The Future of Real Estate Advisors: Why AI Will Replace Traditional Brokers with Louis Baker

Louis Baker (00:00)

they’re all coming out of being in a commission

basement is just having clients. So they’re going to have to take people

to Lakers games and know people’s last names and feed dogs just like

everybody else because all the transactions are going to be done through

AI. So

Scott Bursey (01:44) Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast,

powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey And today, pros,

we’re sitting down with Louis Baker of LAMP Portfolio, based out of the

vibrant market of Costa Mesa, California. Louis is a multifaceted

commercial broker.

Who has mastered the art of managing complex asset placements, diverse

client portfolios, and high-stakes property acquisitions across some of

the most competitive markets in the country? Pros, you’re in for a treat

today as we pull back the curtain on high-level commercial brokerage.

Louis welcome to the show.

Louis Baker (02:23)

Thank you, Scott. Good to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:27)

It is just outstanding having you here and help our

listeners get up to speed. Please give us the ninety second highlight

reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Louis Baker (02:40)

Sure. So ⁓ my background is in more of the financial

services side, ⁓ companies like Roth Capital, which is an investment

banking firm, Mercer Global Advisors, now known as Mercer, and Merrill

Lynch. I also founded a multifamily office out of Montecitos,

California, called the Enidas Group. And through all of that, I

discovered that the ⁓ the advisory tools, the advisory ⁓ resources that

are available for real estate are just not there. So what we have is a

lot of

Transaction type people that are trying to execute transactions in order

to create revenue. And what is needed is advisory conversations about

what’s best to do. And that could be anything from highest and best use

plans, feasibility studies, transferring assets between generations,

holding property, having conversations about optimizing property, but it

wasn’t all just about purchase and sale. So I knew there needed to be

a platform just like you have for your equities and your stocks there’s

platforms that can that can help you to organize and structure those

things and have an a ⁓ asset allocation and so we created ⁓ a platform

to do that to organize and structure ⁓ real estate assets create a

strategy for every single asset create a value for every single asset a

highest and best use plan a budget for that and an after renovated value

and that’s called land portfolio

and taking a lot of the stuff that you learn on the financial services

side and moving it over to the real estate side.

Scott Bursey (04:10)

That is incredible, Louis. Thank you for sharing

that journey with us. It’s always inspiring to hear how focused strategy

leads to such consistent results. And you know what really caught my

attention about you was the way you’ve been able to navigate such

diverse and highly competitive commercial markets so successfully. And

on that note, wondering if you could tell us what was the specific shift

in your approach.

That allowed you to start securing these larger high stakes acts

acquisitions.

Louis Baker (05:33)

it’s very specific. ⁓ when AI came onto the scene, ⁓

to build a platform where you can have all of a client’s assets and then

in every asset all of their documents and then have those assets shared

with professionals multiple. So you can have the whole portfolio shared

with the estate planner, the tax planner, the investment planner, the

insurance planner, his brother and his sister.

whole portfolio then each individual asset shared to different people

and having everyone I think I had budgets that were like in the million

and a half to to three million dollars to build something that could

execute that. And so it was a bottleneck. ⁓ I had created a a a a really

robust Excel spreadsheet that was attached to all of those things that

I’m saying. And I used Evernote as a back end. But I couldn’t have a ton

of clients because to build that

Cost $250,000. So we had a client with 77 assets, 44 cities in 15 states

that we were doing that for. But the cost was you know, it’s $250,000

just to organize and structure the 77 assets. That’s just to get

everything organized. My platform for like a loan broker or like a real

estate agent or is $79 a month. Not to mention that we built the

platform with four vibe coders in about two and a half months.

I mean, I think the real cost might be, you know, maybe a half a

million, but two hundred maybe two hundred thousand dollars real cash.

And we already have a billion one on platform because it’s become cost

effective to have real estate assets ha have exposure to to AI very

quickly. And so that transition has fueled this movement.

Scott Bursey (07:15)

That’s a fantastic perspective. Thank you for

sharing that. And Louis, curious to know, what do you view as the

primary strength of the current LAMP portfolio model that separates you

from other brokers in the Costa Mesa area?

