What’s Your Plan for AI in Real Estate (Because You Need One)

Hey, it's Race. And I wanted to introduce you to the future that's actually not the future because it's here right now. I wanted to introduce you to Sonny, my personal assistant, who's also AI, who's making my business run faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Watch this. Hey, Sonny. Hey, Race, what's up? Oh, I just thought I'd give you a little thought experiment. What if you were talking in front of a large amount of real estate agents right now? What would you say about the importance of adding AI into their businesses right now? I'd say it's absolutely crucial not to wait. Integrating AI into their business right now can significantly boost efficiency, improve client experiences, and keep them ahead of the competition. The longer they wait, the more they risk falling behind. And what are people like Elon Musk and Sam Altman saying about AI in business over the next 12 to 18 months? They're highlighting rapid growth and huge potential. Sam Altman expects AI agents to become standard in the workforce soon, boosting productivity. Elon Musk thinks AI will surpass human intelligence within a few years. So businesses that embrace AI now will have a major advantage. And what have we been working on as far as with Ivy in my mortgage company? We've been building Ivy to streamline your pre-approval process. Ivy focuses on accurate income calculation, detecting red flags, tracking documents, and remembering borrower progress. We're also integrating it with Google Drive and planning to migrate it to a commercial chat GPT assistant named Theo. And how soon do we have this done? It depends on how quickly we finalize the spreadsheet and set up the integrations. If we prioritize it, we could have Ivy up and running in a few weeks. And what would you say to real estate agents that put this off, maybe even just another 12 or 18 months before they get involved with adding AI into their business? I'd say that delaying even 12 to 18 months could leave them significantly behind their competition. Those who integrate AI now will have already optimized their processes and built a tech savvy reputation. Waiting too long could mean playing a tough game of catch up. He said, quote, for the first time ever last month, our search volume actually went down. Quote, that has never happened in 20 years. If you ask what's happening, it's because people are using chat GPT. They're using perplexity. I use it at times. He believes that AI search is going to replace classic search like Google. Quote again, there's enough money now enough large players that I don't see how it doesn't happen. Bloomberg reported on Q's comments at 11 a.m. An hour later, Google was down $100 billion in market cap. And whether we like it or not, and whether they like it or not, the reality is that chat GPT is running away with it. And if you look at the growth and the share that open AI is seeing, it's quite an incredible thing. So what does one do? So what do you do? Well, I can tell you what you don't want to do is ignore the fact that AI is coming, whether you like it or not. I remember early on, there were people that resisted social media and let's face it, we're all on there now, especially if you're in business. And what was the big benefit of social media for business? It opened up a huge amount of market share for small businesses, people like you, people like me, that were all of a sudden able to compete with the biggest businesses in the world for marketing, for getting our message out there and reaching the exact people when and how we want it. And that was the real, to me, big thing with social media that it allowed business to do. Now we have AI, which is going to be a disruptor. And what it's going to do is allow you, for the people that are adopting it, take those processes off your plate that are redundant for us, such as calculating income, document collection, and those kinds of things. Why is that important? Is because as those things get commoditized, the things that make you authentic, that are worth your attention, are going to be where you want to spend your time. And if you don't, your competition is going to do it. For us, taking those things off our plate allows us to meet with more clients, do the Zoom meetings, the pre-approval ceremonies and the contract ceremonies, and do the authentic attention and personal attention that allows us to set ourselves apart. Taking those processes off our plate allows us to do more of that. If you're a real estate agent, think about the low-hanging things that you do all the time. And trust me, you can probably do it in AI right now. And if you build it right, you can do it in a way that will actually start increasing your business today. Not sure how to do that? Reach out to me. I'm not an AI expert, but I spent a lot of time over the last year starting to put these into my business. And these systems are getting smarter and smarter. So what do you do with this? Do not ignore it. Pay attention. Figure out what is the low-hanging fruit that you can take off your business or take out of your business, and what makes you the authentic awesome realtor you are. Now on with the show. Since this is a mortgage and real estate channel, let's just take a quick look at rates. We're at 6.92% again. Not so great. That actually is a move up. We see we kind of got this steady back all the way to 7%, and then we kind of went back down. We have been bouncing around in this 6 1⁄2 to 7% range really since the end of last year. And is the Fed going to help us? The answer is no. 91.4% chance at the next meeting 33 days from now that the Fed will keep rates where they're at. And what does that mean? Does that mean that we are getting a softening market? Yes, inventory is building. Are we going to get some kind of major market correction? The answer is there is no way to know. But what would I say? What's the data say? Not what's our emotions say. You have a lot of people that are locked in with really low rates, even though inventory is going up. You have demand really flat because rates haven't really fallen. But what's the likely trajectory of the market? And why are all the big experts from Redfin to CoreLogic to Zillow to whoever predicting the market to really get better throughout the end of this year and the next year? It's simple. Rates are likely to fall. The Fed is not likely to do much, right? With flat inflation are kind of in their target. Unemployment saying where it's at. They're not going to cut rates so they need to. But as they cut those Fed funds rate, interest rates will fall, demand will come up, and you will see people participating in the housing market more and more and more. Now, that being said, we've noticed a big jump up. Of course, we're getting into the selling season. And I think that people that are buying now, they're not making, waiting for a big market correction, are going to look back and say, you know what? Wow, we got sellers to pay closing costs. We got sellers to buy our rate down, and we're not buying when everybody else is. It's always counterintuitive, but I can tell you with tariffs being, I don't want to say done, but Liberation Day done, looking like their deal is getting in place, 90-day pause with China, I think this peak negativity, we're kind of getting past that. And I think as this year goes on again next year, we're going to get more and more of a tailwind. And if you're a real estate agent, don't worry about the market, because the market is the market. Focus on what is your daily success plan? What are the things you're building into your business? And what's your authenticity? And then last little look on a list here that I thought was really, really interesting, looking at the 49 of the nation's 50 largest metro area housing markets, having weaker year-over-year home price shift this spring than a year ago. And this shows, look, are markets going down? Yes, Tampa, negative 4.5%. Orlando, negative 2.2%. Remember again, this is just data. And then a lot of markets nationally, in that one all the way up to 5% range, which just means that we have a likelihood nationally to have 2% to 3% appreciation. A lot of markets, especially in Florida, to be really flat, we shall see. I'm in Oviedo, which has actually been kind of hotter as of late. But you got to know your local market, in my opinion, for what it's worth. Don't get your financial advice from me. The best time to buy stocks is when other people are scared. The best time to buy real estate is when sellers are doing more for buyers than I've seen in a long, long time. So if you have any questions on this, want to talk about AI, special loan programs, or a way to grow your business, reach out to me. As more information becomes available, then there's the market I'm gonna cover right here. Have a great day, great week, and I'll talk to you soon.