Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Time marches on, and so does the sophistication of the technologies we use in our everyday lives like AI. Whether they’re for personal use or those we leverage in our professional endeavors, new software technologies like artificial intelligence are getting smarter, stronger, and more ubiquitous every day.
The real estate industry is no exception, either – the use of AI has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. But how, exactly is AI revolutionizing the real estate market? What can you, as a real estate professional, look forward to as this technology continues to evolve? Let’s take a look.
AI might sound like a sci-fi concept, but the truth is that it the real estate industry has already leveraged artificial intelligence technologies to a huge extent. The world-famous “Zestimate” from industry-giant Zillow is a prime example of how AI has already made a major impact on the way the real estate world functions, the core function of which has come a long way since its inception in 2006.
While it still may not be entirely accurate, the use of machine learning algorithms now sees Zillow tracking and analyzing the values of something close to 100 million homes in 2022. This is made possible by a recent update to how Zestimate works – instead of hundreds or even thousands of algorithms running at once and having to be integrated, now Zillow uses just a single neural network, and one that it says reduces its price estimate errors by a huge percentage.
Zillow is a great tool, and a well-known one, but it’s not exactly an exclusive one that realtors can leverage for their own ends. Yet AI and machine learning have the potential to impact the professional lives of real estate agents in other more direct and positive ways – and one of these ways is how artificial intelligence can help realtors save both time and effort, especially when it comes to solving issues related to the supply of homes for sale in the United States.
How does AI help resolve this issue? Simple – smart search algorithms that employ machine learning can parse lots of data that would otherwise take even a team of agents time and effort to research. Now, it’s easy to find out which homes are likely to be put up on the market soon simply by having an AI look for relevant data such as when homes were last sold, how long the current owner has been living there, and what rates homes in a specific area sell at. This beats knocking on doors by a wide margin!
Some real estate agents have grown afraid of artificial intelligence, as it’s understandable to have fears of being automated right out of a profession because an AI algorithm can find data quicker than any human can. But let’s be honest here: people buy and sell homes to and from other people, not algorithms. As a result, the human element of real estate is never going to go away. So instead of worrying about them, use these new technologies to help you do your job better!