Louis Baker (07:33)

So yeah, ⁓ I mean, ⁓ it’s a couple things. first

off, we’re the platform’s finished, so we’re not in beta mode, we’re not

trying, ⁓ and we’ve had plenty of time to look at what’s working. And so

what we’ve discovered is finance is the fastest onboard potential. So

when ⁓ a portfolio of let’s say 12 properties and the person wants to

either refinance or pull debt out.

We have discovered that they are very willing to go onto a platform and

put all their assets in and let us review them to try to deliver cash.

And because we can deliver cash very quickly, it puts us in a highly

competitive advantage. And in the like coastal, you know, Newport Beach,

Laguna Beach, these coastal high-end markets, ⁓ we’re going after the

classes to get the masses. So our first clients that we’re going after

often have 50 properties, 30 properties for finance. So what happens is

that leads to a lot of other business outside of the original request of

finance.

And because our platform is completed, they share their portfolio with

their advisors, which then we follow up with that lead to other people

saying, Well, hey, I also want this. So what’s happening is we’re seeing

a a ⁓ mass onboard of real estate assets right now, which is putting us

ahead of our competitors who are having more linear conversations. Also,

we are congrating commission-based people to clients. So

Just like in 1982, there was a stock broker and that guy’s gone. Now

they’re all financial advisors. Well, all the brokers are going to be

gone. You’re going to be a real estate advisor and you’re going to have

clients. So what happens when you call for finance? You end up becoming

a client of ours because you’re on our platform with all your assets,

all the documents and everything like that. So this is our strategic

advantage. It’s working and we’re moving very quickly.

Scott Bursey (09:17)

That makes total sense. Thank you for sharing. And

Louis, we’d love to hear what is the one area of the commercial market

where you feel there is a significant friction point and how are you

adapting to it?

Louis Baker (10:06)

I think, you know, for what I’ve discovered and and

and I mean, this is probably a broader question than the platform, it’s

more just about me personally. it really comes down to finance on on

commercial deals. I mean, there’s some high net worth families that are

going all cash for cash flow, and there’s some people that are buying in

A markets because they want capital appreciation of land. ⁓ but on the

traditional people that are putting together syndicated deals to like

developers and stuff like that, it really comes down to finance.

Obviously, we know rates are higher.

land is more expensive. So ⁓ again, not to like go back to it, but if

you’re a private hard money lender and you lend against an asset that

you want anyway, and you’re at 70 LTV, that gives you enough discount

for all of a sudden your deals to start penciling. So it’s the the

friction is there’s nothing to buy. And I think BlackRock getting

however many billions they get every month that they have to deploy

because money flows, they’re buying everything above market because they

have to, because our 401k.

It is giving them so the the money the the real estate values are just

it’s funny money and and it’s not going down because the there’s just so

much cash going into these assets. But if you’re on the lending side at

a discount, like I’m gonna give this guy 60 LTV or 55 or 70 LTV, I’m

gonna get 11% and all my interest for a year because the guy, well,

okay, there’s a partnership at least with that client. If for some

reason he’s hurt, I can say, Hey, why don’t we go into a partnership

whether then you pay me back?

Let’s build this asset. So what our platform develops is a lot of that

because we’re talking about finance from even really wealthy people, but

they still want to borrow for whatever reason. And it leads to strategic

conversations. And I think for commercial real estate to move forward

for the average person, not for BlackRock or State Street or but like

just for regular investors, you got to be on the, I think you got to be

on the finance side and you got to pick up or you got to go to markets

that are.

That the land values substantiate what you’re doing.

Scott Bursey (12:03)

I love that transparency. And Louis, thinking about

the horizon, where do you see the biggest untapped opportunity for

investors looking at California commercial assets today?

Louis Baker (12:18)

Yeah, I’m gonna go with the same same answer. I

mean, I’m just sticking with my guns. You gotta get on the finance side

of real estate. ⁓ ’cause you gotta get opportunities. I just think going

out in the middle of nowhere and hoping that that city grows.

