A Santa Clarita Lender Asked Me What AI Is Going to Do to His Business
Mike Meena has been writing mortgages out of the Santa Clarita Valley for decades. He is not a tech guy. He is the guy who answers his phone at nine at night because a buyer is sitting in a driveway trying to decide whether to write an offer.
We were about fifty-six minutes into a recording for The Honor Roll Show when he stopped, turned it around, and asked me the question: what is AI going to do to real estate, because some people say it is the end of the world.
That is the question every owner in this valley is asking quietly. Here is the answer I gave him on camera.
Is AI going to replace the people who do this work?
No, and the people selling you that fear are usually selling you something else on the next slide.
There is no version of this where software sits with a widow at two in the morning and helps her decide what to do with the house her husband died in. Negotiation is human. Showing property is human. Reading a room and knowing when to shut up is human. Mike would tell you the same thing about a borrower who is scared of a payment.
What actually happens is smaller and more brutal than replacement. The agent who learns these tools takes work from the agent who does not. The lender who uses them to catch what an underwriter would have caught next Tuesday closes the file that the other guy loses. Nobody gets replaced by a machine. People get replaced by a competitor holding one.
What does that actually look like in a local business?
I use a comparison from my first career. In law enforcement, everybody qualifies with the same weapon on the same range, and under stress the hit ratio is nowhere near what people assume. Same tool, wildly different results, and the difference is who trained with it.
Watch a framer drive a nail. Up, down, done, one swing. Hand me the same hammer and I bend it, flatten it, and hit my thumb.
That is exactly where local business owners are with AI right now. The tool is sitting on the bench. Almost nobody has put in the reps.
Where does it earn money for a small local business?
Not where the ads point. Here is the order I actually recommend:
- Follow up first. The leads that die between the first call and the second one are already paid for. Automating that recovery, in your voice, is the highest return move available to most owners in this valley.
- Document work second. Contracts, disclosures, a two hundred page CC and R packet, a solar lease with the real terms buried on page nine. Pulling the teeth out of long documents is what this technology is quietly best at.
- Second set of eyes third. Run the thing you already finished back through it and ask what you missed. Mike raised this himself about contracts, and he is right.
- Content last. Everybody starts here because it is visible. It is the least valuable of the four.
What is the first step for an owner who has never touched it?
Teach it about you before you ask it to do anything.
Nobody wants to sit down and type out their own history. So do not type it. Talk for ten minutes into a recorder about how you got into your business, who you serve, how you actually talk, and what you refuse to do. Transcribe it. Hand it over. Then tell it to ask you more questions about your work.
Everything it writes after that sounds like you. Skip this step and you get the same beige output everyone else gets, which is why so much of the AI content in this valley reads like a press release from nowhere.
What should you not buy?
Most of what gets marketed as an AI system for small business is a wrapper around tools you are already paying for. A social posting system. A CRM with a new label. A webinar funnel with a chatbot bolted to the front.
None of that is fraud, exactly. It is just that you can build most of it yourself once you understand the pieces, and if you never learn the pieces you cannot tell a real build from a subscription. Learn enough to be dangerous, then decide what to pay someone else to run.
Mike admitted on camera that he is already using it inside his own marketing and would rather not say how much. That is the tell. The people who are quiet about it are usually the ones actually using it.
Watch the whole conversation
This came out of episode 01 of The Honor Roll Show, my interview series with Santa Clarita business owners. Mike Meena of Augusta Financial, one hour, unscripted, and the AI conversation starts about fifty-six minutes in.
Watch it here: The Honor Roll Show, Episode 01
Read the full written breakdown of the episode, including the lending side: Mike Meena of Augusta Financial on rates, condos, and the crash that is not coming
If you run a business in the Santa Clarita Valley and want the seat, the show lives at thehonorrollshow.com. Seats are by invitation and a seat is never for sale.
Common questions
Is AI going to replace real estate agents and loan officers?
No. It replaces the tasks, not the relationship. Nothing in this technology sits with a widow at two in the morning and helps her decide about the house her husband died in. What actually happens is that the professionals who learn the tools take work from the ones who do not.
What should a local business owner automate first?
The follow up. Not the marketing, not the logo, not a chatbot on the website. The leads and customers who fall through the cracks between the first call and the second one are where the money already is.
What is the first step if I have never used AI at all?
Teach it about you before you ask it for anything. Talk for ten minutes into a recorder about your business, transcribe it, hand the transcript over, and tell it to ask you more questions about your work. Everything it produces after that sounds like you instead of like a robot.
Do I need to buy an AI system for my business?
Almost never at the start. Most of what gets sold as an AI system is a wrapper around tools you already pay for. Learn the tools first so you can tell the difference between a real build and a subscription with a new name on it.
Connor T. MacIvor · CalDRE #01238257 · Sync Brokerage, Inc. · DRE #02031490