Artificial intelligence has moved beyond buzzwords to become a powerful force reshaping industries, and real estate is no exception. Through AI-powered solutions, property owners and managers are discovering innovative ways to streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve tenant experiences. John A. Reilly, CEO of Padgea, shares his insights on how his company is developing technology that dramatically changes how properties are managed, reducing time to rent by 65% and increasing net operating income by 20% or more.
Creating an Agentic AI Platform for Real Estate
“We’re creating an agentic AI platform that will streamline and integrate all of the business processes across the board,” John explains. His company is focused on developing solutions specifically for property owners and managers. While many are familiar with generative AI tools like ChatGPT, John sees the industry moving differently. “What we’re doing is going to an agentic AI world. Right now, everyone’s talking about AI chatbots or AI agents. But they don’t realize that we’re going to go right past software and even software as a service – it’s going to be AI agents doing every process – leasing, marketing, finance, tenant communications, maintenance, and operations”, he states.
John’s philosophy centers on looking ahead rather than focusing on current technologies. “I don’t want to skate to where the puck is – I want to skate to where the puck will be. In our development, we’re doing things now related to things that we know don’t exist presently but will exist in four to six months. It’s a bit of a risk, but it’s exciting. AI is exponential – meaning what happens in one week in AI equals our common linear experience in one year.”
Practical Applications for Property Managers
For property managers looking to implement AI, John highlights several key areas where the technology can make an immediate impact. “You have to look at all of your lead generation processes, outbound & inbound marketing processes, tenant applications, communications, and maintenance,” he advises. One of the most potent applications is using conversational AI to handle tenant communications. “Utilize conversational AI to integrate that whole process when someone comes into your system to respond immediately, whether by phone, email, text or web chat, any time of day, 24/7, 365 days a year, so you never lose a call,” John suggests.
This technology extends to the tenant application process as well. “What we do is reduce fraud down to a six-sigma level, which is four applications out of a million that might be fraudulent,” he notes, addressing a significant industry problem in which approximately 25% of all rental applications contain fraudulent information. One application may be dishonest if you receive up to 100,000 applications for your apartment rentals (which is very high). Padgea aims to provide a complete ERP Agentic AI end-to-end process that integrates all the stakeholders on one platform for maximum ROI and NOI.
Tackling Fraud Through Technology
Rental application fraud represents one of the industry’s biggest challenges. “Either the salary is overstated, the company position is overstated, many times they make up companies that don’t even exist in reality but set them up to say they’re some top officer. Even references are fraudulent,” John explains.
AI solutions can quickly identify inconsistencies by cross-referencing information. “AI can go to your LinkedIn immediately and check what is on your LinkedIn against what you put on your application. With your social security number, it can do more than check your credit – it can check a lot of background, especially with our enhanced process,” he says. This comprehensive approach allows for analyzing over 260 data points related to applicants. The impact of preventing fraudulent tenants is substantial. “Once you’ve got somebody in that has a fraudulent application and they don’t pay the rent, it takes a while to get them out. It could be very costly, especially in more liberal states like California and New York that favor the tenant,” John points out.
Transforming Maintenance Management
Another area seeing dramatic improvement through AI is property maintenance. “Our maintenance AI Agents can support a lot of work that property managers do by handling all of the maintenance work and all of the interactions with the tenants,” John explains. “With tenant interaction, we can reduce the actual human time involved by 80%.” The process becomes more efficient from start to finish. “As soon as an apartment needs a repair – electrical, carpentry, painting, whatever – our AI picks it up, goes out to the vendors that we already have on the platform, puts out a request for proposal with all the specs, analyzes the responses, and presents it to the owner or manager,” he says. The technology doesn’t stop there. “The AI develops the smart contract, gets it signed, sets up the contract period, allocates money from the bank into the maintenance account, and will pay that vendor only when they prove they’ve completed the work.”
John recommends starting small for property owners who aren’t tech-savvy but want to begin implementing AI. “The best way to put AI into property management today would be to utilize existing chatbots or agents that can handle rent collection,” he suggests. Another “quick win” is virtual staging. “When you have an empty room, virtual staging will create an optimal interior design so that when you publish it to listing services like apartments.com, Realtor.com, and Zillow, they’ll show it with the design in it,” making properties more appealing to potential renters. However, the best approach is the fully integrated enterprise resource planning approach developed by Padgea on a fully agentic AI platform.
John and his co-founders bring over 80 years of combined real estate and technology experience to their AI solutions. “Our approach is to integrate the entire chain—everything from lead generation to listings, media, inbound marketing, tenant applications, smart contracts, payments, and maintenance—all on one platform with Agentic AI at the core.”
To learn more about John A. Reilly’s innovative work revolutionizing property management through AI technology, connect with him on LinkedIn or email him at jr@padgea.com for regular insights on the future of real estate operations.
