In this insightful episode, Corwyn catches up with Steve de Guzman, Co-Founder of rehavaPress. Steve shares his forward-thinking perspective on how technology is rapidly transforming the real estate industry, from automation to blockchain and distributed ledger systems. He discuss the overwhelming amount of data available to both consumers and professionals, and how to focus on the essential tasks to stay ahead. Steve highlights the potential of blockchain to revolutionize title insurance and touches on the challenges faced by MLSs in adapting to these technological advancements.
Steve offers his outlook on the future of real estate, noting the balance between adopting new tech while maintaining the human element. He also shares his thoughts on the evolving role of real estate agents in a technology-driven world. In a reflective moment, Steve recalls his own journey through the 2008 recession, offering advice on the importance of staying grounded and making strategic investments, instead of always swinging for the fences.
Key Takeaways:
- 02:08 Steve’s Background and Early AI Work
- 02:36 Evolution of Technology in Real Estate
- 04:36 Current Real Estate Practices and AI Integration
- 07:04 Smart Contracts and Legal Implications
- 14:00 How Automation and Data Apps are Impacting Real Estate.
- 17:00 The Role of Blockchain in Title Insurance and Potential Cost Savings.
- 20:00 Challenges Faced by MLSs in Adapting to Public Access and New Tech.
- 24:00 Steve’s Reflection on His Personal Investments and Lessons Learned from 2008.
Connect with Steve@:
- Website: https://rehava.com/
Connect with Corwyn@:
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Email: corwyn@corwynmelette.com
Shoutout to our Sponsor: ROBYN COLLINS
Do you want something more? More Meaningful Moments opportunities, deeper relationships and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you say YES, a career and real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for guiding people to one of the most important decisions they ever made, the purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative.
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ROBYN:
Do you want something more? More meaningful moments, opportunities, deeper relationships, and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you said yes, a career in real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for. Guiding people through one of the most important decisions they ever made, the purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative. Exit Realty’s revolutionary compensation model, training, and technology that provides you with the tools you need to start and build your successful real estate career. Call me today, Robyn Collins, R – O – B – Y – N Collins with Red Robin Homes at 843-557-5003. Again, that’s 843-557-5003 or visit us at redrobinhomes.com/joinexit and make your exit today
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning, and great morning, guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I’m your host, Corwyn J. Melette, broker and owner of Exit Realty Lowcountry Group, beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina.
Guys, if this is your first time listening to this show, you sir or ma’am are in for a treat. That is because our mission here is very simple. It is to empower our community through real estate, education, and financial literacy. Guys, look, we’re legacy building. That is what we do. So I want to give a quick shout out to those who listened to us again faithfully from one end of town to the other locally. And for those that to us from around the world. Thank you all for tuning in today. Guys, we have a fabulous show. If you are into technology, if you are like I am, I tell people that I like to be cutting edge, but I don’t want to be so close to get hit by the blade. I just want to be close enough to feel the breeze when it will buy. So if you are that kind of person, if you love real estate and you are interested in technology, especially in today’s age of artificial intelligence, we have an expert today that’s going to give us some insight, break some of this thing down, but also give us a show us demonstrate if you will, where some of the application of all this technology rests and what it can look like for our future. So guys, I want to introduce to you somebody who I’ve known for years. He has been since I’ve known him on the cutting edge. He’s the person that when the blade go by, he on the other side of it, founder of Rahava Press. Steve, how are you doing today?
STEVE:
I’m doing great, Corwyn. I really appreciate you having me on today.
CORWYN:
Thank you, Steve. If you don’t mind, give our listeners 30,000 foot view of who you are and what it is that you do.
STEVE:
Thank you very much. I’ll try and keep it brief. It’s hard for me to do that. I’m a local guy from, I was born and raised in Charleston. I grew up in Goose Creek. My first AI project was in 1983 at the College of Charleston with Dr. James Hawks. Fast forward, I’ve owned a couple of different real estate companies now. I was one of the guys who helped start SandLapper. I worked with Geddes Glaze and Billy Schuman and all those guys. And then after that technology really took off, this thing called the internet started. I showed you how old I am, man. I was in this before the internet. I remember going to one of the meetings and they said, hey, this thing called the internet and we’re going to have you guys testing it. We’ll run it the same time for the next nine weeks. That’s when we used to have to {go get a book. I don’t know if you practice one. I wasn’t practicing. Remember when you have to take your book? I got a book around here somewhere or another, man, where you had to get a book and know what was on the market. Yeah. And you had to take yours in and nobody would copy it. It was a big deal. And then they had this internet thing. And I remember this guy in our prudential office said, this internet thing, man, I think it’s a fad. I was like, I don’t know, man. These people seem to like it a lot. And then I’ve served on multiple MLS boards. I served on four different boards at CTAHR. One of them was the technology board, which was before Zillow. It truly was really the first one. Tiger and there was some other. And then Zillow, I see you knowing what I’m talking about, man.
