On a recent episode of the Building the Future of podcast, host Finn sat down with our co-founder, Juan Leal, to explore how Leasey.AI is transforming residential property management.
From manually stitching together tools behind the scenes to building a predictive automation platform, Juan’s journey offers a compelling look into what it takes to modernize a legacy industry.
Not Just Property Management Software: Juan on Starting Leasey.AI
Juan Leal didn’t set out to build a software company. His journey began with a services business that helped landlords lease their properties. “We would book a demo and behind the scenes… it was us literally stitching together Calendly with DocuSign with Google Sheets,” Juan recalls. Despite using these tools manually, his team consistently outperformed landlords using traditional methods. As demand grew, he realized they were onto something bigger: “We were already seeing a 30 to 40% improvement in that leasing process. So they [landlords] started coming back to us and referring their friends.”The Problem With Leasing, and How Leasey.AI Solves It
Residential property management, especially leasing, is still painfully manual. From advertising to screening tenants and handling paperwork, many landlords rely on outdated processes. Leasey.AI was created to solve this. Juan explains, “We started asking: What are all the pieces, where are the bottlenecks, what are the manual processes, who are the people involved, and what technologies are they using?” The result: a platform that automates leasing workflows and eliminates the inefficiencies that slow property managers down.How Leasey.AI Works
Leasey replaces the patchwork of disconnected tools with one cohesive system. “We replaced DocuSign, we replaced Google Sheets—we built our own flow in the backend,” says Juan. The platform guides property managers from a property becoming vacant to placing a tenant—fully within Leasey.AI. But they didn’t build it in isolation. The team co-designed it with users: “We’d put wireframes together, run them by clients, get feedback, and iterate. That’s literally how we built the whole platform—one pain point at a time.” The Leasey.AI dashboard is made up of a lot of moving parts – and it’s fully customizable to meet the diverse needs of leasing teams across North America. The best way to learn about how Leasey.AI works is to book a call with a member of the team at Book Demo.How Long It Takes to Place Tenants With vs. Without Leasey.AI
Before Leasey, leasing a property could take 10 hours or more of manual work. With Leasey, Juan claims that time can be reduced to just one hour. “We go in and say, okay, this whole process is taking the client 10 hours. We can probably reduce it to one hour if we were to do it like this or like that,” he says. That dramatic improvement isn’t just theoretical—landlords who used the early scrappy version of Leasey already saw a 30-40% improvement in speed. That number has since doubled with added updates, features, and syndication channels.Challenges and Opportunities
Property managers are notoriously hard to sell to, and Leasey’s early days weren’t easy. Juan shares, “They don’t even have time to explore a better way of doing things. So we had to find people who were open to innovation, even if they didn’t know how it could work.” Instead of selling a finished product, Juan and his team asked potential customers, “What are your pain points?” and built around that.Leasey’s Go-to-Market Strategy
Leasey’s initial traction came from offering leasing services while building the product behind the scenes. “Eventually we got to a point where we had 30 to 50 active listings per month from individual landlords,” says Juan. Today, their strategy revolves around partnerships with landlords and property managers willing to co-create solutions. “We don’t treat our clients as clients. We treat them as partners,” Juan explains. “They almost feel like they’ve been building the product with us—which they have.”The Importance of Speed Over Perfection in Residential Leasing
For Juan, speed has become Leasey’s competitive advantage. “Speed is more important than perfection,” he says. Unlike legacy competitors who’ve been around since the ’80s, Leasey can move fast. “We can meet with a client today, understand their pain points, and have wireframes a couple days later—then ship it into production by next week.” He credits this to a nimble team and a culture of urgency: “Everybody knows that you cannot spend a whole week doing wireframes for one feature. You have to get it done in one or two days.” This deeply held understanding of the cost of vacancy on real estate professionals has helped Leasey.AI build solid, long-term relationships with their clients and partners.The Ultimate Vision for Leasey.AI: Automated Property Management
Juan’s long-term goal is nothing short of revolutionary: “A property should pretty much take care of its own needs automatically. It shouldn’t need a human element to say, ‘Okay, this property is coming up for rent—we need to advertise it.’” According to Juan and his team, the human element of residential real estate should be protected and supported with AI, not replaced by it. His team is laser-focused on making sure real estate businesses have all the tools they need to deliver excellent service to their tenants and leads while fostering more efficient and positive cultures for their team members. This is not just a vision of automation; it’s about eliminating unnecessary stress and labor and empowering people working in real estate to do what they do best. Leasey aims to enable properties to preemptively take action, predict pricing, and identify the best tenants—without landlord intervention. “We want the platform to go beyond automation and become your trusted advisor,” Juan says. This involves predictive analytics, dynamic pricing, and intelligent tenant screening.Get in Touch with Juan to Learn More About Leasey.AI
Curious to see Leasey in action or connect with Juan?- Website: Leasey.ai
- Email: info@leasey.ai
- Connect with Juan: Juan Leal on LinkedIn