AI Automation for Real Estate Investors: Protect Your Data & Scale Your Business | Debbie Diaz

Debbie Diaz (00:00)

Biggest difference for me was honestly disciplining myself and stop listening to everybody tell me what I shouldn’t be doing and “You should get a normal job,” and “You should stop, like go work. Why are you doing this? Why are you like not coming out with us?” Like I had to literally like block the static. Block the static and focus on what I needed to get done, and I really didn’t care. I mean like I reached that point where like I saw the light. I see the light. I saw light, and like the static around me was trying to distract me. It was trying to like get me off the computer, get me off here. And I was like, nope. Nope. But if I would have indulged in that, I would not be sitting here talking to you right now.

Freddie Steen (02:05)

Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast brought to you by Real Estate Pros. I’m your host, Freddie, and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. Debbie Diaz is the CEO and founder of JAB Audit. And I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching the gaps in insurance and protection of assets.

So let’s dive in. First off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, Debbie, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days? And what markets are you operating in?

Debbie Diaz (02:37)

Thanks for having me, Freddie. It’s a pleasure to be here, an honor. I am in an industry of helping people get their voice heard and getting some resolutions to issues that are bigger than they think they can handle. And what I’m talking about is the mortgage industry, the health insurance industry, and the auto industry. Those are the industries that my product that I built, my software and my app are there designed to help you, me, your neighbors, get their denied claims, get their denied notices, get their like denials of anything like taken care of and audited that they have a piece of paper that they can take and show a judge, submit to a courthouse, submit to their attorneys, anything that they can get justification of what they really need to get done.

Freddie Steen (03:21)

Debbie, a lot of people in our investor community get comfortable in one lane. That’s why I was so excited about talking to you, because of the way you’ve embraced AI and other technology tools that are available to us. What was the catalyst for you to transition out of standard corporate or sales roles to build a high-stakes tech company like JAB Audit?

Debbie Diaz (03:44)

I really didn’t think I would ever be in that position of doing this, but I mean I never say no, never say never. But I literally just had enough with like corporate America. I just had enough. I don’t like to be like in cubicles. I don’t like to be behind walls and stuff. I like to have freedom, and that came with a lot of like risk too for me to make that decision to leave corporate America. And I did, and it was just things fell into place, not one by one. There was chunks of times where it was like, what do I do? Where should I go?

Freddie Steen (04:10)

Absolutely.

Debbie Diaz (04:11)

Things started fall, yeah, things started falling a little in place when I just picked up on the clues I would see around me of like, okay, this is the universe is telling me to go here. And I just followed it, and there was bumps in the road. But getting back into IT and AI was just something I just naturally like flocked to. Like that’s the thing where you could I could do it without a paycheck type of thing. That’s yeah.

Freddie Steen (04:30)

I love it. I love it. Real estate investors, Debbie, are obsessed with systems and scale. When you first started building JAB Audit, what was the biggest culture shock moving into the enterprise tech and B2B automation space?

Debbie Diaz (04:46)

Not gonna lie to you, it was a lot. Especially building it myself, and I used I just used AI, but I didn’t use just one AI either too. I had my team was team of AIs. I used Claude Code, I had Claude and Gemini, I had Copilot even involved. I even had some Grok involved. I think Grok did some coding for me as well. And then I mean I used the whole team. Twenty-four seven I was on this mission, and it was cool to learn behind the scenes, in front of the scenes and like things that I didn’t know as a human that we are capable of doing in coding. I learned a lot as well with using Python, as far as for all of coding. It was it was definitely a cool experience. I’m very nerded out by it.

Freddie Steen (05:26)

Well, Debbie, that’s perfect. And one of the things that I know about you, because I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with you prior to the pod, and our listeners know that’s my favorite time of the pod, that you have roots in a city that was very fond to my family. My father’s best friend was Reverend Ernest Denny of Erie, Pennsylvania. His daughter Tanya was a very good friend of mine.