CORWYN:
Before there was anything. That’s right. For everybody now, that’s all that exists. This has been here forever.
STEVE:
I’ll tell you the most interesting thing, man, is when they introduced buyer’s agency, because until 1998, there was no such thing. When I trained, you basically did the open house. You’d have 40 to 60 people show up. The broker I trained with, Foster Smith, he carried, he had 60 something. Foster’s a killer, man. He was one of the greatest trainers of all time. That guy is so service oriented. He was my mentor there and he carried 60 something listings at the time. And I don’t know if he’s practicing anymore, but that was in a time when service was so, your knowledge base was so different then. And then we saw it change when they had this Zillow thing come in and you could see these people buy leads. I’ve been through all of that. I saw before that and it’s interesting to see it circling back with all the lawsuits and all the stuff, all the case stuff that’s been going on. Today, currently, I own a real estate company here in Colorado. I also have a license that’s inactive in South Carolina and we focus on traditional residential brokerage. One of the things we do that’s quite a bit different is we use some tools today that can, because of the way data works and it’s not exactly free yet, but I think it’s going to get there. We can pull data on a house and give you, usually within 97 and 98% accuracy, what that home will probably sell for. And we are in a position to do cash offers, not an iBuyer because it’s a hold. It’s not a flip.
So we’ll actually pay in some markets if the schools are right, we’ll pay 103% of CMA. And then we use an appraisal service as an arbitrage, like a triage kind of thing where we bring in an appraiser and that’s the price we go off of. So that’s what we’re doing today. And then trying to prepare what’s going to happen with the way they keep changing everything on these lawsuits and commissions. In Colorado, I don’t know if you followed this, but I meant to tell you about this because it’s actually very relevant. On Friday, the 16th largest MLS board in the country is called RE Colorado here in Denver. They terminated every single board member and leadership position on Friday. And it is on Inman. It’s all over the news. The big controversy is they are trying to create a sale to avoid being sold to a realtor partnership because they think that would put us in the ditch with… So it’s crazy right now, man. I don’t know what’s going on. I just got an email while we were right before we got on. I was looking at my phone and we got this email saying, don’t worry, we’re going to stay in business. And I didn’t know that was even on the table. So that’s what’s happening now and trying to figure it out, man.
CORWYN:
So we need to kind of jump in there. What you’re talking about is that overall for our listeners, because our listeners love this information. Some of them know, some of them don’t. This is a different time. We’re in a society and a time in history where there’s a lot of change going on and the change goes on society and it goes on in business. The two are not completely independent, but you guys have been really working on this whole technology and AI piece to try to figure out how to essentially meld, if you will, the consumer into a transaction. That sounds about right?
STEVE:
Yeah, that’s right. Smart contracts is the new big buzzword in AI right now.
CORWYN:
Okay. So define that if you don’t mind.
STEVE:
Sure. A smart contract can do things like realize whether or not you’re doing a double negative on terminating one part of the contract because you wrote it wrong. It also updates automatically. So if you don’t miss that deadline, if they send you… So for example, I know that dot loop is one of the big ones. Dot loop has a feature where, let’s say you have a repair inspection addendum that needs to come back. You don’t get to the email and it comes back. It will actually read what’s in there and make a suggested counter offer to fix those things, repair addendum requests, right? And then it does those things. That’s like a real baseline.
It won’t submit it for you. It’s not to the point where it’s legally because it can’t legally sign for you. So what it would do is it creates it. It says, when you come in there, it says, you have one hour left until your expiration. Here’s what I recommend your repair request be. And then so anything to do with money, repairs, or any of those kinds of things, any kind of legal… So in some states, South Carolina, I believe, might still be one where they have what they call agreements, right? The state run has agreements, but not a contract. Whereas in Colorado, you have a contract and you can’t use anything else. You can’t mark on it. You can’t add anything. I think four states do that. So this for Colorado is a big deal because in Colorado, they give us limited law practice. So if I were to do something wrong or change the contract or do anything, you can be charged with practicing law without a license and that is a felony. So that’s the big thing here is just keeping you in compliant is the big thing.
