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In the Age of AI - Why Real Estate Agents Still Matter More Than Ever · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, my guest today is an innovator and thought leader in our industry.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Keith Robinson is the co-CEO of Next Home Inc. Keith has played a huge role in shaping that company's growth, brand positioning, and marketing strategy, and he continues to drive innovation and expansion to keep next home at the forefront of the industry.
0:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Keith is also the co-host of the widely followed real estate insiders unfiltered podcast where he delivers unfiltered insights on market trends, business leadership, and the future of real estate.
1:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Today we talked all about AI and its role in our industry and Keith shared his predictions around AI he gave some specific examples of how to apply AI to your business and he reminded us that regardless of AI, your SOI is the bedrock of your business.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a listen.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Keith, so excited to have you with us today.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for being here.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited to be here.
1:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're all about AI in the month of April.
1:29
[SPEAKER_01]: April is AI.
1:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, April is AI month.
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You like that?
1:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my borrow that actually.
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Sheet and steel, isn't that what they say?
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're a leader in the industry.
1:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You are a strategist.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You've, you know, you've been around for a while.
1:49
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you see AI fundamentally changing the industry or reshaping it in the next five years?
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a really good question.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm known for saying I don't believe in revolutions.
2:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe in evolutions.
2:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I still believe that.
2:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But there have been moments in time or technological advances that have in a relatively short period of time reshaped how we do business.
2:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the last
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: probably best example or best comparison is the internet, right?
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a sort of this pre real estate pre internet becoming a thing that everybody had access to and then real estate posts the internet becoming a thing that everyone had access to.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I really think in five years from now it will be pre and post AI.
2:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll feel that different.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll experience it in a way that you hadn't you'll go from I heard people talking about AI and it might ruin the world But it might also make me breakfast to I am actually using an agentic workforce or the tools that I'm using
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: have it as part of providing a better service.
3:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually think the second one, sorry, it's such a long answer, but yeah, no, I love it.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually think that second one, the whole mini agents, there's okay, nerds like me are building a gentle tools right now for the companies that I'm involved with to try to get a first mover advantage in AI.
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's some of those folks in real estate.
3:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But for the,
3:28
[SPEAKER_02]: For the vast majority, I think their initial experiences with AI is actually just going to be, the tool you already use will offer something really new and cool, and your experience with that tool will get better because the tools that we use in the industry are plugging in AI.
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I try to remind people, you know, if you've ever been on Netflix and it's said underneath it, you might like, that's an example of AI.
3:57
[SPEAKER_02]: If you've ever been typing an email in, you write to whom, and it tries to auto-populate with it may concern, that's an example of kind of, you know, not the smartest AI, but it's an example of AI.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're using it right now, even if you aren't logging into chatGPT instead of logging into Google.
4:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there'll be a tale of two cities, there's the early adopters, and then for the late adopters or that middle part, they're just going to find their tools get a lot better, and more efficient, and can do more cool stuff, and that might be their total experience with AI.
4:32
[SPEAKER_01]: totally off not off topic, but we'll personal story.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We need a new toilet in our house.
4:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
4:40
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband said, here's the one we should buy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Order it.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I don't want to order it.
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes, what's a matter?
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want toilets coming up in your Instagram feed.
4:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, exactly!
4:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I have coming up in my Instagram feed, Keith?
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Toilets.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's happening.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's happening.
5:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's happening.
5:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
5:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do understand the people that are afraid of it.
5:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It is something to like any, like any new technology.
5:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something to be thoughtful about and take a measured approach with.
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember people being afraid of the internet, too.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: social media.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and social media.
5:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we might as should have been more afraid of social media.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a different, different webinar for a different time, but I remember people being afraid of the internet, right?
5:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember people mocking the internet.
5:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And no one's gonna order stuff online, no one's gonna order groceries online, no one's, well, yeah they are, it turns out, yeah they are.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And now they're just gonna have to think about it and they're gonna show up at their door.
5:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, or you won't have thought about it yet, but you know, your fridge will know you're almost out of milk and it will remind you, right?
5:51
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where we're headed, right?
5:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say to the agent who we know people don't like change?
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say to the agent who says, I'm not like, I'm too old for this or it's going to replace me.
6:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, great.
6:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, my answer, different for the two statements, right?
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll do the second one first.
6:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to replace me.
6:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought about this one deeply because I really needed to believe deep in my soul, whatever, however, I was going to answer it, right?
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And
6:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I really don't think the residential real estate agent will be replaced by someone's not going to use not soon, but like, maybe I've got a 13 year old in the 7 year old, right?
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe the 7 year old, maybe, but I don't even think then.
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an I'll explain why, but I think we're very far away from a human being talking to a chatbot by a house.
6:49
[SPEAKER_02]: don't think we're close to that.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason for that is we're still human beings, regardless of the technology, right?
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And the analogy that I use is the keyboard that we use every time we type is actually designed to be inefficient because it was designed for a typewriter and the action on the levers, if you designed it as efficiently as it could, the levers would hit each other and it couldn't type.
7:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a piece of technology that we had to modify to fit our cave man hands and cave woman hands and in that sort of thing.
7:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And while we could have changed it since then, we could have improved the keyboard.
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It's even out there.
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a more efficient keyboard that's out there, but no one uses it because we've all learned this old way, right?
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: As human beings, we spend a lot more time around a campfire than we have around a computer screen.
7:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we have big
7:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We will Google search it, of course.
7:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We will chat GPT it, of course.
7:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But we also call our moms and our dads and our trusted advisors, and we ask them their advice.
7:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've been doing that for millennia.
7:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We've been doing that for a long, long time.
7:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're tribal creatures that are wired to lean on other human beings when we make a big decision.
8:02
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how we evolved biologically.
8:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the brain that we are working with.
8:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That isn't going to change fast.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Evolution moves slow.
8:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like we're just going to overnight go.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know it's more efficient.
8:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's this.
8:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's that, but I'm just going to only lean on a software to make the decision.
8:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't think we're close.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I tend to agree with you.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we are, we are tribal beings.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We are wired for connection and community.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, even the software developers nerds, right?
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, even there are wired for connection and community.
8:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
8:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're in the real estate business, which is relationship driven.
8:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're probably going to be the last ones who are not, you know, depend on human interaction.
8:56
[SPEAKER_02]: The examples that I try to give is you're going to find a, um, look, I could build an AI bot tomorrow that could explain the residential purchase agreement in the state of California as well as an agent.
9:07
[SPEAKER_02]: that's not hard to do.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: All the terms, all the conditions, what they all mean, and someday someone might build that, that might be a company someone builds is, you know, it's the bot to answer contract questions, right?
9:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've all sat down with the first time home buyer for the first time, and got that first time you go through the contract, it takes like two hours, right?
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you gotta explain every single line.
9:30
[SPEAKER_02]: That might be done with an AI and you're just sort of co-pilating the AI and they're asking it questions the day before you write your offer the morning before you meet to write the offer.
9:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But when it comes to writing the offer, I don't think we're close to someone just typing what's the right price, how am I going to win that sort of thing?
9:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's very easy to spin up a bot that can answer questions about a contract.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not hard to do.
9:56
[SPEAKER_02]: What's hard to do is the emotional intelligence that human interaction replicating that is a lot harder.
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So Keith, I totally agree with you.
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when, you know, Zillow came out and then read thin and they all thought that they were going to be replaced by this because they no longer had control of the book, right, with the listings.
10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, yeah.
10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The lesson here is, you know, as a technology becomes smarter, all it means is that humans become, you know, they have more information and so just like you're saying they're going to get more information about the mechanics of how to buy and sell, but it's the nuances and any agent will tell you that no transaction is the same.
10:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and access to him for so it's interesting is I'd say over the last 10 years access to information, maybe the last 15, access to information for the human being buying or selling has, they have access to everything when it comes to residential real estate.
10:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, you can look up the purchase agreement.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You can look up all the terms.
11:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You can know the right way to market a home.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You can know how to do an open house.
11:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You can look up all of that, right?
11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: But,
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[SPEAKER_02]: What's interesting is as access to information has gone up over the last 15 years, so has use of a real estate agent.
11:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Use of a real estate agent is at an all-time high last year.
11:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So the human brain given too much information.
11:23
[SPEAKER_02]: chooses nothing and then looks for a sage advisor to walk them through the process.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, while I'm a huge fan of AI, I think it is the next big thing.
11:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to position the company that I work with and for to position us to win on the other side of AI.
11:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think it's, it's, you, we can't lose sight of the human being and the transaction.
11:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The human beings who buy and sell houses are our North Star.
11:51
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what we have to focus on and what they need is how this will be shaped.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I feel like the lesson to the agent or the message is you have to continue to level up your client service.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to continue to be proactive in terms of what the clients needs are.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to continue to be an active listener so that you can provide that high level of service.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what it's all about.
12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: To add to that, people have asked me like, how do you think I will change just sort of business?
12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll say capital be not the real estate business, but sort of business in general.
12:27
[SPEAKER_02]: In my answer to that is I think that creativity will be the new...
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: it's creativity will be the new capital.
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Creativity will be what drives it forward because where the walls are really coming down with AI is if you have an idea you can execute on that idea quickly.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: quicker, easier, and cheaper than you ever have been able to before, right?
12:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you can iterate really fast.
12:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And so to, I guess the answer to the first question you asked about the old agent who, whether they're old in age or old in mind mindset, doesn't want to adopt AI.
13:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, first of all, I get it.
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm 53, right?
13:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm kind of like, really, I got to learn this.
13:10
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
13:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I love to just sort of hang around for 10 more years, hang up the cleats and live in a coastal city somewhere in this beautiful globe of ours, right?
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that, look, you don't have to download every chat GPT in Gemini and all the various things and get in them every day, but you
13:37
[SPEAKER_02]: artificial intelligence carrying some of the weight, right?
13:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And agents historically aren't good at that.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to think they choose us, which is true.
13:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But they choose your standard, meaning like sometimes people don't even want to use a transaction coordinator, or they don't want to use a showing agent, right?
13:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Because no one can show a house like you, well, that's not true.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: There's people showing houses like you as well as you or maybe even better all day every day.
14:04
[SPEAKER_02]: your clients don't pick you, they pick your standard, right?
14:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I try to explain it to agents, I'm like, you don't do your own home inspections, right?
14:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, no, I would never.
14:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're not your own closing attorney, right?
14:17
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't even know how to do that, right?
14:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's parts of the business we're willing to let.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: other things or people work for us.
14:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And then for some reason, we build these walls around these other parts that it has to be just us.
14:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And if that's, if you remain rigid there, so if you don't learn AI and you remain rigid in, I have to do it all.
14:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't lever any of this off.
14:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the ones we're going to get left behind.
14:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can,
14:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to tell everyone you need to get into AI, it's the future, it's how you're gonna win.
14:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You can grab market share right now and have a competitive advantage over the next five years if you do that.
14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can also just hang around and plug it into your business after other people figure out what works and be okay, but you gotta be open to that plugging in what works.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So in that vein, as agents are integrating it more into their business, what's that balance between using it to automate and be more efficient and not losing that human connection?
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you balance it?
15:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think the place to start with is what can AI do today.
15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, this will be different, maybe even by the time you post this, you know, by the time you release this episode, this could be different.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's changing that quickly.
15:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But today, in my opinion, and people disagree with me all the time, but in my opinion, AI is very good at written exchanges.
15:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So email and text AI can do that really well.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: AI is very good at
15:52
[SPEAKER_02]: summarizing.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So uploading a, you know, homeowners association docs into chat GPT and asking it to summarize, right?
16:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that you can get distilled down the 250 pages of HOA docs or condo association docs into the important piece.
16:10
[SPEAKER_02]: AI is great at that.
16:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But, um,
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's great at the written word.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's great at summarizing it, digesting videos or written words and giving you feedback.
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Video isn't there yet.
16:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Telephone isn't there yet.
16:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think AI is going to be cold calling for you anytime soon.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Not anytime soon, but not soon.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's where I see the best use cases today.
16:36
[SPEAKER_02]: When I think about AI, I think about it through this lens.
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I think real estate professionals in here me out, real estate professionals don't start punching your dashboard while you're listening, okay?
16:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But real estate agents in general, and I'm one of us, we have a really high emotional IQ.
16:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's what it takes to be good at the job.
16:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to immediately understand, what does Christine need in the moment?
16:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need a hug?
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need me to pick you up off the ground?
17:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need me to tell you it's gonna be okay?
17:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need me to tell you it's not gonna be okay?
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you need in the moment?
17:07
[SPEAKER_02]: and provide that agents are masterful at that.
17:10
[SPEAKER_02]: They're so good at it because that's what it takes to be successful.
17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem with that is it also makes us more rejection avoidant because we feel things more deeply.
17:19
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why we're so attuned emotionally, right?
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's why when someone doesn't list with us, we want to, you know, curl up in the fetal position and not leave the house for 48 hours, right?
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So real estate agents are pretty because we're so rejection avoidant.
17:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We're pretty bad.
17:35
[SPEAKER_02]: as an industry at starting conversations.
17:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't need to tell you you should call texts and personally email your sphere of influence.
17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to tell you that if you have 250 people who recognize your Nick, like everybody knows what they're supposed to do, but we don't do it.
17:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: We're more rejection of avoidance than the average person because that's what it takes to be good at real estate.
17:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So you asked about AI and I started going on and on about the psychology of the real estate professional, but I believe AI,
18:04
[SPEAKER_02]: is agents are bad conversation starters because we're more rejection of avoidant, but we are beautiful conversation havers.
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Once the conversation starts, someone walks into your open house and says hi, gang agents are good.
18:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so good, right?
18:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But
18:24
[SPEAKER_02]: someone walking in we don't like we don't jump on them we don't ask them you know three open-ended questions and we just aren't built like that so agents in general are bad at starting conversations but good at having them AI is brilliant at starting conversations but isn't is good at having them so I think AI initially like when I'm thinking about it it's the conversation
18:50
[SPEAKER_02]: and then once that conversation is up and running, then agents are great at jumping in and continuing the conversation.
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, I can even give you some examples if you want on some of the tools I've built with AI, but I think if you think about it as a conversation starter that inserts the agent at the right time, that's a great use case for AI.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're thinking, like, I'm trying to think of an example, like an inside sales person.
19:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
19:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think, look, don't turn an AI loose on your sphere of influence.
19:21
[SPEAKER_02]: That's probably not appropriate, right?
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's of advice.
19:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
19:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're doing the, I don't know, April's around the corner.
19:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you do an Easter egg hunt, and that's for a neighborhood that you geographical farm, well, an AI bot could text your geographical farm about the Easter egg hunt and do it as well as you and do it at scale and answer the questions and tell them what the weather's supposed to be like and like you could design that bot really easily.
19:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's an appropriate use case, right?
19:51
[SPEAKER_02]: An event coordinator bot.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: four-year sphere of influence appropriate in AI bought to reach out as you to your sphere of influence probably not appropriate and I wouldn't recommend it right um so yeah love it okay so when you think about your role at next home yeah um how are you guys thinking about AI as it relates to both you know growing your business recruiting and also supporting your agents
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, good question, and we're, I think the key to AI, so any agents or business owners who are listening, the first step in AI is to pick a really safe party or business where you can go play and the risks are very low so that you can understand the power of the tool, what it can do, what it can't do,
20:44
[SPEAKER_02]: you don't want to again, you don't want to start it having conversations as you with your sphere of influence.
20:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Because AI can have these things called hallucinations.
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It basically means it gets the answer wrong.
20:55
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, for people who freak out about that, you get the answer wrong too all the time.
20:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you hire new people, think of AI as hiring heads, right?
21:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Hiring a new employee.
21:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, new employees get questions wrong all the time until they're trained up.
21:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the better
21:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So to answer your question, I'll give you a silly example.
21:17
[SPEAKER_02]: The first AI tool we rolled out because I needed to get my entire senior management team comfortable with AI as a product.
21:24
[SPEAKER_02]: They haven't, I'm the AI champion in our board room saying we need it, we got to plug it in, and they're like, I don't know, I heard it's the end of the world, or it sounds complicated and hard, we'll get to that later.
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So we did an event bot.
21:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, we just had our national conference.
21:42
[SPEAKER_02]: We built a bot that ingested all the information, my onsite events team usually gets inundated with questions, right?
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And we named it Maxi, right?
21:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Great name.
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And you could text Maxi questions like, what's the dress code for our cocktail party?
22:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What room is the buyer's breakout in?
22:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell me all the listing breakouts?
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm really focused on my listing business.
22:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Next, can you tell me all the listing breakouts that are available throughout the conference?
22:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can plan my which breakouts I want to attend?
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: really.
22:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really well received and it answered a bunch of questions and it took some of the load off of my my events team and most importantly my entire senior management team got to interact with this silly little chat bot that was not wildly hard to train or tilt up and now the walls are starting to come down and everybody started to think like
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, maybe could we do what else could we do with AI, right?
22:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And so my advice normally is start pick a piece of the business that you feel really okay with AI making mistakes and where if it does have a hallucination, it's not the end of the world, right?
23:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wouldn't put it in in your accounting department today.
23:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I would pick a small little place to go play and have an experience with it.
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And every person that I've recommended that do that, who has done it, almost immediately starts to go dang.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This is powerful, what else could I do, right?
23:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you widen the aperture slowly in a risk-appropriate way.
23:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You widen what you think about AI can do.
23:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you're starting to you start to feel the sweetness, you know, it's yeah, I'll get.
23:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, if you want to real world example, uh, I origin, there's been so many hype cycles.
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember the metaverse was going to be the next big thing, right?
23:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And you could buy a fake house and live next to Snoop Dogg or whatever, right?
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Like,
23:46
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever.
23:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I don't know about this one, and sure enough, didn't ever took off, right?
23:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, crypto currency, which is, look, people made a lot of money in crypto, but it's not fully mainstream yet, right?
23:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, I was trying to figure out, is AI this next sort of hype machine, or is it really the internet?
24:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I've already told you that I think it's the internet.
24:05
[SPEAKER_02]: How I got there was, so I've done fixing flip for my whole career, locally I'll go try to find properties that make sense to flip.
24:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't flip very many.
24:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a full-time job.
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm, you know, I don't have a ton of time, but if I can flip a couple of years, it's a fun process.
24:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoy it.
24:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I have a buy box that I use.
24:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I have areas that I like, and I built a flip-finder bot
24:35
[SPEAKER_02]: and so properties in a month on market for more than 60 or 90 days that fit my price point and fit my buy box in areas that I'd like to live in.
24:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took those properties and I built an AI bot that would reach out and text those agents and say hi, this is Amy, her name's Amy.
24:55
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Amy with Forge Capital.
24:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I have an investor who's interested in your property on one two three-ounce street and would take them through a series of questions.
25:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason that I felt comfortable doing that is it wasn't, I have a private money bank that mostly just funds my deals, but it also funds other people's deals sometimes, but like it was detached from next time.
25:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So if this AI bot went crazy and started cursing people out, it was, next home was insulated from the shenanigans, right?
25:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it just had a bunch of terrible conversations, then it had a bunch of terrible conversations.
25:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It turns out it had great conversations.
25:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got a ton of information.
25:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, we have it in place now.
25:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And we write offers every week for the flip business, based off permission-based offers, where we've gotten a bunch of good information from the real estate agent on what's important to the seller.
25:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And they, at the end, say, yes, I'd love to get an offer from an investor, which is sort of real estate code for maybe less than what you were thinking, right?
25:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I went from skeptic to true believer.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the natural next question that I, that I'm guessing that my community is thinking right now is when you say you developed the Amy bot or the next see bot.
26:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you sitting behind the computer coding?
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Great question.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
26:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Good question.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I know these giant caveman hands are not built for coding.
26:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe for punching
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I said earlier, I think creativity is the new currency because I have two guys that are brilliant at AI that I'm friends with, they've built some other AI tools and I hired them to build some of these bots for me, but they're not incredibly expensive.
26:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the thing is my AI bot probably cost me 1500 bucks to develop and then it's
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It depends on usage and so it's somewhere between 500 and 1,000 bucks a month for to process all the information and to send all the text and all that stuff.
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So, wow.
27:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Very inexpensive.
27:02
[SPEAKER_02]: They could do it for anyone.
27:03
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a bunch of shops out there if anyone wants to email me.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm happy to make the introduction, but the AI is completely flattening.
27:11
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some people out there who even say, AI will be the death of software as a service or SaaS, right?
27:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This whole seat license concept is going to go away because the cost structure is just collapsing.
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because of the efficiency and how inexpensive AI is.
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, exactly.
27:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Off-work companies should be more nervous than real estate agents about AI.
27:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if I own a Salesforce, I would be more nervous than if I owned a large real estate company.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I get it.
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I get it.
27:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the coding is all there.
27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you think about now, let's kind of shift from brokerage in agent to MLS.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about MLSs.
27:56
[SPEAKER_01]: What shift, if you were in MLS, what shift do you think the MLSs should be taking or making as it relates to AI?
28:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Based off of the NAR settlement from earlier and the shifting nature of MLS's, my humble opinion is, MLSs are going to have to sort of show their work over the next decade.
28:16
[SPEAKER_02]: What I mean by that is, they're going to be judged by the value that they provide and not access, right?
28:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just be honest,
28:28
[SPEAKER_02]: to get access, you had to join NAR and you had to join the MLS, right?
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was not for all of them.
28:35
[SPEAKER_02]: There are many, many good ones out there, but for some of them that was the totality of their value prop.
28:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that can't be the value prop anymore, right?
28:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if the question was, if I was the CEO for NMLS, what would I be doing, I would be building AI tools that I could deliver to my agents in my network so that
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They were receiving things from me beyond access to the available inventory and the key features and how to show it.
29:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And that I would build some proprietary tools that they could only get from my MLS so that it's the last thing they wanted to cancel, not the first thing they wanted to cancel.
29:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So MLS is going to have to reframe and reshape their offering and start to operate a little more like a tech company and a little more like a data company.
29:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there any tools outside of CHATGPT that you like or that you use or that you can recommend?
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I've I've played with all of them.
29:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I've find myself going back to chat GPT the most.
29:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I am just starting.
29:38
[SPEAKER_02]: They have a research tool on chat GPT.
29:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
29:41
[SPEAKER_02]: That one's a little more spendy.
29:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That one I think is, I don't quote me.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's 200 a month.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it is.
29:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I am just starting to play with that.
29:50
[SPEAKER_02]: My early read on it is I'm blown away.
29:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, like,
29:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to try to break it and I haven't, I got to sit down with it for like a long weekend and really just get in there.
30:01
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is like having an analyst on payroll, like someone that, hey, what are the market trends for Danville, California, then you ask it and it goes away and comes back in 30 minutes.
30:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not as quick as Chad GPT.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It really, the biggest difference is it's learned to ask itself questions from the data that it extracts, right?