Pastor Denny has passed on now, but Tanya Denny, his daughter, was also a part of our family in Ohio. Now, to our listeners, I have to admit that Debbie and I have a small rivalry. She’s a Steelers fan. I’m a Browns fan. But here’s my question. Well, how did Erie, Pennsylvania, Midwest, and the culture that is the places that we the waters and the lakes that we grew up drinking the water together—me being in Ohio, you being in Pennsylvania—how did that prepare you for being an entrepreneur?

Debbie Diaz (07:16)

Honestly, it didn’t really give me the tools that I thought it would, not looking back, looking back at it. What it did though was teach me what I didn’t want to do and where I didn’t want to be. That’s what it did teach me. And it taught me to explore more than what my surroundings were and to be brave and to take a risk. I mean, risk is like my word, because I took a risk and I, everybody like when you come from a small town mentality type of thing, a lot of people never leave that town. They—

Freddie Steen (07:43)

Yeah.

Debbie Diaz (07:44)

They, and once you leave that town, they are looking at you like, “I can’t believe you left this town.” Like they—

Freddie Steen (07:48)

Like an alien. Like you’re an alien. Yeah.

Debbie Diaz (07:51)

“How dare you leave this family?” I took that risk and against all odds, and it was probably the best decision. It is the best decision I ever made was to leave there. Because sometimes you got you outgrow a city. Sometimes you outgrow your neighborhood. And you gotta get up and go and go find another one and learn from it and new culture and everything. That’s what I did.

Freddie Steen (08:09)

There is something to being able to replicate that type of zeitgeist, that spirit of the Erie, Ambridge, Sewickley, Midland, Pittsburgh. Ugh, I’m a Browns fan. It’s tough for me to say Pittsburgh. I like Pittsburgh. It’s the Ravens that I don’t like. But—

Debbie Diaz (08:28)

I’m picturing a Starter jacket every time you say Browns, like a big puffy like Starter jacket.

Freddie Steen (08:34)

We had so much fun with that prepod. Thank you for humoring me. Debbie, you’ve done something brilliant with your marketing by creating Brad, JAB Audit’s interactive AI avatar and co-host. For the investors listening who are struggling to scale their social media, automate outbound marketing or lead generation, what did it take to build an AI persona that people actually trust?

Debbie Diaz (09:03)

Well, the fact okay, the trusting with AI is still, AI makes mistakes, okay? It still will always make mistakes, just as you and I do. So that’s just a disclosure we all have to know about. But having trust in it, it was a huge like taking Google and then always typing in your Google questions or whatever you want to get out of it, and then using a voice instead to get that answer. It was like it’s second nature. But the fact that everybody is still they’re coming around to trusting it, but then there’s also a little bit of a hallucination thing going on that we are not—should we trust this, should we not trust this? Like you still have to do your research. You still have to do your own homework. And you can’t trust like any every check that you see. I mean, I don’t I double-check everything. I triple-check sometimes. I mean just because it’s like, he’s perfect. He never made any mistakes. I don’t care. I’m still gonna double-check and triple-check their work. Because if like you have a red flag that like this doesn’t sound right, then it’s not gonna be right. And they make mistakes, and sometimes they admit it, sometimes they don’t.

Freddie Steen (09:56)

I love it. I mean, Debbie, what caught my attention about you is the way that you’ve been able to leverage this corporate knowledge, this innate curiosity that you’ve leveraged from the Midwest all the way to Florida and beyond. And you’ve also been able to translate that from the insurance industry, healthcare, and now real estate. That’s not easy.

