Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

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AI to Replace Realtors? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by PerisphereJack@alien.top to c/homeautomation@selfhosted.forum

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey everyone! Some friends and I got fed up with everything going on in real estate (realtor lawsuits, inflated commission rates, outdated systems, etc.) and decided to use AI to build our own better real estate agent and avoid paying 6% of our life savings every time we move 🤮.

Everyone we talk to is very interested in it, so we will be putting it out to the public on a rolling basis starting in January. I'm not going to add a link because that's not the point of this post.

This sub seems like the group of homeowners most forward thinking it terms of technology, so I wanted to: 1) give the opportunity to AMA about what we are building, and more importantly 2) ask what everyone's biggest problems have been selling/buying a home recently. What are your biggest technology sticking points when it comes to transactions?

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[–] sociablezealot@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Wrong sub.
Generically saying “use AI” isn’t a refined business model. Large language models can generate text, and you can teach your model to spit out more and more informed text. You need legally defendable output though, so you can’t generically produce text output and call it good.
Everyone (but realtors) sees value in replacing realtors. Shoot your shot if you think you have real experience running a business. This one has quite a bit of insurance and legal intricacies, so don’t just “try it out”.

[–] Luxferrae@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Wrong sub
Nope, was it Zillow or something that thought they got it figured out, and then proceeded to lose hundreds of millions? Or was it billions...? I guess if you have that kind of money, feel free to go ahead 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] _moistee@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Question: could Gen AI blockchain ML NFTs solve this problem? /s

[–] Z-Waver@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Having bought and sold numerous houses, I'm quite sure that no current day AI will be a replacement for even a mediocre realtor, let alone a good one(top producer).

Strapping AI to FSBO won't get the job done. Realtors provide a lot more than just an over-priced MLS listing. Their hyper-localized market knowledge is key and just one of several unique assets that AI can't replace. At least not yet.

[–] DrySpace469@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

i think you are in the wrong sub. this is for home automation tech not for buying/selling homes.

[–] 2BRacin@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

🤣

[–] Anxious_Cheetah5589@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Real estate sales has been ripe for computerization/automation/price rationalization for many years. Many have tried to undercut the business model (Zillow, Trulia, fsbo.com, etc) and have failed, the cartel marches on. I think it's due to MLS monopoly, peculiar hyper-local nature of market, and inertia.

In short, you might build a better mousetrap, but it won't matter. It's not a technical problem.

[–] binaryhellstorm@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Who is doing the actual leg work of taking the "photo scans" of the properties being listed?

What is the commission your firm is getting per sale and how does that percentage compare to what a human agent would get?

What sort of "sanity check" is in place for making sure the listing prices are actually in line with reality? That seems to be the biggest problem I see with listing in my area is that people are asking 2-3X the asking price for properties that are clapped out. So what is going to stop this from becoming the "AI powered real estate" version of the tip screens that show up everywhere asking people to tip as a gas pump just because "well why not turn it on and see if someone throws us free cash" If you have an automated real estate system I immediately could see someone using that system scraping Zillow or other listings to get photos, cross referencing with GIS and bank data to figure out how much is owed on a property and then basically sending everyone the equivalent of those fake handwritten car dealership letters "we want to sell your house, you only owe $20,000 on it and we can sell it for $230,000 netting you a profit of $90,000, call us TODAY"