Real estate agents and other professionals in their industry are in the business of selling good old-fashioned solid bricks and mortar. But that doesn’t mean their jobs aren’t impacted by new technology.
Digitization, the internet, and more recent trends like drone photography and virtual reality have all made a big impact. But bigger changes could be on the horizon as agents, appraisers, investors and mortgage brokers race to benefit from the opportunities of generative AI.
A recent McKinsey report estimates that the hottest tech trend of moment could generate up to $180 billion in value for the real estate industry. This means that it’s inevitable that the roles of professionals will change as they adopt new working practices and learn to augment their abilities with new, generative tools. With this in mind, lets take a look at some of the changes that we can expect to see.
Generative AI And The Real Estate Business
Generative AI has the potential to transform many of the day-to-day tasks carried out by real estate professionals. For example, it can quickly generate property descriptions and listings to entice potential buyers. This could involve using computer vision to analyze photographs, floor plans or even video captured by drones and translating them into written descriptions. These descriptions can even be personalized to appeal to individual customers.
If a property doesn’t exist yet because it’s still being built, then AI could create images to show to off-plan buyers or even VR/ AR environments to demonstrate buildings via three-dimensional walkthroughs.
Chatbots can assist with customer service, taking care of basic and questions from potential buyers, as well as automatically scheduling tours and viewings.
Property brokers and investors will benefit from using generative AI to analyze market trends and property values, providing data insights into investment opportunities in natural language. Generative AI will also analyze documents to automate many of the repetitive tasks necessary for due diligence and risk assessment.
Those whose jobs involve appraisal and valuation will spend less time gathering and analyzing information as generative AI automates the process of identifying comparable properties and other factors that will influence property prices. This will augment the abilities of the automated valuation models (AVMs) that are widely used today, making them more powerful and accessible. Apps like Zillow are already available that can provide property price estimates based on photographs and data such as location and square footage.
Mortgage brokers will streamline the process of dealing with loan applications by automating administrative tasks involved with underwriting and assessing applicants’ eligibility, as well as detecting fraudulent applications. It will also help brokers to offer more personalized loans tailored to fit their clients’ requirements.
Ethical Considerations
Access to housing and equitable housing markets is important to society, which is why many governments implement stringent legislation around the buying and selling of property. Real estate agents, brokers and other industry professionals must be aware that they will be accountable if using generative AI puts them in breach of local laws and regulations.
When using AI for marketing purposes, care must be taken to avoid the dangers that can be caused by biased data. This is particularly important when carrying out checks such as affordability assessments, where bias present in training data could have negative social consequences.
When AI is used to make decisions that can impact the lives of customers, then care must be taken to protect personal data, as well as ensure they consent to it being used. Use of generative AI should be transparent so buyers and prospective buyers know how decisions are being made.
Additionally, when AI-generated visuals and other content are used to market properties, it should be made clear that what a potential customer is looking at is not the real thing!
Trust and integrity are vitally important when marketing what may be the most important purchase of their customers’ lives, so professionals in this space must always prioritize ethics, transparency and accountability.
The Role Of Real Estate Professionals In An AI-Driven World
With generative AI increasingly handling routine and analytics-based tasks, real estate agents, appraisers, brokers and marketers will find their focus shifting towards higher-value, strategic responsibilities.
Professionals who prioritize developing human-to-human skills such as communication, customer-centric problem-solving and relationship-building will find they are more in demand than ever.
So too will those who develop an aptitude for leveraging and working alongside AI tools in order to become more efficient at day-to-day aspects of their work.
As in other professions, while some jobs may be lost – entry-level customer service roles, for example, are predicted to be at particular risk – new ones are likely to be created. These are might include prompt engineers who can configure generative AI tools to do the required work, and technology integrators who will identify use cases and procure solutions.
The fact remains, however, that real estate industry is highly competition-driven. Career progression is frequently determined by the ability to generate sales and close deals more effectively than competitors.
It’s this reason, above all else, that means generative AI will quickly become an important tool in the professional toolbox, and those that learn to adapt and leverage them are likely to emerge as winners.