Especially in this climate, and you’ve been able to keep margins strong. What’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Debbie Diaz (10:32)

It’s just my drive. When you find your passion and your purpose in life, you have this fire in you. You have this fire and it’s unstoppable. And if you don’t feel that yet in your soul, then maybe that’s not your purpose or your passion. You will when you get it. And when you get it, you don’t care. Like you shut you won’t go to like no movies, no shopping, like you want to work on that thing. You wanna work on it and get it done. And that’s I still feel it. I still feel that fire in me. And it’s so amazing to me. And I raised three boys, and like I had to put a lot of my career a little bit on hold, pause periodically throughout their lives. And I didn’t get a chance to really flourish my whole like vision of what I wanted to pursue and build. Now that my boys are adults now, it’s like I got free time. I got free time, and that’s how the fire was still burning in me. And I was like, let’s do this, let’s build this. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Freddie Steen (11:17)

As a father of adult children, I can’t agree with you more. It’s nice when you don’t have to do the school pickup and drop offs anymore.

Debbie Diaz (11:27)

The little things in life matter.

Freddie Steen (11:29)

It’s the little things, right? That for some reason you get three hours back in the day. How did it happen? An hour and a half in the front end and an hour and a half at the back. Debbie, many real estate operators are intimidated by AI or view it as just a gimmick. I mean, from a CEO’s perspective, you’ve been in fashion, you’ve been in so many different industries. How can business owners start utilizing automated systems or AI co-hosts to scale their front-end facing marketing funnels without losing their authentic voice?

Debbie Diaz (12:48)

That’s a very good question. And thank you. To be honest with you, you have to basically embrace the tech. You have to embrace it, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere. And instead of fighting it, you want to find a way to work with it and train it, and it’ll work with you into your processes of automation in your business. Automation is gonna be everything. Like probably in three Elon Musk says in like three to five years, like we’re not even gonna have like currency anymore. You’re gonna have to like put your action into plan right now because AI isn’t going anywhere. It’s solid framework that’s staying, and AGI is even the next one that’s coming. Therefore it can do more and more things than people are threatened about it. They’re more like intimidated, it’s gonna take my job, it’s gonna do this. It’s not gonna take your job. It’s gonna help you enhance your job. It’s gonna help you enhance your business. Help—

Freddie Steen (13:29)

That’s correct. That’s correct.

Debbie Diaz (13:32)

Just like learning it. Like go in a room by yourself with nobody around and take your AI and just hit the button and talk to it for like an hour. Like nobody can hear you. And then you can bond with it, know what I mean? Because there’s so many cool things they can do. Like write mine, check my email for me, send an email. They can make phone calls for me. They can send me text messages. I mean, all this just by sitting right here. It’s really cool. And it doesn’t take away from anything, it actually releases me from having to do all that. And I can focus on other things that need my attention.

Freddie Steen (13:59)

Absolutely. JAB Audit focuses heavily on finding revenue leaks, automated forensic audits, and even cloud data compliance. Real estate businesses handle massive amounts of sensitive data, client financials, contract information, this. What are the biggest blind spots you see small to mid-size businesses making when it comes to cloud data leaks?

Debbie Diaz (14:24)

That’s another good question. Well, a lot of them forget to have their APIs on lockdown. So if you don’t an API, it connects you between communication between this service and this service, and it talks—it’s the bridge. So if you have an ex-employee, if you have staff that no longer work there and their logins are still in your system, they’re sitting there vulnerable and like you can hack into those. And so cybersecurity, it’s huge. And the other thing is guarding your—there’s a thing called MCPs as well. MCP comes in and it kind of takes the API and it like takes a layer off of it and says, “Look, we’re gonna give you the API, but we’re gonna like give you only a portion of it, so you’re gonna get the MCP.” So it kind of helps with a lot of the data leaks, and any sort of like hacking into businesses. But a lot of businesses aren’t aware of that either. They don’t know what an API is, they don’t know what an MCP is. No, they don’t know how to get that stuff integrated, but it’s so important to like pay attention to these things. Yes.

