Proptech Pulse: From MIT to Main Street — How Sarita Dua Uses AI, Templates, and Smart Workflows to Win

The gap between agents who struggle with technology and those who thrive often comes down to mindset rather than technical skill. Sarita Dua bridges that gap in this conversation, sharing practical frameworks that any agent can implement regardless of their technical background.

Her path to real estate included 14 years in high-tech sales and marketing, which taught her how to evaluate technology through the lens of actual ROI rather than impressive demonstrations. Her engineering training instilled habits of identifying inefficiencies and designing solutions. Her MIT Sloan Executive MBA, completed in May 2020 just as the industry faced unprecedented disruption, provided frameworks for thinking about business operations systematically.

This combination produces insights that feel immediately actionable. Sarita advocates for solving real problems with the right tools, building templates that create consistency without killing creativity, and maintaining the human relationships that generate referrals while leveraging automation for everything that doesn't require personal attention.

Her perspective carries additional weight through her industry involvement. As a member of the Zillow Agent Advisory Board, former Inman Ambassadors leadership team member, and active participant in the PropTech Advisory Board, Sarita sees technology trends before they reach mainstream adoption. She trains and coaches other agents, giving her visibility into the common mistakes that derail technology implementations. And her marathon training provides an unexpected but powerful metaphor for how to build sustainable systems through discipline, consistency, and continuous improvement.

This episode explores:

• How engineering mindset translates to real estate efficiency and why technical training helps identify problems others miss
• AI tools that actually save time versus those that add complexity without corresponding value
• Template and workflow systems that create consistency while preserving personalization
• Database management strategies that generate consistent referrals through intentional relationship nurturing
• The marathon runner's approach to business building and why sustainable practices beat heroic effort
• How to evaluate new technology through practical ROI rather than feature excitement
• Common mistakes agents make when adopting new tools and how to avoid them

Whether you're overwhelmed by the pace of technological change or eager to find practical applications for AI in your business, this conversation offers frameworks from someone who combines technical credibility with real-world brokerage experience.

https://www.lwolf.com/podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

From the entrepreneur's desk to the industry front lines and into real world operations.

Speaker 0:06

I'm Aaron Cardell, joined by Kyle Hunter and Jake Hamilton. And we're here to take the pulse of real estate technology in just 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 0:13

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining Prop Tech Pulse today. I'm very excited to have a special guest here, Sarita Dua. Sarita brings a very unique uh perspective to real estate, um, coming from an engineering background. Um, she's actually the uh team leader and operator at Keller Williams Sunset Corridor. Uh, but I'd love her to actually do a little introduction herself because she can obviously tell you better about herself than I can. So, Serena, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2 0:45

Hi, Kyle. Thank you so much for having me today. Um, I'm so happy to be here. So, just a little bit about myself. I am an old, I'm an I guess I'm a seasoned real estate agent. I've been licensed since 2003. So I've been selling real estate for 22 years. However, this is sort of my second full-time gig after um a 14-year career in high-tech sales and marketing. My background is actually I'm an electrical engineer by trade. I went to a school in Michigan called Kethering University and got my bachelor's in electrical engineering. I then went on um to get my MBA at Boston University um way back in the in the late 90s. And then, as if that wasn't enough, I had a nice little midlife crisis. And in May 2020, we were kind of the class of COVID. I graduated with an executive MBA from MIT. So my background's electrical engineering, a couple of MBAs, uh, 14 years in high-tech sales and marketing, and then 22 years full-time as an agent. So I bring an interesting perspective to real estate. I do manage uh a small team. We're three to four agents, um, an admin, a TC, and we are small and mighty here in Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 1 2:07

Oh, very good. So, I mean, that is very interesting. I'm um actually around a lot of engineers. My wife is an engineer, and um I'm not uh by far. I was more in the finance side, but I can tell you that that is a very unique perspective to bring that. I'm sure there's uh a lot of process involved. I'm sure that you know uh you're very forward thinking, but I'd love to hear a little bit about how you apply some of the things that, you know, maybe you've learned both from, I guess, uh the engineering side, uh, but also the MBA. So bringing that business side with the engineering background, you know, how do you apply that to a high-producing uh real estate team?