I mean, people do it. I think there’s more risk than people think. I

mean, there’s places in the middle middle United States where the value

of the land’s the same as it was 60 years ago. So it you can miss. You

know, now if you got a bunch of billionaire friends and you’re gonna go

make it happen, you can jump on that train. And there’s a couple of

places in Florida that’s happening. But ⁓ on California real estate, I

think you’re best ⁓ becoming a f you know, getting a non traditional,

non, you know, non QM hard money bridge debt.

And getting into deals and looking for opportunities there. I mean,

there’s always a vacant land play in Corona, or there’s always a vacant

land play somewhere where you can re-entitle it for homes, you know,

sell it to Lenar or DR Horton or John Lang. And there’s still some good

stuff out there. ⁓ you know, outdoor industrial storage occasionally

still has a pretty good play, but ⁓ I think for the most part, ⁓ I’m

pretty much convinced at this point. I have a client last year got a

property for three million that he financed.

And we sold it for seven million to a church. And the the the property

owners had no, there’s nothing they could do. I mean, it had

environmental problems. It wasn’t like a punitive, angry type thing. It

literally we we took it off their hands. They weren’t gonna do any work.

We did a bunch of work on it. We got it re-kind of structured, had new

conversations, and it ended up being a really great property for a

church. It’s had tons of parking and and ⁓ we were able to get a good

margin on that. So I think.

Just you have to really search for opportunities in California. They’re

not just like and and there’s a lot of smart people going after the same

deal. So ⁓ being on the finance side is probably the best play.

Scott Bursey (14:08)

Well, thank you for expanding on that. And Louis,

where do you see LAMP portfolio in the next, let’s say, twelve to twenty

four months?

Louis Baker (14:18)

Yeah. So like I said, we’ve had about a billion one

on platform in the ⁓ in three months. ⁓ I’d like to have two at least

200 ⁓ loan advisors on platform using it. So when someone calls, the

first thing you say is go on platform, put all your real estate assets

on, put all your documents, your appraisals, your title report, your

insurance documents, your loan docs. And so that happens pretty quickly.

So we’d like to see that happen. Like to have about 20 ⁓ private

clients, which are high net worth people with large portfolios of real

estate.

And I’d like to see LAMP Portfolio start to become a bigger conversation

where what I was telling you earlier, Scott, when we were chatting was

originally we said LAMP Portfolio is a is a portfolio optimization tool.

So we go from here’s your real estate assets and here’s the strategy,

buy, hold, sell, renovate, improve, finance for every asset. And then

here’s the value and here’s what you can do, and here’s the budget, and

here’s the after renovated value. What we discovered in our learning was

that people love sharing it.

So we’re creating a sharing culture around real estate. So, yes, those

two KPIs of advisors using platform, high net worth clients with large

portfolios optimizing, but now I would like to see thousands of people

sharing their portfolios. And so we’re going to go from to consumer,

it’s free to the client. the advisors pay to build a CRM with their

clients, but it’s free for clients to use. So I would like to see that

piece of the that part of the market open up and have advisors.

Be onboarding clients and clients going on directly and sharing their

portfolios with their financial advisors and their CPAs and people like

that and their brothers and sisters. We also have a wish list. So if

someone doesn’t own any properties, you can log in, you can create an

account. It’s lampit.ai, and you can just go down, like create account,

go down to your wish list at a property and then share it with whoever

you want to say, hey, let’s someday buy this.

Scott Bursey (16:50)

And Louis, thank you for sharing that. That was an

excellent breakdown. And interested to understand what external market

threat is currently keeping you up at night, let’s say, and how are you

hedging against it?

Louis Baker (17:06)

Well, it’s very similar to like ⁓ a financial

advisor. So when you have a bunch of clients, well, what could happen?

Who could take these clients from me? It’s a bit more challenging

because our product is very sticky. So once a client has all their

assets on, their tax returns, all their stuff, it’s all hundred percent

c confidential. We’re on Amazon web servers. So if Amazon gets hacked,

we get hacked. But and they’ve shared it with their brother and their

people. They’re not so far we have zero people that have deleted it.