Freddie Steen (15:23)

One basic usage of what you’re speaking of is the sheer fact that one of our big suppliers is already using smart contracts to pay their vendors. They’re a big box store, and you all can figure out who it is. They like the color orange. So they’re already using the blockchain to do smart contracts, which means that this is soon going to touch real estate, if the suppliers are already paying their clients that way. One of the benefits of AI is, like you said, as far as security, being able to send a document from you to me. And by the time I get it, the minute you send it, on the blockchain with nodes, you can have a piece of the document going to one node, a piece of the document going to another node. If there’s a nefarious actor in between, they’re only going to get a piece of the paper, not the whole paper. That’s a basic description of some of the utilizations that you’re speaking of for our listeners who may not be more familiar.

Debbie Diaz (16:29)

Yes, that’s true. Then you’re dead on, too. Even in hospitals when staff or nurses are sending text messages to each other of like data from a patient’s chart, they want to send them a picture of their X-rays or something. Even something like that is a tolerable loop into the yeah. There’s a lot of areas that are loopholes. And in mortgage and in real estate, there is everything from the owner’s information, there’s I mean the properties are usually a lot of it’s public research and that you can look into it. But there is also contracts and stuff like that that aren’t like even with HOAs and having your bylaws, some of that is kept within the community and not public, but they have like certain forms. There is a lot of areas that do need to be monitored, and they put infrastructure in there for any sort of like leak—I mean not sort of leaks, but any sort of hacking, too. I mean hacking with it and the vulnerability of the real estate department or real estate world is agent education, too. I mean, a lot of it is a miscommunication, and I feel like there’s not a lot of like flow when it comes to the mortgage servicers communicating to the world as well. That is a huge gap, and that is just as bad as health insurance right now, like basically. I mean I put them two in the same pot.

Freddie Steen (17:40)

Debbie, I think you’re spot on there. Would you agree that one area that is a huge gap is the digitization of archival records? I mean, you have realtors that are coming in and out of companies with complete access to old file cabinets that have a lot of information. Can you speak to that? Why that’s important?

Debbie Diaz (18:02)

That’s super important as far as—I mean, statutes of limitations have to be in play on records. I mean HUD has like huge rules and regulations all over the place. There’s RESPA, too. There’s I mean if you send a notice out to a mortgage servicer and they don’t acknowledge it within five days, that’s a violation of RESPA. And then from there, they have thirty days to respond to the notice that you send to them. They don’t do that, that’s another violation of RESPA. And then that information and that data is like stored loosely. It’s like stored loosely. Therefore—

Freddie Steen (18:34)

Yeah, so—

Debbie Diaz (18:35)

Like getting that like the things that are gatekept are the information that is what’s taking advantage of people like you and people like me, the homeowners. And that is where I step in for JAB Audit and audit those type of interactions that take place behind the scenes, unbeknownst to you, unbeknownst to anybody besides the ones that are doing it.

Freddie Steen (18:55)

Let alone wind, fire, flood, paper is not always the safest way to go. Debbie, if an investor or a business owner wants to perform a forensic audit on their own overhead or vendor stack today, what is the low-hanging fruit that they should look at first to see where they’re leaving money on the table?

Debbie Diaz (19:17)

Well, there’s sometimes you don’t know where it’s at until you run an audit and see where it’s at. And that’s what—

Freddie Steen (19:23)

Yeah.

Debbie Diaz (19:24)

I specifically have different I would say codes that I would use the word code. Codes that I pull to pull that data for them. I could pull different amounts of information, but I don’t pull anything any PHI, any like private health information. Everything with JAB Audit is totally secure or even HIPAA compliant or BAA compliant. Everything is secure. There’s not gonna be any leaks of any data or any personal information. That way we want you to have a state of mind that you could trust us because we’re using the information for its purpose and we’re not putting it vulnerable out there for the world, like other companies may be doing.