Speaker 2 2:49

Sure. You know, I think you know, and what's interesting too is I didn't I didn't wake up and say, oh, I'm an engineer and I want to be a realtor now. So a little bit of of that, I think I feel like my life is so many kind of happy accidents. Like if you would have told me when I was studying circuits and dynamics and and you know, some of these classes that I would end up not needing any of them and I would be selling houses instead, I would have just laughed at you, right? Um, so I actually got into real estate because I had young kids and I wanted the flexibility of being able to work all the time, but still work for myself. Um, but you know, true, true to like who I am, I would say, I think for me as an engineer, engineering taught me that like everything really is a system. Um, however, when we hear the word system, it's loaded, right? Like, oh my gosh, is that a complicated computer platform? Is it, you know, a bunch of hardware? Is it a bunch of software? A system can be as simple as a checklist. Really, a system to me is something that's repeatable and predictable. It creates predictable success. Um, so if I take that foundation of kind of how I look at things, and then I layer in some of the things I learned at MIT, and I will geek out a little, probably for maybe the one or two people from MIT that might be watching this on replay someday. Um, there were classes like systems design thinking, another class that we called OLAB, organizational lab, and then one of my favorites, DMD, data models and decisions. All of these, these frameworks for me were really how to break complex problems into simple solutions, or not even simple solutions, but chunk them down. And a lot of what MIT taught me is one, how to think big and really ask yourself what is the problem you want to solve. Um, the other thing that uh we learned in grad school was basically that observe before you solve, right? I think as realtors, sometimes we're so we're like emergency room doctors and nurses or triage, you know, you know, people in a hospital. Like, there's someone coming in with a cut, let's solve it, right? And I think it's Einstein that said, like, if you if you have an hour to solve a problem, you should be spending about 55 minutes thinking about the solution and five minutes actually solving it. And so I think sometimes we solve problems, but we don't solve the right ones because we uh we don't ask ourselves what is the problem we want to solve? What is actually happening? Is it a symptom or is it a problem? So those are some of the things that really have guided me. And and actually, people ask me, well, if you knew now what you did then, would you go straight to to real estate? Like what even do the technical background? But I really do think real estate is so related. It's it's real, even my background in sales and marketing, it's really people, project management and process management, right? It's it's if you're selling uh or just marketing, you're not really a great realtor or advisor. You're really it's about relationships, right? It's about connecting and um understanding what your client needs and then advocating for them, telling them every step of the way, this is what happened, this is what's happening now, this is what's happening next. Uh, all that I like to think of myself, I'll stop talking now, I promise after this. I like to think of myself as high-tech and high touch. All the high-tech stuff is really, really important. But it's the reason it's so important is it because it frees you up time-wise to really do the touch part, which is build relationships, meet people where they are, get deep with them, understand what they want and what they don't, and go from there. So that's a little bit about kind of who I am and why I am the way I am.

Speaker 1 6:35

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's great. And I think that having a unique uh combination of uh process and system-oriented um uh education and and and training and background, and then you know, very unique MIT, known for you know technical, but getting an MBA from there kind of applies both sides of that. Um and I'm around a lot of engineers. Um, you know, sometimes that relationship side and that uh ability to connect with people, um, you know, is the piece that needs to be trained. And that's where I think you really excel. So taking those two pieces and combining them, um, you know, because we all know, you know, real estate is a valid-developed industry. I mean, it still is today. People want to trust you know who they're working with. They want to uh know that that you're working for them and helping them in many cases, most cases, the biggest purchase that they'll ever make. So, you know, I think that that is a great approach. And so, you know, with you having such a strong technical background, and then you know, just to point out you're you're also on the Lone Wolf Advisory Board. I think you're on a few other boards as well. Um, but basically, you know, how do you take some of that forward thinking and some of the things that are happening today around maybe AI or you know, template building or other hacks that you use where you're applying some of that technology to um you know your day-to-day business and trying to drive more um more business?

Speaker 2 8:09

Yeah, thank yeah, thanks for asking that because I feel like it's such a hot button right now. Like, I mean, if we had a dollar for any time anyone said AI, right, we'd all be zillionaires. Um it's like AI, AI, AI, it's everywhere. And sure, at the beginning, AI was kind of like my co-pilot. I used it for, you know, hey, help me reword this, help me with my listing remarks, create presentation or marketing template. The amazing speed at which AI operates really does take mundane tasks and make them, you know, really eliminate a lot of the noise and make them go faster. Um, I I now think, I now think that people erroneously use AI as this easy button, right? Like they lose themselves and they're just like, Chat GPT could just do all this for me. Honestly, chat GPT should be your companion and it should be sort of part of your brain, but it should be you. It should reflect you. You should almost be having a conversation with it and and have it. What I love about AI is having um using, like, for example, if I'm analyzing a property to do a CMA, to actually do put pour a bunch of data into it and just say summarize the trends, right? Or if you're doing a listing report to a seller that's on the market, tell me what happened last week. That we can look at how many clicks it got on the different portals, what went pending nearby, what the market trends were for that county, what you know, analyze the feedback and the patterns. A lot of those things that I would sit down with a clipboard and a pencil and manually do, it really does take that and compress it in a way. Now, that doesn't mean my job is quicker and faster. What I do with that extra time is again get on the phone. This this is such a context for me and my team. We still measure how many real estate conversations are we having a day. And the AI helps me do some of those tasks that used to just take forever quickly. And and I use it in my personal life too, for planning vacations, for eating around my macros. I'm actually training for the New York marathon. That'll be my sixth marathon in my fifth time doing New York. And um, even just around what should my workout plan be? What is what, you know, I'm modifying, I've got this going on this week. What, you know, can you design the perfect week for me, right? In terms of how many miles I need to get and what I should be eating and when I should do my recovery. It's just, it's amazing how it's evolved, but I do want to caution people who think my life is easy, I can just press this easy button. It's it's not it the quality of your output is based on the quality of your input, right? And so it has to be um something where you're feeding it reliable information and also questioning. You got to question the information you're getting as well.

