Real estate sites use AI to offer cutting-edge listing searches. And lenders use artificial intelligence when sizing up an applicant’s financial strength. Tech-focused online lenders employ AI to help them approve or reject loan applications right away. Additionally, AI can automate various business tasks, thereby reducing the risk of fraud.
But can AI manage a real estate deal? Not exactly. You can already use ChatGPT-enabled chatbots to review the public data on markets, specific homes and tours, and mortgage rates. But AI is a tool for real people — not a replacement for them.
AI Advantages for Sellers and for Buyers
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology involves training computers. The more data goes in, the more raw material the computers have to sift through in order to detect trends, and produce predictions. By processing large amounts of data, computers get better at automating key functions.
AI can boost people’s creativity too. For example, it can show what redesigns could look like. This gives sellers new, virtual staging tools to show off homes in their best light — literally.
And what about buyers? AI can pick the right terms and images to help a home get seen by a good number of potential buyers in a given area. AI tools could focus buyers’ attention on areas they’d have never thought to explore. When they find desirable listings, generative AI, 3D tours, and digital twins of properties let hopeful buyers use get a feel for a home remotely, using a phone or tablet. Buyers, with AI’s assistance, can size up rooms and generate decorating ideas.
So, AI, could help buyers find homes for sale that match certain images, ideas, or life goals — not just square footage and monthly cost predictions.
AI Use by Real Estate Companies
Zillow® unveiled its famous Zestimate in 2006. Over the recent decade, advancements in artificial intelligence have reshaped this tool.
Now nicknamed Neural Zestimate, Zillow’s tool it can take in raw data and respond to listing activity and market movements. It can give good estimates for homes currently on or off the market. It can search public records and sales data, and make predictions. It can mesh time and location data with floor plan and property features to estimate sale prices.
With millions of sales, the tool keeps getting more cost-effective, more proficient, and more fine-tuned. The Neural Zestimate does it all — no more need for many models to train and run.
Redfin’s on it, too. As we reported last year, Redfin and Zillow both work with the ChatGPT company OpenAI to put generative AI to work, offering their customers cutting-edge search capabilities. Appraisers are already using predictions from Redfin® and Zillow, as well as RealScout for property valuation and insights for forecasting value, The Washingtonian heard from Aaron Nichols from McEnearney Associates in McLean, Virginia.
Investors, agencies, and financial analysts… All are using AI-driven market forecasts to help them buy at the right price, and to catch potential advantages when selling. For example, generative AI can help an owner understand potential return on investment for a given upgrade project.
AI Makes Agents Better Informed, More Effective
So, will AI transform home selling? Slowly but surely, it already does. But AI as a game-changer, not a job-destroyer. A human can sense nuances about the buyer’s and seller’s motivations that AI still doesn’t.
ChatGPT can create marketing text and graphics, articles, scripts, and listing content. Agents use AI to boost their language proficiency, to create remote tours, or to assess local markets. And then they apply the human touch. It’s still needed and always will be.
Please note: This article is provided for the reader’s general information. Readers with individualized questions should consult a local real estate professional.
Supporting References
Reid Johnson for Zillow, Inc: AI, Machine Learning, and Research – Building the Neural Zestimate (Feb. 23 2023).
Sheila Yasmin Marikar for The New Yorker (part of Condé Nast): Has Great Potential Meet Your A.I. Realtor (Nov. 27, 2023).
Jeremy Bowman for The Motley Fool: AI In Real Estate – How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing the Real Estate Market (updated Nov. 14, 2023).
And as linked.
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