CNN
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If you’ve come across a four bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home that recently came up for sale on a quiet cul-de-sac in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you might not think twice about listing it online. It included typical real estate Descriptions like “great for entertaining” and “plenty of space to relax.”
but JJ Johannes, the agent for the home, created the description in less than five seconds by entering a few keywords into ChatGPT, a viral new AI chatbot tool that can generate sophisticated responses to user input. It’s a task, he said, that would otherwise have taken him an hour or more to write alone.
“It saved me so much time,” Johannes told CNN, noting that he made a few tweaks and changes to ChatGPT’s work before publishing it. “It’s not perfect, but it was a great starting point. My background is in technology and it takes time to write something eloquent. That made it so much easier.”
Johannes is one of the real estate agents Experimenting with ChatGPT since it was released in late November. Some residential and commercial representatives told CNN that the way they work has already changed, from writing lists and social media posts to drafting legal documents. It could also be used to automate repetitive tasks like answering frequently asked questions and performing complex calculations.
ChatGPT is trained on huge amounts of online data to generate responses to user input. It has written original essays, stories, song lyrics, and research summaries that have fooled some scientists. Some CEOs have used it to write emails or do accounting work. It even passed an exam at an Ivy League school. (However, it has raised some concerns about its potential to enable fraud and its inaccuracies.)
In less than two months ChatGPT has sparked discussions about its potential to disrupt various industries, from publishing to law. But it’s already having a noticeable impact on how a number of real estate agents across the country get their jobs done — where much of the paperwork can be formulaic and time-consuming — to a degree that some can’t imagine working without it.
“I’ve been using it for over a month and I can’t remember the last time I was so impressed by something,” said Andres Asion, a realtor with Miami Real Estate Group.
Recently, a customer approached Asion with a problem: the woman had moved into a shell house and could not open her windows. She had been trying to contact the developer for months with no response. Asion ran a copy of one of their emails through ChatGPT and asked that it be rewritten with an emphasis on the liability implications.
“ChatGPT wrote it as a legal issue and suddenly the developer showed up at her house,” he said.
Asion has also used the tool to draft legally binding addendums and other documents and send them to attorneys for approval. “I refine all kinds of drafts using ChatGPT,” he said. “Sometimes I tell him to make it shorter or funnier, and it gives you so many samples to choose from and edit.”
ChatGPT is free for now, but OpenAI, The company behind it is reportedly considering a monthly fee of $42. Asion said “it’s not even a question” he would pay for access. “I would easily pay $100 or $200 a year for something like this,” he said. “I’d be crazy if I didn’t.”
Frank Trelles, a commercial real estate agent at State Street Realty in Miami, said he would also pay to continue using the tool, which has already impacted his business. “As soon as I tried it, I was convinced,” he said. “I signed up for a package thinking it would cost at least $100 a month and was blown away that it was free. However, nothing in this world comes for free – and that made me a little nervous.”
Trelles said he uses ChatGPT to look up the allowable uses for specific lots and zones in Miami-Dade County and calculate what a client’s mortgage payments or return on investment might be, which usually involves formulas and mortgage calculators.
“I can sit in the car with a customer if they ask me what their mortgage payments might be,” Trelles said. “I can ask ChatGPT what the mortgage payment would be on a $14 million purchase at a 7.2% interest rate advertised over 25 years with two origination points at close and in two seconds I’ll get it this information. It also explains how it received the answer. It is wonderful.”
However, there are some limitations. For example, the tool previously struggled with some basic math problems. Trelles said it’s helpful for approximations on the go, not exact numbers.
Serge Reda, a senior commercial real estate executive and associate professor at the Fordham Real Estate Institute, said some use cases for ChatGPT are better than others. ChatGPT can help brokers save time when writing offers or responses, but automating customer responses might not be the best tactic as generating leads and closing deals usually requires a personalized approach.
“It’s now accessible to everyone because it’s free and they can get a taste of how this powerful tool can work. But there are definitely significant limitations,” he said.
While ChatGPT has generated a surge of interest from real estate agents, The inclusion of artificial intelligence in the real estate market is not entirely new. For example, listing site Zillow has used AI for 3D mapping, creating automatic floor plans, and for its Zestimate tool, which can scan images to see if a home has hardwood floors or stainless steel appliances so its price estimate better reflects market conditions. Earlier this week, Zillow introduced an AI feature that would allow potential buyers to perform searches in a more natural language (something Google has long mastered).
Matt Kreamer, a spokesman for Zillow, said the real estate industry has been slower to innovate, but “I think we’re going to see much bigger progress very soon.” He said Zilov sees no clear concerns about agents using ChatGPT to streamline the work they are already doing and save time.
“We’re not promoting or weary of ChatGPT, we care about how it’s being used and watch it,” he said.
While it’s still too early to tell if the tool will become a mainstay in real estate, real estate agent Johannes believes AI will transform his tool in general industry and others.
“It may not be with ChatGPT,” he said, “but I believe that some form of artificial intelligence like this will become a big part of how we work and live our lives.”
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