Speaker 1 11:07

Yeah. No, and that's that's really cool. I'm I, you know, similarly, um, I'm using AI personally. Um, I actually um used it for, I just did a 75 hard, which is kind of like a middle competition type thing. And I uploaded it.

Speaker 2 11:22

Very familiar and I'm going like this. Congrats for doing it.

Speaker 1 11:26

Uh you know, and I say I finished it. I actually plan to do 40 days just to make sure I could. And now I'm starting my next one and I'm trying to do 50 days. So I'm gonna build up to completing it. But it's cool because um I was able to upload my blood work and it tells me what supplements and it tells me recommendations, and you can't trust everything, but at least it gives you some grounded information that you can take back and you know share with professionals. Macros, you mentioned that, you know, it would really help you identify, you know, what uh what can help you. Uh so that's really cool in your personal life, and then transmitting into the business life. I was actually at a uh a Jared James uh advance um session last year, and last week, I guess, two weeks ago, and he did a really cool uh process on AI where you go in and you know you put in things like what's the top agents in my market, and then you say, Okay, well, where'd you get this information? Okay, well, how can I be one of those top agents? And you kind of continue to build on the answers that it will um you know to put out because so many people are starting their searching or doing research or doing things, you know, from AI. So optimizing that to find, you know, um, you know, find yourself in there, I think is important. And um, and then the other thing I think, you know, from my perspective is that they're not all equal. Um, I think that you know, there's different ones. I actually have um I have Claude and Perplexity, and I have um Rock and then Chuck GPT, and a lot of times I'll put it in this, you know, this you know, the same prompts and the same information into multiples to see if you know that comes out to get you know a different result or a better result. So um a lot of cool things. I really love your you know that perspective on AI.

Speaker 2 13:14

Kyle, I also love that you said that you started your 75 hired with, you know, first 40 days, then 50 days, and you're building it up. And I would say that for me as it's funny because it's still a mental thing for me. I don't think of myself as a marathoner or even a runner. I think of myself as like a fast walker, but the reality is I am doing my sixth one, so there is something there. And the reality, the reality for marathon trading too, is like you can't, you have to build it up, right? You it's it's a little bit every day. And then you look back and you see the progress you've made. You can't, you can't short circuit it. You you certainly can have a bad day. You can have a bad run, you can have you can get back on track in a day or even in a couple days, but you can't skip training for three weeks or three months and then wake up and go, oh, I'm gonna be good. And so relationships, I think there's a famous quote um from the founder of Under Armour, Kevin Plank. Uh yeah, his name is Kevin Plank. It's um trust is built in uh drops. Uh I'm gonna butcher the quote so I'll find it, but uh, trust is built in drops at a time, but relationships can go away like in a bucket, basically. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the thing, it's it's just a little bit at a time. And um, so I think it's important for us to chat about well, what do we do with all the time savings, right? I already mentioned making phone calls, but like still one of my best hacks of all time is is video. I send a personalized video. Well, it feels like it's personalized, but it's not, it's to my entire database twice a month. And my brand is asked through this. So my I pride myself on answering questions that people may ask me. So if somebody asks me, hey, should I inspect my house before I list? Okay, that's a great question. I'm gonna shoot a video because if you wonder, Kyle, that you should should you pre-inspect your house, maybe someone else is wondering that too. And those videos, I I got, I was so in my head about, am I having a good hair day? What if I sound uh, you know, dumb or I look dumb or whatever? And then I had to really just wake up and say, it's not about me, it's about them. They need this information. And they're very natural, they're not super polished, they're just me. But what I realize is when I run into a client at the store or when I actually sit down with them for a consultation later, they actually feel like they know me because they've been watching my videos and they feel connected to me. And so you got to do things that that high touch please touch piece is so important. You can't just roboticize this to be so systematized that we forget our personalities. And I think that that's a you know, point of if it was a key takeaway for people, I'd feel great to know that, like, look, you used AI for what? For that connection, for that common ground.