CORWYN:
Yeah. And that’s very important. I mean, that’s one of the things that even the state of South Carolina, the agreements have a few blanks and I’m not very many. And those blanks, it’s limited what you can put in there because when you go outside of quote, unquote, the limitation, then you’ve crossed the line over into unauthorized practice of law. You can’t go in there and write a novel or a book or what have you. Literally, it’s just, okay, this particular thing, we fill in things such as address, such as price, party names, things of that nature. And then once they are fully signed, executed, so to speak, then they’re considered to be a contract or agreement, but they’re considered to be a contract at that point in time.
STEVE:
Enforceable. That’s right. Enforceable then because again- The part of that you brought up, Corwyn, about the filling is one of the things a smart contract to do. You start it off usually with what is the APN, the property ID number. Just grab the property, fill it in a contract, it pre-fills it and gets everything ready. You review it. Makes it a lot. I mean, I hate to say this, man. When I started, I can’t tell you how many times I said, press hard, man. There’s three copies. We used carbon paper. And a ballpoint pen. That’s right.
And a blue one. That’s right. And because I got in trouble for that one time, I had a lawyer get Mike, Mark Weeks got mad at me because he said, hey man, I played football with him at Newberry. He’s like, hey, don’t use a black pen, man. You’ve got to use a blue pen. I was like, what? So I learned that.
CORWYN:
You just told me back with that. Now, thank goodness. I won’t say thank goodness, but I was probably fairly close to that coming in.
Came at a time when you didn’t do that. You didn’t have to quote unquote, make three copies, have carbon paper and all that stuff at the time. So I missed that. I missed the books, but I wasn’t too far behind it.
STEVE:
But that was the, Remax was the one who took it to the next level with their virtual private network in the day. Back in the day, when you had those triples, they had this incredible thing. You could go in there and print them out and you just go over there and get signatures. I think that was a big turning point for them that really allowed them to recruit to the technology and the business, which after that Keller Williams created the masterclass on that.
CORWYN:
So Steve, let’s delve a little bit deeper into, because again, you guys are in this AI realm. So the artificial intelligence realm, smart contracts. So the system is being intuitive and saying, Hey, you might need to do this. You may want to do this, what have you, but you guys are also a little bit further down the road with this as far as essentially playing to an extent matchmaker and creating a relationship, if you will, with the consumer in a transaction. That sound about right?
STEVE:
That’s correct. Yes, exactly. Which part of that came from the old school, like Prudential and Remax, 90% of the consumers forget after two years who they bought or sold their house with. No, that’s usually our fault. And so what we did is not only knowing there needs to be a different system, but one of the big things I learned is most homeowners aren’t prepared to be homeowners. I wasn’t.
And all those maintenance things and all these things and what’s the difference between asphalt single and architectural and why do I need that hurricane? All that is overwhelming. So we’ve worked with technology companies for, gosh, it’s been about eight years now on things like housing as a service, where it takes smart homes to the next level. So for example, now, because of the way laborers put into data, like Lowe’s and Home Depot, they collect local data like you wouldn’t believe on contractors. To be a contractor with them, you have to fill out all these documents and put in exactly how much you charge for every discipline you perform. So what we’ve done is we’ve created a way to show the consumer. So like when you buy a house, we get you the home inspection and then it comes back and says, hey, your house hasn’t been painted because our AI went out and pulled all the permits and you don’t have a paint permit. So this thing hadn’t been painted in 10 years. Did you know they’re going to ask for that during the inspection? Would you like to repair that now? And then after they close, our big thing is no app, no install. It’s just a friendly reminder. Hey, it’s time to blow out your hot water heater or, hey, your air filters are going to be here tomorrow for a compliment from Rahava Press, that kind of thing. So for us, as much about, and again, this is really new for us. We’ve just really put our boots on the ground after working with other companies for five years this year, and we’re working on providing that here in Denver and getting it to scale because of the technology. The good news is I think AI is probably underutilized most of the time because most people are looking for it to do something magic. And what I try and say is, look, why don’t you look at the mundane? Why don’t you look at the things that you do over and you’re like, God, I’m tired of doing this. Those are the things AI can start duplicating for you because it’s smart enough now and you can teach it because the AI piece I think is getting figured out. I think it has two benefits, one for the broker owner like you and I, right, where we can start automating things like a listing entry. You could automate that now to the point where right off your desktop. So that’s one piece. And then for the consumer, as we start to see more and more data getting dumped into the public space, you’re seeing more and more apps come out. I’m seeing more and more stuff come out about getting everything from local pricing. It’s scary and overwhelming the amount of information.
So it becomes, what do you really need to do instead of trying to figure out what to do? I would say, let’s look at the mundane, man. What are you doing every day and approach it from there and you’ll start to see the benefit.
