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Overwhelmed by the calls to keep up with the latest advances in AI in real estate?
There’s no need to be, Shawn Hill says.
Hill is the managing partner of August Hill, a firm that advises real estate companies on how to implement new technologies. At the Inman Connect real estate conference in Las Vegas, Hill and other experts laid out various ways that this new technology could modernize the industry — and how real estate professionals should be preparing for the shift.
For starters, Hill believes, it’s OK for agents to let the market figure out what works, rather than trying to stay on top of each new trend in AI.
“It’s really just looking at the companies that are in the space now — some of the big portals or some of the new startups here — and how they apply that technology to the applications you’re using every day,” Hill said.
In the meantime, here are five of the most promising potential applications of AI in real estate, according to Hill, Modwell CEO Jonathan Reisman and BryteLearn founder Jennifer Elia.
1. Instant 3-D home modeling
Digital listing photos obviously aren’t new, and even 3-D tours are now increasingly common on popular portals like Zillow.
But advances in AI technology may someday take this to a whole new level.
Sellers could stage their homes digitally as well as physically, turning images of their home quickly into full-scale 3-D models that could give buyers a better window into the home’s potential.
It’s a type of tech that companies like Nvidia and Modwell are constantly refining, Reisman said. And it could become the next big thing in staging.
2. Modernized mortgages
Ultimately, Hill isn’t completely sold on the idea that we’re in the midst of a new wave of AI products that will transform every industry.
Investors have seen AI hype cycles come and go for well over a decade, with little to show for it in the past, he pointed out.
But some of the advances in generative AI do open up new possibilities. And one of those is the potential for streamlining the mortgage process and making it less of an obstacle for buyers — and their agents.
“I think after this cycle here, you’re going to see mortgage much more tightly integrated with the transaction, and AI will just help mortgages happen faster, cheaper, more efficient,” Hill said.
3. A more integrated tech stack
Elia said she believes AI will inevitably be leveraged to address one of real estate agents’ greatest pain points: the often-scattered and chaotic tech stack.
It’s a tall order, but any tool that could help agents operate these disparate platforms more seamlessly is well worth a look, she said.
“I think that we’re going to see that AI is going to come in and have everything talk to each other very beautifully,” Elia said. “I think it’s going to get more transparent. I think it’s going to get easier to use.”
4. Data compiled from contracts
AI could also be used to gather tough-to-compile information in one place, essentially creating new datasets that didn’t exist before.
Real estate contracts, for example, are a rich potential data source — provided we had the resources to extract meaningful and accurate information from them.
Hill’s former employer, Docusign, had been working on this general type of functionality a few years back, he said. If it were perfected, it could provide valuable information to agents writing future contract offers.
“I think that would be really interesting, the way that data is taken out of static documents and used either for offers or contracts moving forward, land purchasing, valuation,” Hill said.
