverages modern technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), to bring significant innovations and efficiency improvements to the traditionally static sector of property management. Here’s how Leasey.AI addresses three key areas:
- Streamlining the Leasing Process: Leasey.AI automates up to 90% of manual leasing tasks, such as lead responses, tenant pre-qualification, and property showings. This saves property managers time, letting them focus on strategic planning and property improvements, which boosts efficiency and job satisfaction.
- Expediting Decision Making: Leasey.AI analyzes tenant data, including dozens of data points, like credit scores and rental history, providing clear summaries of qualifications. This helps property managers make quick, informed decisions, speeding up tenant selection and improving reliability.
- Optimizing Leasing Operations: Leasey.AI consolidates key operational data such as lead conversions, applicant demographics, and leasing team performance. Its AI provides actionable insights and analytics, allowing property managers to monitor performance, evaluate operations, and make quicker strategic decisions, boosting efficiency and profitability.
What has been your biggest challenge in developing and scaling Leasey.AI, and how have you overcome it?
The biggest challenge our business faced in the past year was overcoming the industry’s resistance to adopting new technology. The property management industry is known for adhering to traditional, manual, and routine processes because “that’s how it’s always been done.” This resistance to change often stems from a fear that technology might threaten job security and alter established workflows.
We addressed the industry’s resistance to new technology by designing a simple, intuitive platform that quickly demonstrates its value to clients. By immersing ourselves in clients’ processes and tailoring our solution to their specific needs, we ensured greater relevance and effectiveness. We also focus on educating clients and building relationships, showing how our technology enhances their roles by eliminating bottlenecks and improving efficiency. Continuous support and adaptation based on client feedback have kept our technology aligned with their evolving needs, fostering a smooth adoption process.
