Leveraging AI to Close Real Estate Loans Faster with Zach Farkas, Army Veteran
Dec 15, 2025
“Most platforms just track data—we automate the entire transaction so agents can focus on closing, not chasing paperwork.” – Zach Farkas, Army VeteranZach Farkas is the founder of Relos, a proptech company automating real estate workflows to streamline transaction coordination and reduce hours of manual work. Before launching Relos, Zach was the #4 ranked VA lender in the nation, a career he built by focusing not on volume, but on educating veterans about how to leverage their VA home loan benefits.
A former Army officer, Zach built his lending business by combining his personal mission with practical insight, and carried that same energy into Relos. Frustrated by the inefficiencies in real estate operations. He created a system that uses AI to extract contract data, assign stakeholder tasks, and help lenders save up to 12 hours per transaction. Now, Zach’s focused on scaling Relos into a category-defining platform
In this episode of the SABM podcast, Scott chats with Zach about:
From Lender to Founder: How Zach built a top lending career by educating veterans before shifting into proptech.
The Problem with Real Estate Ops: Why outdated workflows are still the norm, and what Relos is doing about it.
AI-Powered Contract Automation: How Relos reads real estate contracts and turns them into stakeholder action plans.
User Experience is Everything: Why customer success is more important than sales for long-term adoption.
Big Vision, Big Surface Area: Zach’s plan to build the next proptech unicorn by owning the transaction workflow.
Timestamps:
00:41 Zach’s Journey to Becoming a Top VA Lender
04:08 Transitioning from Lending to Real Estate Technology
08:32 How REOs Works: Streamlining Real Estate Transactions
11:51 Goals and Future Vision for REOs
14:01 Challenges and How You Can Help
15:21 Conclusion and Contact InformationConnect with Zach:
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A special thank you to Zach for joining me this week. Until next time!
-Scott Mackes, USNA ’01