A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law who lives outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania, sent me the real estate column from that day’s daily paper. Keep in mind that Ron is from the generation where you read a newspaper every day, and sometimes more than one.
Being the avid reader he is, I send him this publication weekly, which he reads cover to cover and frequently calls me with questions and/or corrections in my column, as well as occasionally mailing newspaper columns. I accept his comments with the good intentions he means and move on. However, the latest column he sent was on artificial intelligence and this information caught my attention and opened my eyes to look at artificial intelligence (AI) from a whole different perspective.
The Industrial Revolution started around 1760 and was a major technological change, transforming whole countries from an agrarian to a machine-driven culture. One of the central changes in this revolution was the power source: introducing the steam engine to the world. We’re now at the beginning of another fundamental restructuring of the way we live, do business, construct houses and market real estate.
It’s predicted over the next few years that we’ll see robots precisely laying bricks and doing terrain grading work independently guided by GPS and AI technology.
3D printer construction first came to my attention in 2018, when I read about a company based in Texas building small printer generated houses in 12 to 24 hours. Now, contractors around the world are building walls for homes by adding layers on top of layers of specialized concrete generated by a 3D printer. This is the stuff of science fiction.
The logical outcome of the advanced technology is more construction in a shorter period of time – predicted to be a 50% increase in production. AI catching design flaws, managing material waste and providing a safer job site will add to the rate of production. AI could build so many affordable homes in such a short period of time that it could turn around our housing shortage crisis.
What does this mean for the way buyers search for houses? And will real estate agents go the way of the horse and buggy? I don’t think so. There may be fewer of them, since they will get a lot of help from AI, but the person-to-person contact of building trust, negotiating and guidance can only be achieved with face-to-face meetings and fast available phone and text contacts.
AI is so smart and it understands complex questions like, “I’m looking for a three-bedroom ranch house near an elementary school on a half-acre,” that buyers will see the available inventory before they make a phone call, without scrolling through dozens of listings online.
The dreaded closing table will also be streamlined thanks to AI. And although you can’t replace inspectors and attorneys in a real estate transaction, AI will make their jobs easier, make the paperwork more accurate and eliminate delays clearing title and property line disputes.
Change is a challenge. Remember when everyone laughed at the steam engine? Thankfully, we know too much now to laugh at AI, but the future is always confusing and frequently scary. I for one will start paying closer attention to AI real estate stories. So, thanks Ron for recognizing the obscure in real estate marketing and construction and sending it to me. Keep them coming.
