Tokenization and AI: Gabriel Bar’s Vision for Real Estate

Vision & Origin

What inspired the creation of BeBelong, and how did the concept first take shape?

The inspiration behind Be Belong came from a simple yet powerful observation made while facing the challenge of planning a playdate for your five-year-old daughter after moving to Florida: multifamily living often feels transactional, not communal. Residents pay for a space but do not gain a sense of connection, and property owners struggle to engage tenants while leaving untapped revenue streams on the table.

The concept first took shape when my background in real estate, technology, and AI served as a realization that the future of property management wasn’t just about maintaining buildings, but about creating living experiences that feel personal, connected, and value-driven. By merging AI-driven automation with community-building tools, Be Belong was born as both a resident engagement platform and a profit engine for property owners.

Coming from a background in syndications, AI, and e-commerce tech, what drew you to the multifamily real estate sector?

Coming from a background in syndications, AI, and e-commerce technology, I saw the multifamily sector as one of the few industries with enormous untapped potential for digital transformation. While e-commerce and AI have revolutionized consumer behaviour and personalized experiences, multifamily real estate was still lagging, often relying on outdated systems and transactional interactions between tenants and property managers.

What drew me in was the opportunity to bridge that gap. Multifamily properties naturally house large, diverse communities, but the tools to connect, engage, and monetize these communities were virtually non-existent. By combining my experience in scaling revenue models through e-commerce and predictive technologies through AI, I recognized that we could build a platform that improved the resident experience and created measurable revenue growth for owners and investors, similar to how digital platforms transformed retail and service industries.

Building BeBelong

How does BeBelong differentiate itself from traditional property management or resident engagement platforms?

Be Belong is more than just a resident engagement tool or property management add-on; it’s a full-stack operating system designed to drive community and revenue. Traditional platforms focus on administrative efficiency or simple communication, but they rarely address how to generate additional income or deeply personalize the resident experience.

Here’s how Be Belong stands out:

1. AI-Powered Personalization: Our AI tailors content, services, and recommendations to each tenant, creating a curated experience rather than a generic app interface.
2. Revenue Generation: Through our Agentic AI Upsell engine and ad-share model, properties can generate up to $72,000 annually per 100 units — without raising rents.
3. Predictive & Proactive Management: From predicting maintenance issues to providing ongoing behavioural insights, we help property managers move from reactive problem-solving to proactive decision-making.
4. Community + Commerce in One Place: With marketplace, rideshare, peer-to-peer payments, and events, Be Belong transforms buildings into micro-communities where residents live, connect, and transact.
5. Aligned Incentives: Unlike traditional SaaS models that charge flat fees, we succeed when our property partners succeed, through shared advertising revenue and upsell performance.

In short, Be Belong combines community engagement, operational intelligence, and monetization, a combination no traditional property platform truly offers.

What are the key challenges you’ve faced in integrating technology into an industry that has historically been slow to adopt change?

One of the biggest challenges has been addressing the resistance to change within an industry that has historically relied on traditional property management systems and manual workflows. Many operators are cautious about adopting new technology because they fear disrupting established processes or overwhelming their teams.

Another challenge is the fragmentation of existing systems. Most properties rely on multiple tools for payments, communication, maintenance, and leasing — which means integrating a comprehensive solution like Be Belong requires proving that our platform can seamlessly complement or replace these legacy systems without creating extra complexity.

We’ve also had to overcome the mindset shift from viewing property management as a cost center to recognizing it as a profit center. Educating owners and managers about how AI driven upsells, advertising, and predictive maintenance can directly increase NOI has been a key part of our journey.

Finally, ensuring data security and privacy while leveraging AI and behavioral analytics has been critical. We’ve built Be Belong to meet stringent compliance standards and provide full transparency, which helps build trust with both property teams and residents.

Technology, Innovation & Trends

You’ve spoken about AI, ML, and tokenization in real estate. How do these technologies fit into BeBelong’s roadmap?

AI, machine learning, and tokenization are at the core of Be Belong’s long-term vision to revolutionize multifamily living and property management. Each technology plays a specific role in our roadmap:

1. AI & Machine Learning (ML): These technologies power the intelligence behind Be Belong — from tailoring the right content to each tenant to predicting maintenance issues before they occur. AI allows our platform to provide personalized experiences, automate upsells and cross sells, and generate actionable insights for property managers. Over time, ML models continuously improve, learning from resident behaviour to optimize services, amenities, and monetization strategies.
2. AI Agents: Our AI agents act as 24/7 virtual leasing and sales assistants, identifying revenue opportunities, instantly resolving tenant queries, and automating tasks that previously required human intervention. This allows property managers to focus on higher-value activities while our platform works in the background to increase NOI and reduce labor costs.
3. Tokenization: We see tokenization as the bridge between multifamily living and fractional property ownership. Our roadmap includes enabling tenants to earn or purchase fractional ownership stakes in their buildings through tokenized assets. This increases tenant loyalty and creates a new, democratized property investment model that aligns residents and owners.
4. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Combining AI/ML with blockchain-based tokenization will allow us to provide transparent, real-time financial data and ownership models, creating more trust and flexibility for investors and property owners.

In short, Be Belong’s roadmap isn’t just about improving property management — it’s about redefining the entire value chain of multifamily living, from tenant experience to asset ownership.

