The commercial real estate industry is facing a sharp decline in the effectiveness of cold calling, and Joe Santaularia says artificial intelligence is a major reason. As AI-powered prospecting platforms automate email campaigns, dialing, and personalized outreach at scale, brokers are sending exponentially more messages than ever before. The result, says Santaularia, president of CORFAC International and EVP/Director of Strategic Investor Relationships at Bradford Commercial Real Estate , is that the math that once made prospecting reliable has broken down.
When he entered the business in 2009, he says, traditional prospecting still followed a workable formula: contacting roughly 100 prospects could generate one or two deals. But after COVID-19, and especially as AI-driven dialing systems, automated email sequences, and data-scraping tools became widespread, that ratio deteriorated sharply. With brokers now able to scale outreach dramatically using AI, it can take closer to 1,000 cold calls to produce a single transaction.
He contends this is not simply a cyclical slowdown but a structural shift driven in large part by AI. Automated sequencing software, predictive dialers, and generative AI systems now allow brokers to flood decision-makers with tailored outreach at scale. As more professionals adopt these tools, and more entrants crowd into the industry, inboxes and voicemail boxes have become saturated, making it increasingly difficult for any single cold message to break through.
Two main trends disrupted traditional prospecting. First, a surge of new entrants seeking high earnings increased competition for leads. “Industrial real estate heated up. I can make a lot of money. A lot of people join the industry, which is the same anywhere,” Santaularia says. As a result, prospects began receiving far more calls and emails than before.
Second, the onset of COVID-19 emptied offices and made phone-based prospecting even less effective. “No one’s in the office,” Santaularia says, describing how remote work cut off the primary contact point for traditional cold calls. Even as some workers have returned to offices, cold calling conversion rates have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Now, Santaularia says, professionals are “inserting AI to squeeze their odds”, using automation to increase outreach volume to compensate for declining conversion rates. But as more brokers adopt these tools and send even more messages, response rates continue to fall. The cycle feeds on itself, making each outreach attempt less likely to succeed.
This breakdown has forced commercial real estate professionals to choose between two fundamentally different approaches. “Using AI for leads is a great short-term strategy where you may find something,” Santaularia says. However, he argues that a better long-term strategy is to invest in networking: “If you network well, you’re always in the right room, and you’re just waiting, but it takes a while to get to that point.”
Networking requires a different approach. Instead of viewing deals as numbers, it treats relationships as long-term assets. “What you do in your 20s feeds your 30s. What you do in your 30s feeds your 40s,” Santaularia explains.
The challenge is that networking produces results much more slowly than automated prospecting. A broker using AI tools might generate a lead in weeks or months, while a relationship-based approach could take years to yield substantial returns. This creates a difficult decision for professionals who need immediate income but also want to build a sustainable business.
Santaularia’s own experience illustrates the importance of playing to personal strengths. “I’m terrible on the phone,” he admits. “I’m really good at warm, where if I get a warm introduction, I can get someone to like me.”
Recognizing this, Santaularia built his business around in-person connections rather than cold calling. “It’s all about using your soft skills to enhance your process, and depending on who you are, it’s kind of what you should do,” he says.
He believes this lesson applies broadly. Some professionals are naturally analytical and systematic, and AI tools can enhance their productivity. Others are natural connectors who thrive on building relationships, and for them, investing in network depth leads to better outcomes.
The decline in cold-calling effectiveness has significant implications for commercial real estate firms. If traditional prospecting is no longer efficient, businesses must either invest heavily in technology to scale AI-assisted outreach or build cultures and compensation structures that reward long-term relationship-building.
Santaularia says the industry is still working out which path will dominate. “I think it’s going to be both, because you have different mentalities where some people are data-driven, and they aren’t natural connectors,” he says. Still, he is clear about his own preference: “I think the networking is the better long-term approach, because clients refer you to clients rather than you’re always looking for your next meal.”
Whether commercial real estate professionals adapt to this new reality will depend on how quickly they recognize that the old prospecting math no longer applies. Those who continue to rely solely on cold calling and automated outreach may find diminishing returns. In contrast, those willing to make the long-term investment in relationship-driven strategies are more likely to build resilient businesses, even if the payoff takes years to materialize. The industry now faces a choice: chase short-term leads or invest in networks that generate referrals and repeat business over the long term.
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