Speaker 1 16:04

Yeah, and I love that. I mean, it's really helping scale personal relationships or scale human connection. Um, you know, Bomb Bomb's been around for years. I don't know which video you use, but basically the ability to create those short videos that yeah, people connect, you know, you they want to see it. Um, we have a product called Boost, uh, which boosts listings um, you know, and Lungle. Um and we made a change about a year ago to video, and the engagement in video versus you know black photos or things is just tremendous. Like people love seeing video and how they interact, and it just creates that personalization. Um, and so you know, that's a great point. And and just to further that, you know, what are some of the things that you do with your team to kind of keep a personal vibe going by you know, but still using and injecting, you know, technology to be able to free up time and scale and do all the things we've talked about.

Speaker 2 17:03

Well, I think that, you know, again, we value face-to-face a lot. We're all remote as a team. So even for us, we do a lot of stuff on Zoom. We're constantly on Slack. Um, but then making sure we get together for that team lunch or we do something in the community. Um, I think that connection's really important. In fact, the last subject of our team meeting was around the five levels of relationship building. Uh, level one being, you know, the weather, and level two, starting to talk about opinions and then really at the fourth and fifth level getting really, really deep and where you put yourself out there. We were talking about that in a way it's it's just very interesting, right? Because in order to connect with people, you have to share parts of yourself. You don't want to monopolize and make it about you, but if you don't share parts of yourself, you're not connecting with others. So we spend a lot of time on skills building and training and practice and motivational things to make sure that people remember that those are those are really important. Uh, we're using AI for uh call. So I our our number one tech tool is our database. And we're in there with AI coaching insights, right? So that if I know that I have a call with Kyle, it might say, talk to him about 75 Hard. Um, so it's looking at things and giving me suggestions. Or last time you talked about his kid, ask how his kid's doing. Um, and so just things like that, where you live in your database, you trust your database. It's important then, number one, to have a database. Number two, to have all of your information in a database. Because guess what? I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that a system can be as simple as a checklist. There are plenty of agents that manage their whole business by Excel. They've got their customer list in Excel, their holiday list, their client party list. But if you don't have a repository where you've got everybody in one place and notes about every interaction with that person, you're really missing that total full view of that client and how you should you should be and can be interacting with them more than you are now. So um doing that, also making sure for us having everybody on a listing alert, having everybody on a um home value report. And then guess what? It's so easy to decide who to call. It's the ones that are the most attractive with our technology. Hey, if Kyle looked at four listings, I might want to check in with them and say, How are you doing? I was just thinking about you. Oh my goodness, you're psychic. I was just looking at condos. Um, and so it's just that piece of I know that sounds big brother, but it's really just being aware and then connecting and meeting them where they are. I did find the quote by the way trust is built and drops and lost in buckets. And I love that quote because um it is, it's so incremental and you have to work on it all the time. But you can really um you can really lose it if you um lose sight of what of that relationship. And in a second, you can um definitely have To you you'd have to rebuild, and I think that's really important to be aware of.

Speaker 1 20:04

Yeah, no, I love that, and um, you know, I think that from my perspective, kind of some of the themes that I've picked up from you know from our conversation today is that you know going back to your MIT executive MBA program, you know, the data class that you talked about, it sounds like you use a lot of data, but you personalize that data. So whether it's you know, um identifying what someone's you know looking for, or um, I love the ability, or you you know, talking about going in and and using the market and using information and really using tools to further the relationship and the closeness between you know you and your customer. And and so that really uh you know, I think has been uh great for uh for this session. I think last thing we're about to wrap up, but if you um just quick three points maybe that you would say you would recommend um for busy agents, like three things that you would recommend to create efficiency for busy agents.

Speaker 2 21:06

Um lean into your database, go all in and make sure that you're using that. It can be really, it could replace a person in the sense that it can be your assistant. Um, and then I'd say the reminder, just I know I've said it multiple times, but tech is the scaffolding, if you will, relationships are the heart. If you're finding like you have shiny object syndrome and you want to take every class and acquire every piece of technology, and you're not taking the time to just connect with people, you're missing the boat. And I think the last thing is consistency compounds in everything and running in relationships in business. And so take one thing, do it really well, then add another thing. Don't go, well, I talked, I saw these four podcasts, and I'm gonna go all in on these six things. You're gonna fail. Like just do one thing and do it really well and then add it in. And I think that that's even when we go to conferences and things, it's a it's an art to be able to just take all the noise away and just say, this this is the one or two things that I learned from this, and this is gonna be my my focus for the next six months. Um, so start small, double down on it, as opposed to trying to solve world hunger and burning out a couple of days in.

Speaker 1 22:19

Well, that's great suggestions. So, Rita, a great pleasure of having you today. I really appreciate you joining and uh thank you for the time.

Speaker 2 22:28

Thank you, Kyle. It's an honor to be here.

Speaker 22:30

That's our pulse for today. Keep innovating, keep implementing, and keep moving real estate forward.