However, our competitors actually excel.

So currently, how people manage portfolios is they have an Excel

document with their schedule of real estate, and then they have a Google

Drive. Well, we have the Google Drive and Excel combined online with AI

talking to it. So other people can do that. And ⁓ and that might be

something that they’re curious about doing. ⁓ but I think we’re our

first to market mover and the clients that we already have, we’re

feeling pretty, pretty good about that. ⁓ we would like to have an

institutional client, someone with 500, a thousand ⁓

brokers that are all using it. I think that will create a little bit

bigger moat. We’re talking to Stanford Inst ⁓ Stanford Research

Institute about ⁓ creating a moat around our IP. So that’s coming up in

the next couple of weeks. And so once we have that moat, we’ll feel a

little bit even better just about competitors coming into the

marketplace. But overall, I think there’s gonna be I’m not stopping

financial advisors. Like when there was stock brokers, now there’s

financial advisors, there’s a lot of different companies.

doing. And I’m in a transition between this is how many people are going

to leave, are going to leave their profession. So loan brokers, loan

advisors, real estate agents, real estate advisors. Loan brokers,

finance advisors.

So they’re all coming out of being in a commission basement is just

having clients. So they’re going to have to take people to Lakers games

and know people’s last names and feed dogs just like everybody else

because all the transactions are going to be done through AI. So

I’m not i under any kind of illusion there’s not gonna be hundreds of

companies like ours.

Scott Bursey (19:03)

And that is powerful. Thank you for that, Louis.

And we’re keen to learn if you had to rebuild your portfolio from

scratch in today’s market, what is the first asset class you’d go after?

Louis Baker (19:19)

You know, it’s funny, pre prior to ⁓ to COVID, I

would just always say multifamily, you know. But it’s funny, you know

what was open during COVID was like Starbucks and like grocery stores

and like you know, what else was open during COVID? I mean walk-in

medical clinics. So I’m I mean, there you go. I mean, you know, having a

triple net on a Starbucks is pretty good. ⁓ a grocery store seems like

they’re gonna be paying their rent no matter what. I mean, I still think

multifamilies

like right behind these or if not on target with them. But ⁓ yeah, I

mean whatever was open during COVID is what the reality is at the at the

at the end of the like, you know, catastrophic situation. so I think

that’s pretty good. I mean, obviously vacant land leases are are really

good if you if you’ve got ⁓ if you’re in a good area. ⁓ I’ve got a lot

of friends that have just been clipping coupons for 20, 30 years on

like, you know, they’ve got like a

country club on it or a golf course, land lease, just different things

that they’re gonna pay for a long time. But you know, t jumping in the

easiest thing to jump into definitely is multifamily because you can

still get a cash flow based loan. ⁓ not so much in California, but

there’s a lot of places around the United States where you can still get

a a good amount of financing based on the income of the property. So

it’s a little hard to jump in if you don’t have a lot of money to a

triple net Starbucks lease. So

You know, so I still think I still I I still think multifamily is the

best starting. Get four units, go live in one, you know, and get you

know, that’s probably still the best way to go.

Scott Bursey (20:57)

That’s a sharp take. And Louis, if you could give

us the play-by-play, and what does your professional network look like

right now?

Louis Baker (21:08)

Well, like I said, we started with the classes to

get the masses. So ⁓ I don’t like to name drop, but ⁓ you know, one of

my clients, 77 assets, 44 cities, 15 states, over a billion. Another

client this morning we talked to is onboarding a half a billion to sell.

Another client I talked to this morning is gonna have about seven or

eight hundred million just to organize and structure. So that’s why I

said when I talk about private client, really 20 clients.

