Real Estate Innovation at Risk as Tech Debt Grows, CEO Says

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Date:

29 Sep 2025

Real estate technology companies rushing to add AI chatbots to legacy systems are making a critical mistake that could cost them millions, according to one industry expert who argues that surface-level AI integration fails to address fundamental infrastructure problems.

“The tech debt you accumulate becomes enormous, and you end up spending huge amounts of time and money simply trying to Band-aid things,” says Naren Nath, CEO of Finaya, describing the challenge facing established real estate technology platforms trying to modernize their systems.

The Hidden Cost of Legacy Systems

According to Nath, many real estate technology companies are operating with what he describes as ‘cobbled together’ systems – multiple software solutions patched together over time that create mounting technical debt. This approach becomes particularly problematic when companies try to layer artificial intelligence on top.

“Software integration is by far the toughest thing. And if you do it after the fact, there’s very little you can do to make it better and more efficient,” Nath says, pointing to the industry’s highly manual and fragmented nature as a particular challenge.

The AI Integration Challenge

Nath argues that many companies are repeating the mistakes of early e-commerce, when businesses simply took their paper catalogs and put them online as PDFs. “A lot of what AI is happening right now is, okay, what’s some exotic value I can have a chatbot conversation instead of using drop downs, but you can’t fundamentally change the underlying flow,” he explains.

This superficial approach to AI integration, Nath suggests, severely limits the technology’s potential impact. “If all you’re doing is at the top level, the surface level, you’re saying, ‘Well, let me put up a chatbot’ but it sits on the same underlying infrastructure, you cannot unleash the full power of agentic AI,” he says.

The Path Forward

Nath advocates for a ground-up approach to technology infrastructure in real estate, suggesting that companies need to build systems with AI capabilities natively integrated into their core architecture rather than added as an afterthought.

“It’s the ability to take the agenticity all the way through the food chain, all the way to the data layer,” Nath explains, describing his company’s approach to building new real estate technology infrastructure. This means designing systems where AI can meaningfully interact with and modify core processes, not just provide a conversational interface.

Through Finaya, Nath is working to demonstrate how this approach can transform traditional real estate processes. For example, the company is developing an AI mortgage point-of-sale system where artificial intelligence doesn’t just chat with users but actively helps complete loan applications and explain requirements in real-time.

While some industry players may view comprehensive infrastructure rebuilding as too costly or time-consuming, Nath suggests the alternative, continuing to patch legacy systems, may ultimately prove more expensive and less effective in meeting evolving market demands.