CORWYN:
That makes perfect sense. So Steve, again, you’re a guy, again, going back to something I said earlier about being cutting edge. You’re on the other side of the blade. When it goes past, you probably don’t even feel the breeze because you might be that far beyond it. You have been a leader, if you will. And to me, as I’ve looked and watched you, as you’ve maneuvered, you’ve always been beyond in this real estate space. So what do you think this is going to look like? What do you anticipate? And I hate to even put a time period on it to look because in reality, I remember I was at a conference probably about two, I think it might’ve been just pre-COVID, but it could’ve been during COVID and someone made the statement of what computers look like 25 years ago. And now you have greater technology and speed when you’re hand on a cell phone. That’s right. It’s a fact. Exactly. And it seems that everything is, since we’ve hit a certain point and everything has really accelerated, so things are happening so fast. So what do you think that real estate in our lifetime is going to look like as far as the technology? Some people are afraid that it’s going to replace people. Let’s be real. It’s going to replace people. We believe in our industry that it’s going to help to enhance, it’s going to make us better. So what do you think? Give me your purview on it.
STEVE:
We call that property technology, right? It’s like a kind of a space that people work in trying to advance different things. And it’s everything from commercial to property management to construction. There’s so many things that fall in there. But what I think is interesting is how much people do talk about getting replaced. And I know there are some things that it seems it makes sense for that to happen. We don’t, we’re not sure what those are completely, right? But I think that might happen. I’m not too sold on that, but I do think that the bigger opportunity is in what you said in working with the consumer and being the expert. So that, for example, I think is more information. So part of the holdback is some states have different laws. People really don’t know how to deal with the AI. Should you stop it? Should you allow it? And so part of what we’re seeing on the technology side is because of the cloud and because of what you said about speed and technology advancing so much, you’ve made it so that these things are now possible. And these things are things like, imagine what they call, some people call it’s distributed ledger, often referred to incorrectly as blockchain. You’ll hear it. Distributed ledger, of course, is a form of blockchain and crypto is the thing that really got it out there. But the reason I bring that up is because that’s probably the single biggest thing I think will have the biggest impact on our industry. And I’ll tell you what that is. And I’m not saying this is what’s going to happen. I’m just saying, based on the way I’ve seen things rolling out and the people I talked to and some of the technology, it’s entitled. And I think that’s the genesis, because if you think about it, the one thing that we’re all getting to is a clear title, right? With distributed ledger, unlike encryption, it’s a very simple concept. It’s just like accounting. One minus one is zero. You cannot dispute that. There’s no way around it. That’s how distributed ledger works. Why is that important? Because once you clear a title, it can’t be encumbered again, ever, as long as you have blockchain running. What does that do? That gets rid of title insurance. If you have blockchain and the only way they can do that is through the government to get a certificate, then the only way that they could violate that is through some fraudulent, not from one person. One person cannot be fraudulent. So if you think about it, what would happen would be, in my mind, as more and more people get used to what those issues are on buying or selling a house, because it’s so frigging overwhelming. I mean, it is overwhelming, especially if you’re a first-time home buyer and a first-time seller. No offense, but man, those are the challenges, right? Those are the ones you put a $5 million deal together and it’s the $150,000 deal that’s the hardest one. And that’s okay because it ebbs and flows, right? But what’s going to happen, I think, is as they start to clear this data, it’s going to become more like an independent real estate exchange. In other words, I believe that the MLSs are going to start to have public access. That’s something you don’t hear a lot of people talking about. The DOJ has put a lot of pressure on them to open that up so that you could go buy a CMA. You just go on to CTAR and type in your address and you get a CMA for nine bucks. I’m not saying that’s the price. Once that data opens and you have access to it and you can add the distributed ledger, the problem comes in clearing all those titles. How many homes are there in the US? How many of them have clouds? How many local government municipalities won’t let that data out, right? That is state by state. I think that’s going to be a part of it, but I think you’re going to have states like Colorado because we’re pushing hard on distributed ledger. This is a very tech oriented kind of state. I think you’re going to start to see stuff like that kind of roll out. And if it can save you that much money, I mean, think about it. If you didn’t have to have title insurance, right? And then the closing changes from clearing title because title’s already cleared before you can’t even start the transaction.