Now my loan brokers, I’ve got loan brokers that are working on a $240

million deal. We have a deal right now in New York. It’s on Fifth

Street. I don’t wanna give too much information away, but it was ⁓ $105

million loan that isn’t gonna go. So now we’re trying to sell it for

$116. So we’re so there’s some like very anchor ⁓ position A type

properties that we deal with. we’re gonna move down to everything, ⁓ but

we’re starting with some

named players in Newport Beach Market, Chrono Mar, families that have

been here for a long time that people know, ⁓ and onboarding them and

multi-generational too, our pr our company’s called Legacy Asset

Management Platform. It comes from a Bible verse, Thy Wears a LAMP Unto

My Feet. ⁓ and it’s about turning the light on your portfolio. And so we

we deal with high network families and we talk to their kids and their

kids use our platform to manage their properties forever.

Because the people are in the dark. So, like there’s a husband and a

wife, and the husband’s got 30 properties or 20. And if he gets hit by a

bus, right now these are on file cabinets and Google Docs, and it’s a

mess. But if he gets hit by a bus with LAMP portfolio, his wife goes on,

there’s all the assets, there’s all the documents, there’s all the

advisors, it’s right there. And she can easily take over, call us, and

we come in and say, Yeah, here’s everything. And the values are all

there, and all the loan docs and all the loans.

So legacy is important to us and we’re starting with legacy families.

And so we have a lot of really high net worth legacy families that are

ushering our product forward so that it’s very efficient and very

effective because they’re high maintenance and they want it a very

specific way. And then we know we can take that tool and offer it to the

masses for a huge value proposition.

Scott Bursey (23:18)

Thank you for that, Louis. And given your

experience navigating high-stakes deals, what is the most important

piece of advice you could give to a a serious investor looking to close

their next major acquisition in this market?

Louis Baker (23:37)

I say just don’t talk to people. It’s details and

documents. That’s what I built. Like people call me, like, hey, I’m

like, don’t talk to me. Go on this platform, put all your documents in.

I’ll AI it and I’ll tell you tomorrow how much money I’ll give you. Or

hey, you want, tell me exactly what you want to buy specifically. And

let’s get that in. Let’s go and let’s go talk to I I can share with 30

brokers exactly where you’re looking for. Let’s talk to less people,

know exactly what you want.

Make sure you have all its details and documents. That’s what closes

deals. That’s what gets stuff done. Everything else, people are in the

way. Blah, blah, blah. It’s not it now. It’s three months. It’s like,

no, I need these documents. I need this contract. I’m gonna record it on

your title. I’ve got three months to execute. Get yourself in a

situation where you can legally win. Don’t talk too much. You’re just

gonna get stuck and do nothing.

Scott Bursey (24:29)

Details and documents. Understood. Thank you for

sharing that. And Louis, you have shared a lot of really good advice

today. But is there any additional words of wisdom that you could leave

with the pros?

Louis Baker (24:43)

Yeah, I mean, well, I’m I’m on I’m on my little

soapbox over here, as you could tell. So I’m gonna I’m gonna say turn

the light on your portfolio. So if you don’t have an AI driven platform

for real estate assets with your clients, then ⁓ you know, light up your

portfolio, turn the light on your portfolio, go on to lampit.ai, onboard

your properties, take a look, ch check it out, like pop around, see how

it works, give me a call. I mean, I’m that’s the that’s the that’s what

I’m doing. So that’s what I think everybody should do.

Scott Bursey (25:12)

Thank you for that, Louis. And for our listeners

that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane or

collaborate with you. What’s the best way for them to reach you?

Louis Baker (25:22)

Yeah, so ⁓ Louis@lampportfolio.com is my email. So

I’m best with email. To be honest, if we move forward, it’s probably

gonna be on the phone because I’m a texter and I’ve masterfully learned

how to run everything on my phone. But ⁓ start on the email,

louis@lampportfolio.com Just say hi and I’ll get back to you.

Scott Bursey (25:42)

Louis, this has been an absolute master class.

Thank you for joining us here today.

Louis Baker (25:47)

Yeah, thank you, Scott. I appreciate it.

Scott Bursey (25:50)

And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you

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your tanks with a lineup of elite guest, just like Louis Baker, who are

accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until

next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you

on the next episode, everyone.