AI, machine learning, and tokenization are at the core of Be Belong’s long-term vision to revolutionize multifamily living and property management. Each technology plays a specific role in our roadmap:

Journey & Leadership

You’ve successfully transitioned across roles—from SaaS to PropTech entrepreneurship. What personal or professional lessons have stayed with you?

Transitioning from SaaS and e-commerce into PropTech has reinforced some powerful lessons that have guided me both personally and professionally:

1. Customer-Centricity is Everything: Whether it’s SaaS, e-commerce, or PropTech, the end user’s experience defines success. I’ve learned that the best products don’t just solve problems — they anticipate needs and make life simpler and more meaningful. This is the DNA of Be Belong.
2. Innovation Requires Patience and Education: In SaaS, early adopters are common. In real estate, adoption is slower, and trust takes time. I’ve learned that innovation isn’t just about building cutting-edge tech; it’s about educating the market, showing measurable ROI, and proving long-term value.
3. Relationships Drive Growth: The PropTech space is built on deep industry relationships. My background taught me that trust and transparency are as valuable as technology. Listening to operators, investors, and tenants has been critical to shaping Be Belong into a platform that resonates with all stakeholders.
4. Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Entrepreneurship is about testing, iterating, and improving. From SaaS to PropTech, I’ve learned that data-backed decisions, quick pivots, and an openness to feedback are the keys to a scalable solution.
5. Technology Alone Isn’t Enough: It’s not just about AI or automation — it’s about combining tech with a vision that improves real human experiences. This mindset has guided our approach to Be Belong: building communities, not just apps.

Leading BeBelong as both CEO and CTO, how do you balance strategy with execution?

Balancing the dual roles of CEO and CTO requires a clear framework of priorities and a relentless focus on aligning vision with action. As CEO, my role is to set the long-term strategy — defining where Be Belong is heading, the markets we serve, and how we deliver value to both residents and property owners. As CTO, I’m equally focused on ensuring that our technology roadmap, AI models, and platform architecture are executing against that vision in a scalable, innovative way.

The key to balancing both roles lies in:

1. Delegation and Trust: I surround myself with strong teams — from product and engineering to operations — who can own execution. This allows me to spend time on strategy without losing visibility into the technical backbone of our platform.
2. Clear Roadmapping: I bridge strategy and execution by translating our business goals into technical milestones, ensuring every innovation, whether in AI or resident engagement features, directly supports our value proposition and revenue goals.
3. Staying Close to the Customer: I dedicate time each week to speak with property managers, investors, and residents. This direct feedback loop ensures our strategic direction remains grounded in real-world needs.
4. Time Discipline: I divide my focus between high-level strategic planning and deep technical reviews. It’s about knowing when to zoom out — and when to zoom in.

Ultimately, the combination of CEO and CTO roles keeps me deeply connected to both the “why” and the “how” of Be Belong’s success, ensuring that our strategy isn’t just visionary but also executable.

Values, Vision & Impact

BeBelong’s mission is to create connected communities and a sense of belonging. How do you ensure that purpose stays central as you scale?

Our mission — to create connected communities and foster a true sense of belonging — is the north star guiding every decision at Be Belong, especially as we scale. We believe that technology should not only streamline operations but also strengthen human connection, and that principle is built into our platform’s DNA.

Here’s how we ensure our purpose remains central:

1. Designing with Residents in Mind: Every new feature or AI capability is evaluated by asking one question: Does this help residents feel more connected and engaged? Whether it’s Marketplace, events, or AI-curated content, the focus is always on creating value for the community first.
2. Embedding Purpose into Metrics: Beyond financial KPIs, we track engagement metrics, such as participation in community events, Marketplace activity, and resident feedback, to ensure our platform improves quality of life, not just NOI.
3. Human-Centric AI: Our AI isn’t built just for automation; it’s designed to listen, learn, and serve residents in a personal and empathetic way. Our AI reinforces that sense of community belonging by tailoring content, predicting needs, and simplifying daily living.
4. Training and Culture: As our team grows, we instill our mission into our company culture. Every team member, from engineers to customer support, understands that our technology exists to build connections, not just transactions.
5. Community Feedback Loops: We regularly engage residents, property managers, and owners for feedback and feature requests. Their voice ensures we stay grounded in real-world needs rather than drifting toward tech for tech’s sake.

As we scale to tens of thousands of units, our challenge — and our commitment — is to grow without losing the community heartbeat that makes Be Belong different. That mission is not just a statement; it’s our blueprint.

Looking ahead, what impact do you hope BeBelong will have on the real estate industry and the way people experience living?

Looking ahead, I see Be Belong reshaping real estate economics and the human experience of living. We aim to help the industry move beyond traditional property management into a model where buildings become thriving ecosystems — places where technology and community intersect to create real value for residents and owners.

From a property owner’s perspective, we aim to redefine buildings as profit centers, where new revenue streams like AI-driven upsells, advertising, and digital services enhance Net Operating Income (NOI) without relying on rent increases. By automating repetitive tasks and leveraging AI insights, we envision an industry where operational costs decrease while resident satisfaction rises.

For residents, we hope to create more than just places to live; we want to foster environments where people feel connected, supported, and empowered. Whether through personalized content, seamless amenities, or the ability to transact and collaborate within their community, Be Belong is designed to make multifamily living smarter, simpler, and more meaningful.

Ultimately, our impact will be measured by how well we transform real estate into a people first, technology-powered experience, where belonging is as valuable as the property itself.