ChatGPT and Real Estate:
Joining the slew of “ChatGPT and …” content, we now have “ChatGPT and Real Estate” articles and videos emerging to tell us how real estate agents are using the technology to quickly and automatically generate listings (see, for example, Matthew Rothstein’s ChatGPT Is Already Affecting How Real Estate Business Is Done).
The ‘Dutch Tulip Bulb Mania Bubble‘ story cautions us not to let the hype endanger the underlying true value of the technology, although that story may itself be an example of over-hype.
In How ChatGPT could change commercial real estate, Pat Ralph notes that some commercial real estate firms are using ChatGPT to help with tasks such as scheduling meetings and providing information about properties. Real estate broker Filippo Incorvaia, who does not have much knowledge about poultry, used ChatGPT for a commercial client who was in the poultry business. Before ChatGPT, he would have to do hours of research on the poultry industry. With ChatGPT, he can find the information he needs within five minutes.
Ira Zlotowitz, of on-line real estate brokerage Gparency, states ChatGPT is being incorporated into Gparency to provide customers with information such as property listings and bank lenders. He thinks ChatGPT will change the world as we know it.
Samantha Murphy Kelly tells us Real estate agents say they can’t imagine working without ChatGPT now. She tells us of JJ Johannes, a realtor listing a four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom home in a quiet cul-de-sac in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Johannes used ChatGPT to help create a listing on Zillow, saying, “It saved me so much time. It’s not perfect but it was a great starting point.” Some residential and commercial agents say it has already changed the way they work, from writing listings, social media posts, drafting legal documents, performing complex calculations.
Samantha Murphy Kelly tells us Real estate agents say they can’t imagine working without ChatGPT now. Andres Asion, a broker from the Miami Real Estate Group, tells a story about using ChatGPT to help with a client problems. The client couldn’t open the windows in a house she had just moved into, and the developer didn’t respond to her emails. Asion ran a copy of one of them through ChatGPT, asking it to rewrite it with an emphasis on the liability implications.
The developer showed up at the house.
Asion has also used ChatGPT to draft legal documents, saying “I fine-tune all kinds of drafts with ChatGPT. It gives you so many samples to pick and edit from.”
Kelly also writes about Frank Trelles, a commercial real estate agent at State Street Realty in Miami. He uses ChatGPT to look up the permitted uses for land and zones, and to calculate mortgage payments and return on investment. Trelles said “I can be in a car with a client when they ask me what their mortgage payments might be. I can ask ChatGPT what a mortgage payment would be on a $14 million purchase at a 7.2% interest rate amortized over 25 years with two origination points at closing, and in two seconds, it gives me that information. It also explains how it got the answer.”
Zillow
Zillow’s new AI-powered tool finds your perfect home with one sentence tells us that Zillow is also getting in on the action. According to the article, buyers can type in phrases such as “$700,000 homes in Charlotte with a backyard” or “open house near me with four bedrooms” to search for properties. Jenny Arden, Zillow’s chief design officer, states, “Beyond easy-to-filter criteria like bedrooms and bathrooms, buyers are considering many other specific features that match their unique lifestyle.”
ChatGPT and Real Estate: Beware the Hype
Nick Pipitone points out that there are limitations in ChatGPT’s Awe-Inspiring Real Estate Uses Have Plenty of Limitations, Too.
In a section appropriately entitled “Beyond the hype,” Pipitone brings up many of ChatGPT’s limitations. ChatGPT still falls short as an expert in niche areas. It doesn’t have access to the broader internet, or to data after 2021. It has a tendency to come across as confident even when it’s wrong.
Some compare ChatGPT to an over-eager intern that works quickly and efficiently but still requires supervision.
ChatGPT is a useful tool that obviously cannot completely replace the real estate professional, yet. However, GPT-4 is in the works, which will undoubtedly be more accurate and nuanced. Perhaps soon the over-eager intern will graduate to department head.
