Tag: AI

By Emily Marek

Austin-based property technology company homebldr is launching a new service that claims to “revolutionize” the relationship between investors and real estate agents.

The portal, homebldr.ai, which is powered by artificial intelligence, was designed to connect real estate investors and agents by consolidating key aspects of the real estate investment experience in one place.

Despite a surge in real estate investment activity over the past several years, the average return on investment has plummeted. homebldr cites a March 2023 report from ATTOM that found the average gross ROI on fix-and-flip investments fell from 46% to 28% over the course of a year. homebldr.ai aims to combat this by identifying high-quality investment opportunities for users.

According to homebldr, key features of the product include property and investment analysis, location analytics and property characteristics. The product is also fully integrated into homebldr’s Solution Suite. But what does the product do?

“homebldr.ai helps agents generate more transactions with investor clients in significantly less time by evaluating investment opportunities in seconds and providing the deal analysis, competitive financing options, and construction services necessary to maximize returns,” CEO Adam Eldibany explained.

Specific components of homebldr.ai include after-repair value analysis, value-add potential analysis and specialized HOMEBLDR Property Reports. The portal also contains info similar to standard multiple listing services, like listing status and property details.

“Historically, investors have been a difficult client case for real estate professionals due to their frequent requests for deal analysis, desire to work with multiple agents at the same time and prolonged hesitation to get into details regardless of how much work their agent has put in,” Eldibany said. “However, the benefit of being patient and continuing to work with investors is that they typically transact multiple times per year, while owner-occupant clients move once every seven years.

“Shifting focus to the present, 90% of owner-occupant homeowners are locked into their sub-6% mortgage rates, which has caused home sales to hit the lowest level in over a decade. Meanwhile, investor transactions remain near the all-time high level achieved in 2022,” he added. “This presents a massive opportunity for real estate professionals to generate more transactions by serving the growing community of investors.”

Free trials for homebldr.ai began Aug. 1.

The change brought on by artificial intelligence (AI) has begun. It has already made possible self-driving cars and voice-activated home systems; now it is changing the playing field for real estate agents, as well. Understanding the potential uses for predictive AI can result in getting more of those much-needed listings in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.

What is predictive AI?

In generic terms, predictive AI is a data analysis technique that may foresee and anticipate future demands or occurrences. With the use of powerful algorithms that evaluate enormous quantities of predetermined data or user activity, it can provide precise, near-term predictions. This makes it possible to anticipate trends or identify behavioral patterns of its users.

Why is predictive AI so useful in real estate?

The real estate market is quite data-driven now, and predictive AI is being used to identify who is most likely to sell. Investing in AI technology will help agents generate new leads and gain much-needed listings in this low-inventory market. Predictive AI employs algorithms to recognize and target homeowners most likely to sell their homes soon, allowing agents to focus on these homeowners who matter most for potential listings and not on unlikely prospects, saving enormous time and money.

Predictive AI tools to try this year:

Catalyze AI

Catalyze AI is a predictive business development platform that pinpoints a targeted geographical market to help you expand your business quickly. It uses big data and artificial intelligence to assist real estate agents in finding new listings in their geo-farm.

Catalyze AI can determine which prospects have the highest probability of selling their homes due to its integration of behavioral analytics, event-driven data, and real-time and historical data.

Pros
Customizable user interface and dashboard
40% sell prediction accuracy
Targeted geographical advertising
All leads located 50 miles or less from
the agent
Exclusive leads uploaded monthly

Cons
Price is vague
Not completely available in all markets

Likely.AI

Likely.AI allows real estate agents to find and forecast their ideal clients’ buying patterns. Its algorithms analyze data from many sources and produce insights that can help agents find the right prospects to target. It can not only anticipate likely sellers, but also fix incorrect contact information and set up auto-alerts so you don’t miss out on opportunities. In other words, it will ensure that you are one of the first to know if a prospect is behaving like a potential seller. Likely.AI charges a fee “per contact” starting at $0.80 each.

Pros
Updates missing and inaccurate contact information
Automated notifications

Cons
Relatively pricy

SmartZip

SmartZip provides real estate agents with accurate listing leads in their geo-farm and has systems in place to connect with these prospects through automated marketing and follow-up. Agents can increase their chances of success by concentrating on this group of homeowners and tailoring their marketing initiatives to a highly responsive audience, saving valuable time and resources with the use of the service’s automated marketing.

Pros
Robust tools for agents to create a presence in their geo-farm
Personalized landing pages for brand-building
Adaptable, focused marketing

Cons
Prices are vague
No trial offer
Non-binding leads

Bottom line

So, is AI taking over the real estate industry? No, but it is becoming a necessary tool to win in this highly competitive arena. Let predictive AI take the guesswork out of prospecting and lead generation to save you time and money. The data will drive you to that most likely prospect, and you can be the first in line to win that listing. Winning more listings will increase your bottom line, and who wouldn’t want that?

Anne Ewasko is a veteran Realtor in the Chicago area and a longtime techie. Visit her at anne.luxhomechicago.com.