Field notes
Writing about AI systems for real estate operators
What is worth doing yourself, what is worth paying for, and how to tell the difference. Written for people who own the deals, not the software.
Start here · pick the line that sounds like you
- I’m drowning in email. Part of it is a $10 problem, then wire three inboxes into one morning digest.
- My underwrite is the bottleneck. Write the buy box once and let the assistant say PASS, then see the whole pipeline run on one assistant.
- My EA can’t keep up. What stays human and what an assistant takes over, then the math on renting one instead.
- Somebody just pitched me an AI employee for $500 a month. Underwrite it like a deal before you sign.
- I use Malli and nothing else. Your account has a builder’s door, then the five habits that make any chat window work.
- I built something and it broke. Alerting, or a hobby with a countdown timer, then how to know it still thinks like you.
- I don’t know where to start. Find your level first, then fix the four-word question.
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Where You Actually Are With AI: The Five Levels, and Why Most Operators Are at Two
Most operators think they are at level four. They are at level two. The ladder, the vacation test, and the four questions that say whether you should move up.
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Stop Asking ChatGPT Four-Word Questions: Five Habits and Three Prompts That Actually Work
Level 1 done properly. The habits that fix bad results, with copy-paste prompts for seller emails, contracts, and rent rolls.
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Underwrite in 48 Hours: The Buy Box Document That Lets My Assistant Say PASS for Me
Level 2. The buy box document, the project setup, the test protocol, and the dispo flip: matching deals to your buyers' buy boxes.
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Three Inboxes, One Morning Digest: How I Stopped Missing the Seller Who Said Yes
Level 3. Every inbox aggregated, every deal screened, priorities called before coffee, and the failure modes nobody warns you about.
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It Ran When I Remembered and Failed in Silence: Making an Automation Your Team Can Depend On
Level 4. The four properties of production, what they cost, and the realistic paths to an automation a second person can depend on.
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How I Know My AI Still Thinks Like Me (and Cut the Bill From $900 to $40)
Level 5. Catching quality drift before your capital partner does, and cutting the model bill without cutting quality.
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I Don't Have an AI Employee. I Have a Chief of Staff.
How I run my own operation: ten named patterns, full capability, deliberately scoped authority, and why the whole thing stays at Level 3 on purpose.
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Your Malli Account Has a Builder's Door: Three Things I Built in One Afternoon
Your account has a builder's door: a knowledge base that steers it, scheduled agent runs, and custom dashboard pages. Three builds in one afternoon, plus the security review nobody does.
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Drowning in Email? Part of It Is a $10 Problem. The Honest Map.
Some operator pains already have a $10 answer. The email market mapped honestly: what $10 buys, what $30 buys, why the gap exists, and the one pain no subscription solves.
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The $500/Month AI Employee, Underwritten Like a Deal
The $500/month AI employee, underwritten like a deal: what renting costs by month 25, what owning costs, the cancellation test, and five verifiable questions to ask before signing either contract.
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Or skip ahead and just talk it through. Twenty minutes, no pitch if the honest answer is that you should stay where you are.
Want it mapped for you instead of built by hand? That is what the AI Workflow Audit is: fixed price, two weeks, one prioritized plan.
Prefer something you can run today? The prompts page has the working prompts from these posts, each with the story of when I last used it.