Automating Multifamily Deals – Licensing Opportunity for Investment Groups

[Joel Bechtel]

Hey everyone! I’m Joel Bechtel. With 34 years of real estate investing experience, I’ve been involved in everything from owning rental properties to flipping. I also have a background in software, having founded and sold the majority of my software company in 2014. Since then, I’ve worked as a CTO and consultant, but real estate has always been a key focus. Now, I’m full-time with Zuma Capital Group (ZCG), a company I co-founded to focus on acquiring and managing multi-family real estate investments. ZCG leverages both my decades of real estate experience and innovative tools we've developed to streamline the investment process.

At ZCG, we’ve developed a real estate investment deal funnel that automates lead intake, analysis, and tracking, which has been a game-changer for our deal flow. We’re currently using it for multi-family properties in a few core markets.

While redIQ is a much more sophisticated tool that focuses on properties with over 50 units, our system is perfect for properties up to 50 units, providing an efficient solution for managing lead intake and financial analysis without the complexity of larger systems.

Here’s how it works:

Lead Intake & Processing: Automatically processes broker emails and key documents (OMs, Rent Rolls, T12s, etc.).

Quick Review: Evaluates leads based on key metrics like IRR, price per unit, and more.

Detailed Analysis: Extracts data from documents, evaluates financials, and identifies additional income sources.

Market Research Integration: Automates checks on flood zones, demographics, school quality, etc.

Deal Tracking: Uses Google Sheets to visually organize lead data—while not a full database system, it provides a simple and efficient way to store and track deals without the need for a full-fledged database like MongoDB.

Financial Analysis: Built-in underwriting and financial modeling with automated reports.

In addition to ZCG, I also own a portfolio of properties. Having this hands-on experience with real-world properties helps refine and enhance our software.

Important Note: This is not a commercial off-the-shelf software program—it's an internal tool we use for streamlining our deal evaluation. However, if you’re running an investment group in another market, we’re open to licensing it or finding a way to make it work for both parties.

If this sounds useful, DM me or comment below, and I’d be happy to share more details!