Artificial intelligence plays an ever-increasing role in modern business, and real estate is no exception. More and more, agents are leaning on AI to automate interaction with clients, write listing copy, stage homes digitally and even polish headshots and marketing materials.

Laura Fitzpatrick of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate in Wilmette was hesitant at first to try AI. She ultimately took the plunge after reading about ChatGPT’s capabilities on the administrative end and has been very satisfied with the results.

“It’s been wildly helpful in streamlining some of my administrative work,” she said. “Most frequently, we’re using ChatGPT. One of the keys to the unique platforms is helping it learn your brand, which is what we’ve established with ChatGPT. I’ll use it to write social media captions, draft home descriptions and brainstorm ideas for client newsletters.”

In a January 2024 Delta Media Group survey of more than 130 leading brokerages and affiliates nationwide, nearly 80% of respondents reported that their agents had already adopted AI technology and that 75% of those agents were using those tools. Crafting property listings was the most commonly reported use, at 82%. Marketing materials followed, with generating emails, blog posts and letters at 60%; creating website content at 44%; and composing personal bios at 43%.

Justin Greenberg of the JG Group at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago was an early adopter of ChatGPT. He began experimenting with using the app to generate listings when it first became available, and he was immediately impressed with its time-saving capabilities.

“I would get up at, like, 5 a.m. when I would have a new listing that would have to go in,” Greenberg said. “I needed to spend, like, three hours just working through and writing this creative listing description so that it’s unique and different. And then I started using ChatGPT, and I was, like, ‘Wait, I can do this in a minute, and I can tweak it and edit it, and overall it takes me maybe 10-15 minutes.’ That was a few years ago, and I’ve just been fascinated ever since with the capabilities and the ever-growing and expanding capabilities of AI. They just seem to keep getting better and better.”

Tony Mattar of Chicago Crib at COMPASS considers himself an early adopter of tech, so trying ChatGPT was very natural to him.

“As a millennial who’s been in the industry for 10 years, I’ve already seen a lot of different changes in the way that we conduct our business and the different tools that we use,” he said. “I would just consider myself to be kind of an early adopter and unafraid to try new things, test out different types of lead generation and that kind of stuff. For me, it just feels like a natural fit to try a new tool.”

Expanding AI use

Greenberg upgraded to the paid version of ChatGPT after seeing its capabilities, unlocking much of the app’s potential to generate content and integrate with other programs such as Captions, which generates text for videos. That app’s AI capabilities have grown increasingly sophisticated, Greenberg said.

“Just a couple weeks ago I used it to create my own AI clone,” Greenberg said. “Now I’ve started to actually generate some videos using ChatGPT to create a script, uploading it into Captions, recording the entire video and then doing a full edit with my voice, my image and likeness, putting images in the background and doing the captions on the video. I can create a 45-second video in three minutes without having to do anything.”

Fitzpatrick uses AI primarily on the back end of her business, going beyond listings to provide neighborhood information for her clients.

“AI has greatly helped me in thinking of all facets of my neighborhood guides on my website,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ll generate exhaustive lists of all restaurants, school information and happenings to then build into my blog posts and neighborhood guides, ultimately adding more value for my clients.

“I do like to use virtual staging for vacant photos when real-life staging is not an option,” she continued. “Virtually staged photos can help give customers ideas on how to furnish a vacant home and make the photos more appealing.”

Mattar is another proponent of virtual staging. He pointed out that although virtual staging has been around for some time, turnaround time for virtually staged images used to take one to three business days. In one case, he used virtual staging AI to add furniture to balcony images when all the real-life furniture had to be removed for facade work. The job was done almost instantly.

“That has obviously changed when using a virtual staging AI tool,” he said. “Now it’s a little bit more in my control, and I can dictate multiple iterations and/or tweaks on the spot, versus hoping that the person who’s on the other end of the line on the virtual staging is going to capture my vision from a decor standpoint, or from a placement standpoint of different items and things like that.”

Mattar’s use of AI has also gone beyond writing listings to developing and writing new email and drip campaigns for various target audiences, whether they are open-house visitors or groups who fit within specific niches.

“For example, everyone in your sphere who has children, who lives in the city of Chicago or even something as niche as people who are pet owners, and (I put) them on different drip campaigns to stay in touch and highlight things that are particularly of interest to that subset of people,” he said. “There are also broader applications, like past clients in general, or people who live within a specific neighborhood. So, giving ChatGPT certain prompts and directives of what you’re looking for it to produce is the way to quickly get something that you can maybe use the human element to edit or proofread or whatnot.”

Maintaining the human element

One of the common criticisms of AI is that it removes the human touch from business transactions. Fitzpatrick believes that is not necessarily true in real estate, especially because AI requires an editor.

“AI is absolutely not a replacement for people,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a way to get our jobs done faster so we can be more efficient. While there are so many upsides to AI, one of the watch-outs is to not trust everything it says. It’s not always 100% accurate. Since I only use AI on the back end of my business, I believe it only improves relationships. Since I’m able to streamline some of my administrative tasks, I have more time to connect with my clients and build relationships.”

Mattar feels he isn’t losing any of the human element. He uses AI for tasks that he would ordinarily delegate to other members of his team, who also wouldn’t have the same relationship with his clients.

“I firmly believe that what really separates the high-producing, the high-performing brokers is their ability to connect with their sphere of influence and to have interpersonal relationships that result in repeat business referrals,” Mattar said. “And also being a focal point within their own community and being looked to as a trusted advisor, point of referrals for other services and vendors, and the care with which we cultivate the relationships with our clients and our friends and our family, and all of that stuff. I feel like being able to save myself time during the day is allowing me to be that much more plugged in with my network and that much more connected.”

Greenberg sees AI as a tool that frees him from some of the more time-consuming aspects of working in real estate, and it enables him to work on face-to-face relationships with his clients.

“I think, if anything, it enhances the interactions,” Greenberg said. “I think it enables me to spend more time sitting face-to-face and having conversations with my clients, and in some sense, knowing more about them, by utilizing the AI to learn quicker, to be able to engage quicker. I don’t think there’s a drawback. I don’t think it’s interfering or hurting those interactions. I think it’s just enhancing them.”

“It does free up a lot of time,” he added. “I mean, I would sit for hours doing marketing and trying to come up with ideas and trying to come up with listing descriptions that were not just, ‘It’s a two-bedroom, two-bath condo in this great building with full amenities,’ or, ‘Great house in a nice neighborhood close to the schools.’ And it’s like, how many boring listing descriptions can you write?”

Agents who are reluctant to try AI should just try it, Greenberg said. “People come up to me all the time when I’m talking about it, and they’re like, ‘Can you show me?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s so easy. Just try it. Start with ChatGPT. It’s the simplest, most straightforward, least threatening tool in terms of AI. And it’s so impressive.’”

Fitzpatrick recommends agents ask questions of the platform.

“If you don’t know how to use it, ask the platform what information it needs to deliver what you want,” she said. “Treat the AI platform like a person, and you’ll be surprised how well you can converse.”

Mattar advises agents to transition to using AI in order not to be left behind by their peers.

“I would say there’s no reason to be afraid of trying any new technology, whether it’s AI or something else,” Mattar said. “I think any industry, but real estate in particular, is very driven by early adopters of new and upcoming technologies. The more willing you are to try and learn and grow, the better you’re going to be able to help new generations of consumers that already have these tools on their radar.”

EXPERT SOURCES

Laura Fitzpatrick,
@properties Christie’s International Real Estate

Justin Greenberg,
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago

Tony Mattar,
COMPASS