30:25
[SPEAKER_02]: been early, I'm very impressed with that, and even considering it, you know, how I can make that be part of our day-to-day operational life inside of next home.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
30:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Keith, we could talk about this for hours, but we, you know, we do have a limited time here.
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: As we start to wrap up, I want to know, what are three things you want to leave our community with today?
30:52
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, good question.
30:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And your community is all real estate professor, right?
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Real estate professionals, yep.
30:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Make a sure before I answer.
31:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think this has nothing to do with AI.
31:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've been saying this to my company.
31:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm going to say it to my agent, I should probably say it to yours.
31:09
[SPEAKER_02]: 2025 is the year of stay ready.
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean by that is if you go back and look at last year, we had a 9D 125 day, 120 day period where rates were between 6.5 and 6% and the buyers came back and they came back with some force.
31:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Then as soon as rates got back to 7, they backed away again.
31:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And rates right now are dancing around 6.6, 6.7, we're teetering right on the brink of 6.5.
31:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't tell you when rates are going to go below six and a half and stay there for an extended period of time, but history has shown us that when they do that, the buyers are going to come back.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like we know, we usually we don't know, we're sort of reading the tea leaves trying to figure it out, but I think history has given us a really good indicator of the future on this one.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I've been telling every agent of my company, look, I can't tell you when, but you have got to stay ready.
32:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to like,
32:05
[SPEAKER_02]: sleep in your combat boots because you might have to jump and out of bed because today is the day.
32:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the first thing I would say is there I hope rates get down under six and a half and float between six and six and a half for a year, right?
32:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope that I hope they get there tomorrow and stay there for a year, but they might not.
32:26
[SPEAKER_02]: They might get there tomorrow and stay there for three months and you've got a three month window to get to make your year, right?
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And that could be what 20-25 is.
32:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And if that's what it is, the agent who's terrible analogy, but slept with their combat boots on, are gonna get more than the agents who are waiting for their buyers to tell them that it's time.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
32:50
[SPEAKER_02]: This 20-25 to me is the year of stay ready.
32:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's
32:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's at a time when as an industry, I think we're pretty worn out.
32:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, we've had three hard years in residential real estate.
32:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We're a little burnt out worn out and tired.
33:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the perfect storm of not good, right?
33:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Being burnt out and tired in a time where you've got to be energized and sort of always on the balls of your feet, that's those two things are at odds.
33:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's number one.
33:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Number two, I think you should be even if all you do,
33:20
[SPEAKER_02]: is when you open Google also open chat GPT and whatever you were going to type into Google, type into chat GPT first.
33:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And then move out of Google and do everything the same way you've always done it.
33:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Like as a primer, if there's anybody listening, he's like, I don't know, come here from sickum when it comes to AI, right?
33:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Then just start with any to try to retrain the habit of going to Google.
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: also not instead of but also going to chat GPT.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It's free.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You just have to sign up.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't cost you anything and just have an experience with it.
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Start there as a baseline.
33:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So that would be number two.
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Number three.
33:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't believe in back to the basics.
34:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We never should have stopped, right?
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But I say this all the time.
34:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Residential real estate is a trust business.
34:11
[SPEAKER_02]: your sphere of influence is the bedrock of your business.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And so while I believe in AI and I believe in the evolution of technology and I believe in all of these things that are coming, if your sphere of influence, connection, plan, marketing plan, whatever you want to call it on a scale of one to 10 is not a 9 or a 10, ignore chat GPT, ignore AI, ignore everything else and get your sphere of influence marketing plan to a 9 or a 10.
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
34:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
34:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's the fastest, best way to build your business and the shortest path between you and more transactions is getting the people who already know you and trust you and love you to use you or refer you.
34:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that isn't new, right?
34:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm here on a microphone talking to people about something that's been true the entire 27 years I've been in residential real estate.
34:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm always shocked at how many people's sphere of influence marketing plan is like a four.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But they want to go buy online leads or they want to do first time home by our seminars or they want to go like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Or they're spending 200 bucks a month on the new research, you know.
35:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the Chad GPT research bot, right?
35:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right, right.
35:20
[SPEAKER_02]: To do a bunch of research to go tell no one about it, right?
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just no one, nothing about nothing.
35:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
35:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So I know it's old school and maybe it's because I am old, but sphere of influence, the people who you trust you and love you is your bedrock.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: If that's not a 9 or a 10 on a scale of one to 10, then get it there to the and get blinders on.
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Ignore everything else I've said until that things at a 9 or 10 and then listen to this podcast again and then decide what you want to do.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, keep finish this sentence.
35:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: This is fun.
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: This is also dangerous, but go ahead.
35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready.
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No, like trust is.
35:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, like trust is paramount.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the most important thing.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, it absolutely is, and it will remain that way, despite AI.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
36:16
[SPEAKER_02]: AI is going to make you better at no like and trust, but I think we're a long way away from people no liking and trusting AI instead of a human being.
36:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think we're a ways away.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally great.
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep where can people find you?
36:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see on Instagram, I can give all you we can put it in the show notes if you want.
36:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I also have a sub stack that's been my fun thing that I've started this year, so maybe I'll send people there.
36:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get you a link to my sub stack if people want to subscribe.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's completely free.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I just share my thoughts on the industry, a dabble in AI, a dabble in sort of fundamental real estate.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: and then I tried to give my opinion and thoughts on big headlines.
36:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I just did a CCP right up when the news dropped earlier this week about the changes for clear cooperation.
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll get you my sub stack if people want to check it out.
37:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Writing.
37:09
[SPEAKER_02]: has been my new practice for 2025 that I want to really invest in the podcast that I have as doing this thing.
37:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you that link too, but podcast is sort of up and running and doing its thing and my short form content, part of my life is up and running and doing its thing.
37:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So, decided that 2025 would be where I really work on my writing craft and it's been a really fun during I'm really enjoying it.
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it also helps you get a process
37:36
[SPEAKER_02]: and it helps you organize my thoughts.
37:37
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the biggest thing for me is I'm taking these topics that are either evergreen for what it takes to be good at residential real estate or timely based off of news announcements or movements in the economy or whatever but when you have to write something it forces me to organize my thoughts better which makes me able to communicate.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: about them better because if I can explain it in two-dimensional writing, which is harder than three-dimensional communication, and I'm going to be even better at sort of having conversations.
38:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been a really fun, yeah, you can probably tell I'm gushing about it a little bit, but it's just been a fun exercise.
38:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really enjoying it.
38:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's awesome.
38:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to read your, your, your blog post.
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll send you all the ways to follow me and people can dig in the
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: fantastic.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep, thank you so much for being with us today.
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Your insights have been absolutely invaluable.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I hope you'll come back and join us another time.
38:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Anytime, just ask me.
38:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm happy to and I really enjoyed it.
38:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been a good work.
38:41
[SPEAKER_02]: The industry needs your voice.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So keep the name.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and yours.
38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
38:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
38:45
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And for those of you who are listening to us, you know, give us a five star review.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us what you think.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: If you like what we're putting out there, share it with your friends.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to click that subscribe button.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So you get notified every time we publish a new podcast episode.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining us.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a great day, everyone.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Ciao.
39:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks.
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I highly encourage you to follow Keith on Substack, where he's been sharing his thoughts about industry-related news and things like AI.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He's at crazy uncle Keith on Substack, what a great name.
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy uncle Keith.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also find him on all the socials at Keith Underscore our zero B-I-N-S-O-N.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to make sure you never miss another episode of The No Like Trust for Real Estate podcast, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter at the sunbeam.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to postandbeamcreative.com and sign up.
39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if you're interested in working with me, email me at Christine at postandbeamcreative.com.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for tuning in and I'll see you next time.