All Forum Posts by: Harvey Gill

I was scouring subreddits of the real estate industry:

Lot of people have pointed out that they use Chatgpt to  answer general questions about the real estate market. For example, questions about the city, what  is popular in the city, etc. 

The problem occurs if they want to ask questions about a specific property. I believe the upcoming AI agents will find ways to access the data to provide info about the specific properties. It will also be able to answer queries about rent comparables, projected price growth in a year, and more .This will be a game changer for investors, homebuyers and even realtors.

Let me know what you think ? 

Saw an article recently (link below) highlighting how a real estate brokerage is leveraging AI to find homes for clients and achieving significant results.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/first-ever-ai-real-estate

While this specific case is from the brokerage's perspective, it raises an interesting question: Could AI become a powerful tool directly for consumers looking for homes?

Think about a dedicated AI "digital expert" focused on the buyer's needs. One common complaint in real estate is the difficulty in getting timely responses or feeling like your specific needs aren't fully understood by busy agents.

How would this work: 

I presume one would search for properties and then can ask follow up questions to an ai agent about a property. Essentially, having an ai agent realtor on call. 

Let me know what you think ? 

The way we search for real estate is evolving beyond the typical process on Zillow, which usually involves searching a city and applying filters. Now, we can articulate complex needs through descriptive queries like: "Find 3-bed homes priced around $1.3 million near USC in Southern California," or "Locate San Diego properties under $1.2 million that include a basement with its entrance." This returns specific addresses to view and potentially enables further interaction with follow-up questions, mimicking the guidance received from a realtor more closely than Zillow's filter-based system.

This is similar to how we search on Google and use ChatGPT. It is also how we describe ourselves to our realtor or friends when we need guidance.

Moreover, some investors would like to search based on markets rather than look for a specific property. They can search about a market and receive an answer instantly rather than looking at graphs or viewing countless real estate data sites. As investors are viewing properties there will be a chatbot that they can answer questions such as what are the rent comparables, and how is the neighborhood like all in one platform.

This is what the future of home search will be as the technology advances.

Do you use any tools ? Do you rely on Zillow ? 

I've been thinking a lot lately about the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into the front end of our business – identifying potential deals and doing that initial analysis before deciding if something is worth a deeper dive.

We all juggle different platforms (MLS, Zillow, Redfin, LoopNet, maybe specialized tools?), spreadsheets, market reports, city data, etc. It feels like a constant cycle of filtering, cross-referencing, calculating, and trying to connect the dots.

It got me wondering about efficiency and whether there's a smarter way. Imagine if you could skip some of the tedious filtering and data hunting. What if finding specific opportunities or getting quick answers was as simple as just... asking?

For example, instead of setting up complex filters across multiple sites, just asking: "Show me duplexes under $300k in Austin's 78704 zip code that likely need rehab but could cash flow post-renovation."

Or after finding a property, immediately asking: "What are the recent comps for similar renovated properties?" or "What's the average rent trend in this neighborhood for a 3/2?" or "Is this property in an opportunity zone?"

This leads me to a couple of questions for the community, as I'm curious about other's process:

1. What's your go-to method/tool stack right now for finding potential investment properties? (e.g., MLS alerts, specific software, wholesaler lists, driving for dollars, networking, specific websites?)
2. When you're filtering or searching, what are the top 3-5 specific criteria you find yourself using most often? (Beyond beds/baths/price - think cap rate targets, cash-on-cash goals, keywords like "fixer-upper" or "turnkey," specific locations/neighbourhoods, zoning, etc.)
3. Once you identify a potentially interesting property, what are the first few critical questions you need answered to decide if it's worth pursuing further? (e.g., ARV, estimated rehab costs, rent comps, market vacancy rates, days on market trends?)
4. What's the biggest time-sink or frustration point for you in this initial search and analysis phase?

Really interested to hear how others are tackling this. 

I have been wondering a lot about this question. Do we as buyers and sellers need real estate agents especially now the in the age of AI.
The buyer's agent mainly finds properties, books appointments, view homes with the clients, negotiates, and may recommend people for closing, inspection etc. As homebuyers I do think AI can help us find properties that we are interested in much faster and the buyer can book the appointments. Most realtors find properties by scouring the MLS and if we citizens get access to MLS I believe lot of people won't be hirng realtors.

Viewing home should be basic and inspector should be able to asses the property in a deeper level. Negotiating may be the hardest part, but giving someone 1 % of the value of the property is too much for just that task. One may argue that buyer's agent is their emotional guide and gives them direction. That is true but is it worth the cost. 

The seller's agent  seems bit harder to me ,but most realtors i have spoken to say the opposite. 
The task of marketing the property and creating demand seems hard, but most properties sell based on their location anyways. I slightly understand why most realtors say buyer's job is harder.  

Please let me know what you think 

Last few years real estate market has been suffering so I thought it’s a great time to buy . I did what most people do hire a realtor and I started to view properties on Zillow and realtor.ca

First, I hated finding properties on these real estate websites because it was time consuming. I would filter out the properties based on my geographic criteria, price, bedrooms, etc and some other factors such as proximity to transportation networks and parks.

Then there would be around 50 properties left and I would have to look at them individually and eventually narrow it down and send it to my realtor so he can book them. Also, in the process of narrowing down properties. I needed to do comparative analysis for each property. As you can imagine this took a long time.

Especially, in today’s world with ai agents surfing the web it should take around 20 minutes of my time while the agent does all of this grunt work. While I conducting my real estate research I also started to see if ai agents can do these tasks and I was surprised at how well they can find properties. So I made theprophunt.com . An ai agent that can find properties based on your queries such as I need home in Vancouver ,BC for $3 million with 4 beds and a nice view of a park . It will do its best to find properties that match your query.

There’s no reason why we would search for properties by filtering rather than using natural language like how we search on Google . That’s why I got rid of filtering.

Please do not abuse my agent since costs add up from those api calls but I have added ways to discourage you from abusing it.

You may also be wondering what was my real estate agent doing . He did is job well but I felt he was unnecessary. I could have easily found a property, booked, negotiated , and closed with the help of real estate lawyer. Only reason I had to hire him was that realtors get first view on properties post on MLS. He merely viewed MLS and booked appointments for me . A few properties I viewed properties by myself. I do see buyers agent losing their jobs faster than the selling agent.

Please let me know what you think about AI in real estate and my scenario