Show notes
In this practical session, Kristi Higa — real estate investor and acquisitions director — shares how she rebuilt her business from the ground up using AI and systems thinking. After nearly losing everything during a high-risk pregnancy in 2020, Kristi realized she had a job, not a business. What followed was a deep dive into automation, custom tools, and AI-powered workflows that transformed how she manages leads, trains teams, and runs day-to-day operations in real estate.
From building a custom lead formatting program with zero coding experience to training cold callers with a custom GPT, Kristi walks through the exact tools and mindset shifts that gave her time and leverage back. This episode is a masterclass in asking the right question: not "what can AI do?" but "what can AI do for me and my business?"
Timeline Highlights
[00:01] Intro to the Real Estate Mastery Bonus Room mastermind and what this session covers
[01:07] Kristi's background — 100-unit portfolio, hundreds of wholesale deals, and nearly losing it all in 2020
[01:35] The wake-up call — realizing she had a job not a business and had no systems to show for it
[02:20] How Brian Hansen's session led Kristi to join Real 360 and start her AI journey
[03:01] The core question she asked — not what AI can do but what it can do for her business
[03:21] Managing 30,000 to 40,000 leads a week and the ten-hour formatting problem her team faced
[04:07] Why she built a local offline program to solve the lead formatting issue without internet dependency
[04:43] Building her first JavaScript program with zero coding experience using AI as her guide
[05:03] How the program combines duplicate leads and identifies portfolio owners for prioritized acquisitions
[07:03] The limitations of using ChatGPT for large data sets and why local custom tools outperform it
[07:24] The key to better AI results — giving it your input your instructions and your desired output format
[08:29] Looking at your business for repetitive time-wasting tasks as the starting point for automation
[08:59] Using Scribe to have her team create SOPs in real time instead of doing it herself
[10:05] The mindset shift from working in the business to working on the business through delegation
[11:11] Using GPT voice mode for live real-time language translation on sales calls and in daily life
[12:27] Prompting AI to recognize and translate multiple languages dynamically without switching tools
[13:10] How Scribe documents every click to create training materials VAs can own and deliver
[14:12] Building a custom GPT trained on all her scripts to replace live cold caller coaching
[15:14] How the custom GPT runs scenarios rates performance and gives real-time feedback to callers
[16:05] Using GPT to transcribe whiteboard notes and handwritten ideas into shareable team documents
[16:44] Recording conferences and uploading notes to let AI fill in the full detail while staying present
[17:12] Automating scopes of work by recording contractor walkthroughs and letting AI build the document
[18:10] Using photos to generate repair estimates and deal cost breakdowns automatically
[19:21] Replacing her top team member in one week using AI when she was forced to do the job herself
[19:58] The custom property analysis report that pulls Zillow data and fills deal sheets with one prompt
[21:16] Why repeating the same mistake three times is the signal to build a better system
[22:10] Helping her father use a custom GPT prompt to transcribe and stylize his handwritten songs
Five Key Takeaways
- If only you can run your business you have a job not a business — systems and AI change that.
- The right question is not what AI can do but what AI can do specifically for your business and team.
- Show AI your input your instructions and an example of the output you want and the results become consistent.
- Repetitive time-consuming tasks are your biggest opportunity — that is where to start with automation.
- When you are forced to do a job you hate you will find a way to make sure it is never you doing it again.
Links & Resources
- Real 360 — AI and real estate investing community led by Brian Hansen
- ChatGPT and GPT voice mode for translation lead formatting and document creation
- Visual Studio Code for building local offline automation programs with AI assistance
- Scribe — tool for recording screen clicks and auto-generating step-by-step SOPs
- Custom GPT training for cold caller practice objection handling and live performance feedback
Closing
If this episode gave you a new way to think about AI in your real estate business and inspired you to find the systems that can buy your time back, be sure to follow, rate, review, and share the podcast. Your support helps us keep bringing in voices like Kristi's who are doing the work and sharing what actually works.
We'll see you in the next episode.