There’s no clearing title because you can’t list the home. The way the smart contract works is it knows it’s a clear title, but you have to have distributed ledger. That’s not here yet. So a lot of these things are kind of, well, is that going to happen? I think what I’ve noticed is real estate tends to be an old school kind of movement, right? Slowly. The internet, nobody wanted the internet and real estate, man. When I was here, it was like, and all that. I might be denying, I’m not saying it’s not, I’m just saying, but a lot of people didn’t want that. So today now, as it continues to go, you’ve seen different roadblocks in different states that have different kind of weird rules about real estate. Like here, I practice as a limited attorney. Why isn’t it one thing for every state in the country? Why don’t we have one MLS one day? I mean, that’s a money thing, right? Like our MLS here in RE Colorado, 16th biggest one. They’re in a fight right now because they can’t figure out if they’re going to survive. If they think this is really what they think, and they haven’t said this, so I’m only saying this is my opinion. It seems to me that they think that joining the National Association of Realtors will put them out of business. What does that say? So there’s another piece of the change is, are we going to have good agents? Who’s going to stay? I mean, I’m seeing an exodus, like I have net, 08 is nothing compared to what’s right now. I’m recruiting agents and there’s a letter like, I’m getting out. I’m like, but you were on one of the number one teams last year. And they’re like, yeah, but I can’t be in a business where I don’t know what exactly is going to happen. And that’s, you’re hearing that more and more as more people come to that. So I think that’s going to be a combination. I think it seems like some people want to move right to the technology and a lot of people are blocking it and just don’t want it to go away. So it’s up in the air, man.
I thought we would move a lot faster than we have, to be honest with you on the property tech side, because a lot of the stuff I’m talking about is available. It’s just that whoever it is, a secretary of state in one state just doesn’t want to, or does it, it could be an investment issue because a lot of this AI starts to become a real issue and people haven’t really given that enough attention. I was worried about getting replaced as I would be about getting duped because some of this deep fake stuff is disturbing. So that’s my concern right now.
CORWYN:
So Steve, let me ask you this question and we’ve quickly gotten to the end of today’s show. So I do want to make sure that first, how can people get in contact with you? Where can people reach you to engage with you or continue a conversation?
STEVE:
rehavapress.com I’m on all the social media, as you can imagine. I’m on all the social media profiles. My biggest one is LinkedIn though, of course, you and I are connected there. That’s where I do most of my business. I find it to be probably what’s like the Facebook for business. So LinkedIn is primarily, but if you go to rahavapress.com and go to chat or anything that’s all tied to me, you can see some of our AI in action. Okay.
CORWYN:
All right. Good deal. And the next thing I got for you, Steve, is a question. And I call this kind of my mic drop question. It’s that if you had to do this all over again, what would you do differently? And again, you’ve done some amazing things. I mean, I remember probably the first time I really, even the time period I engaged you or encountered you initially was going into the recession and you took a leap, if you will, of faith and started a company that had a completely different model I’d never seen before. It was amazing. So if you could do this all over again, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently? Did you believe would have you much further than where you are currently?
STEVE:
Man, that’s a good one. I think what I would have done differently would be, I would have been more invested in real estate before ‘08, if I had any idea that was going to happen, man. So I made some personal decisions. You familiar with gift plantation? The island out there on the way to John’s Island is called gift plantation. It’s just independent. I started building houses out there. It’s all built out. I got too big for my britches, man. So I would tend to say that what I would do differently would be, I would have invested personally more in real estate before I started building spec homes. And it was way out of my league. And then of course, 08, I was doing it at the same time I launched Rehava. And I just, I look back and I look at all the guys that took a different route. Geddes. Geddes Glaze is probably one of my biggest influencers and he’s kept that steady, Eddie. He doesn’t always swing for the fences. He played ball at Citadel. He’s a small ball, wins games, man. And he’s a testament to that. So what I would say is I tend to swing for the fence. You know what I mean? So I would probably step that back now that I’m a little older. I’ve had four kids now. That would be my thing is small ball, man. Small ball.
CORWYN:
Okay. Okay. All right. I get it. I love that. So Steve, I want to thank you for being on with us today. I want to thank you for taking time out your schedule, obviously to do so. And for dropping the jewels and the nuggets that you have. I mean, again, your knowledge and your depth of knowledge is amazing. And I’ll always look at you as a forward thinking of future caster, if you will, for our industry. So again, thank you so much for being on with us today.
STEVE:
Thank you, Corwyn. Very much. It’s my pleasure. And I appreciate you guys having me on.
CORWYN:
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. So for our listeners, guys, look here, you might have gotten your mind blown today because this was an amazing and incredible conversation. Keep in mind that technology, guys, is a part of what we do on a daily. Your cars have it. Our cars are smarter sometimes than what we were 15, 20, 30 years ago, seemingly. It can tell you where to get, how to go, where to turn and do everything seemingly. But keep that in mind, guys, technology is a part of what we do, but we do it. We’re still in control. So always remember that. And remember this, guys, y’all know how I feel. You know what I say. You can always put the two things together and I give it to you this way, which is I love you. I love you. I love you. And we’re going to see you guys out there in those streets.
