Key takeaways
- AI in real estate is used for marketing, number crunching, management, and calculating business decisions.
- Pros of real estate AI are content creation, analytical data, and advanced search capabilities.
- Cons of real estate AI are costs, inaccuracy, user error, and morality concerns.
- The most common types of real estate AI include generative AI, predictive analytics, and computer vision.
In recent years, AI has rapidly changed the proptech industry. AI has entered the public consciousness like never before, thanks to software such as ChatGPT. For property managers, developers, and investors, artificial intelligence in real estate will change the real estate landscape in new and exciting ways. However, there’s a lot of confusion about the impact that AI has on the real estate industry.
In this post, we’ll review how AI is being used in real estate. Next, we’ll go over the pros and cons of real estate AI and how this relates to you. Finally, we’ll give our expert opinion on where AI is going next in real estate.
This post covers:
- How is AI being used for real estate?
- What are the benefits of AI in real estate?
- What are the risks of AI in real estate?
- Artificial intelligence in real estate FAQs
- What form of AI is most commonly used in real estate?
- What is the projection for AI in real estate?
How is AI being used for real estate?
AI does a number of tasks much faster than a real estate investor, realtor, or property manager can.
Artificial intelligence (AI) in real estate is primarily being used for:
- Marketing. AI promotes properties and manages listings.
- Research. AI completes extensive research across a large database of properties in a matter of minutes.
- People management. Property managers use AI to post rental listings and answer questions that tenants may have.
- Data management. AI uses predictive analytics to compare historical property and neighborhood data that helps developers and investors make informed decisions.
- Security. Video cameras, access control, and other security solutions incorporate AI to capture and prevent criminal activity.
As a result, there’s specific AI for real estate investments, AI for real estate companies, and even AI for commercial and multifamily property managers.
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What are the benefits of AI in real estate?
The pros of AI are numerous when used responsibly and accurately.
The benefits of real estate AI are:
- Fast property research saves time and, therefore, money.
- Information on numerous properties at once.
- Advanced property search features.
- Data-driven investment projections.
- Automated property management.
- Market insight and suggestions.
What are the risks of AI in real estate?
The cons of AI in real estate are concerning, however, they are overcome with advancing technology and education on how to properly use AI.
The risks of real estate AI are:
- Expensive upfront costs.
- Training is required to master the use of AI.
- Some jobs may be at risk.
- The quality of certain tasks will be of lesser quality if users are not trained properly.
- The accuracy of data is questionable.
- No human understanding or creativity.
Artificial intelligence in real estate FAQs
Can AI replace realtors?
While AI performs many aspects of a realtor’s job, it will never replace realtors. This is because AI can’t replace a realtor’s intuition, judgment, and experience in their role. While AI discovers and lists properties for sale that meet a buyer or seller’s criteria, AI cannot match the context of a seller’s search and other nuances that might be involved.
For example, AI cannot properly consider a seller hoping to find a property in which to raise their children. Additionally, AI is also not very effective at negotiating. In short, AI is missing the human element that realtors have.
Is there free AI software?
There is plenty of free AI for real estate available online.
Free AI software includes:
- Epique. This offers real estate agents several content creation tools, such as AI-generated email formatting and Instagram quotes.
- Valpal. This is software that generates property descriptions for agents looking to sell and property managers trying to list vacant units.
- Where To. This software is your ticket to free location data that uses AI to research the best places to develop, purchase, or otherwise invest in property.
Additionally, most AI software offers free trials. As a result, if you are only planning on using real estate AI software a handful of times, then this might be a useful trick.
Can AI own property?
No, AI cannot own, buy, or sell property. Additionally, you cannot ask AI to buy property for you. However, you can use AI to help you find the best property to buy.
How does Zillow use AI?
Zillow uses an AI-powered natural language search feature. It’s designed to scan numerous listings in its database that match specific search criteria and determine the best candidates for a user’s inquiry.
What form of AI is most commonly used in real estate?
Common types of AI software in real estate are:
Generative AI
Generative AI is the most commonly used form of real estate AI. One of the best examples of generative AI is for real estate listings. This software auto-generates a description of a property, which a seller then may tweak with a finishing touch.
Generative AI is also used for creating:
- Property search criteria.
- Marketing content such as advertisements, blogs, and captions.
- Official documents.
- Summaries of large quantities of data.
- Architectural designs.
- Property maps.
Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics in real estate are extraordinarily useful for real estate investors. They utilize AI to analyze and crunch the historical data of properties and similar properties, as well as entire neighborhoods and regions. Additionally, predictive analytics allow you to gauge what a property will be worth years from now. While the real estate market will never be predicted with 100% accuracy, predictive analytics give you the next best thing.
Computer vision
Computer vision is when AI analyzes an image (often a satellite image) and makes a property evaluation based on what it sees. The more images of a specific property that are fed to the AI, the more accurate an evaluation that you will receive. Computer vision AI can be used to analyze entire neighborhoods. Conclusively, computer vision provides mostly accurate appraisals for both buyers and sellers.
AI chatbots
AI chatbots communicate with the residents of a multifamily building or buyers interested in learning more about a property. Resultingly, they are programmed with numerous hypothetical questions and their corresponding answers. AI chatbots are also fed data for other possible questions that someone may ask. As a result, they are incredibly useful for answering a user’s basic questions without having to waste a human operator’s time.
What is the projection for AI in real estate?
As shown above, AI is projected to continue growing as a trend for the foreseeable future. At the present time, AI is only going to continue to evolve. Additionally, real estate and proptech professionals like ourselves must become comfortable with AI and learn how to use it effectively. Instead of fearing that AI is coming for our jobs, we should learn how to use AI to perform at higher levels that were previously unattainable.
Additionally, for multifamily and commercial properties, AI should be paired with the latest in property technology, such as the ButterflyMX access control system.