Freddie Steen (19:59)

Debbie, now every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Debbie Diaz (20:11)

I mean, this may not sound as exciting as you wanted to answer, but one of my pivots was definitely in my infrastructure of my payments, merchant services, and stuff. Like that whole department of setting up your subscriptions and setting up your payouts, your payments for your clients was a huge, huge pivot for me, because I went down a road with a whole structure of layout of tiers, different tiers like of gold, platinum, and silver package, and I put all this like time in the website, everything, do the training. I trained up people, all these demos. And then I wasn’t satisfied with that. I was like, something’s not right. Like something’s not right with this. I wasn’t feeling good about it. And then I kept thinking about it. It took me about a good month, and I finally came to it. I had to pivot. I had to pivot because it was not the right structure. It wasn’t the right setup for JAB Audit. It wasn’t the type of like image I wanted my clients to experience for their audits. And I wanted them to have a like a prestige five-star experience with JAB Audit. And I finally feel that now. I finally feel that I got the five-star waiting for—

Freddie Steen (21:17)

The pivot. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, Debbie, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble to the ones who stay in the game long term, like you. Debbie, let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you?

Debbie Diaz (21:39)

Absolutely scaling. Scaling on two different levels, too. Scaling on a customer, client perspective and also scaling on an ecosystem perspective. I’m not done with just JAB Mortgage and JAB Auto JAB Health and JAB claims. The whole bubble.

Freddie Steen (21:56)

Debbie, at Investor Fuel, we’re all about building enterprise value. Looking back at the journey of scaling JAB Audit what is 1 major bottleneck you hit that forced you to grow most as a leader?

Debbie Diaz (22:10)

That was learning about employment, learning about staffing and learning how to properly pivot my approach, my demonstrations or anything that I offered as a salary or any sort of commissions. I had to learn psychologically how to like analyze that department because I needed to get the best type of sales reps, I needed to get the best type of admins to help out that were stable, that would show up, and that would like actually perform and do the job. Therefore I thought I had to really like struggle with that one because I didn’t want to make any mistakes. I wanted to like hire some people and then be done, but like those people were gonna be my dogs. I wanted to make sure that they had all their ducks in a row, too. So that was definitely a scary, scary moment or era for me. And I probably will go through it again. It’s just a department that these people could somehow, some way ruin or like make a little mark into something you built that is perfect, and you just want to make sure that the people that are touching it know that and that they respect it as well and work with it, know what I mean? So it was a really hard—

Freddie Steen (23:10)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And Debbie, that’s big, especially when you’ve already had that history of being able to pivot. The next move you make can compound things or create chaos, depending on how you play it, right? Now, I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up like you and JAB Audit And I think they’d benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Debbie Diaz (23:45)

Biggest difference for me was honestly disciplining myself and stop listening to everybody tell me what I shouldn’t be doing and “You should get a normal job,” and “You should stop, like go work. Why are you doing this? Why are you like not coming out with us?” Like I had to literally like block the static. Block the static and focus on what I needed to get done, and I really didn’t care. I mean like I reached that point where like I saw the light. I see the light. I saw light, and like the static around me was trying to distract me. It was trying to like get me off the computer, get me off here. And I was like, nope. Nope. But if I would have indulged in that, I would not be sitting here talking to you right now.

Freddie Steen (24:22)

Wow. That is again the kind of stuff people don’t talk about enough. And you can’t fake what you’re talking about because relationships are everything in this space. All right, Debbie. For the listeners who want to see Brad, the AI, in action, protect their company data, or see how you’re utilizing automation, where’s the best place for them to connect with you or visit JAB Audit?

Debbie Diaz (24:52)

Well, you can definitely visit Brad anytime, just as Brad. He is a live avatar on jabaudit.com. He’s available twenty-four seven. He can guide you through the whole process of your audit as well. And he’s available interfacing with his avatar. And you can anytime at hello@jabaudit.com is the best way to get a hold of us.

Freddie Steen (25:14)

Perfect. Well listen, Debbie, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Welcome and thanks again for being here.

Debbie Diaz (25:26)

Thanks, Freddie. Appreciate it. Go Steelers.

Freddie Steen (25:31)

And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Debbie Diaz, who are out there building real businesses just like you. We’ll see you on the next episode.