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Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

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Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#191

Post by wanderingbit »

I welcome this wholeheartedly. I recently sold my first home and was frankly disgusted by how large the fee is for what my realtor did. I eventually went For Sale By Owner and will never go back to using a realtor. Zillow/redfin already replace the search and comparables part of the process. What realtors currently provide is the “white glove service” which helps first time buyer/sellers feel good about one of the biggest transactions of their life. Other than that I’d say realtors are mostly rent seekers, and their time has come.

What I predict will make or break the AI realtor experience is how well the AI can emulate (maybe and even improve?) the feeling of security and assurance that one gets from using a realtor.

I’d love some responses with stories on where realtors provided some actual unique service. Because all I’ve seen are realtors as a dying parasite of a bloated system.

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#192

Post by IAmGraydon »

eagleinparadise wrote: post #29

Best of luck. I’m a commercial real estate professional who has spent time as a broker, lender, and private equity investor. Residential definitely is a lot More of a ridiculous market. But ultimately as an agent, you get hired to work with mostly irrational actors (sellers and buyers). As someone who is very interested in AI and taught myself how to code (I don’t know any other real estate people who know anything a…

>I don’t know any other real estate people who know anything about code

CRE professional here (about a decade in the industry) who was a coder first. I think there's plenty that can be disrupted in real estate, and specially commercial real estate, where there are a lot of old problems that are ripe for solutions. It's like you said though - those who experience the problems and actually know how to write software to solve them are rare. We are in a good position for opportunity.

I think that brokers can (and should) be replaced by something more efficient, but the real problem for disrupters is regulation, IMO. A program/app/SAAS cannot hold a real estate license, and therefore cannot do things like quote rates, terms, or manage transactions. As of right now, it's illegal in most states.

As for the website that OP created, I think it was a nice attempt, but it seems very half-baked and the case for its value is not clear at all. There's some pretty design and not a lot of substance there.

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#193

Post by evantbyrne »

whiplash451 wrote: post #92
keeptrying wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ludicrous 6% fee is whats going to drive adoption by end users and in turn by brokers. Move that fee to 1% for buyer agent and you have a massive market.

If there was a serious opportunity to arbitrage under the 6% fee, you bet that someone would have done it already — and well before the AI era.

Prior to the changes which only went into place in August, agents were colluding to keep fees artificially high. Buyers' agents would actually hide listings that promised less than what they wanted and all of that information was hidden from buyers until the buy/sell agreement. It is way too early to say exactly what the impact will be, but as an anecdote my agent accepted 2% on the home I just closed on. My prediction is fees will decrease significantly, because it just doesn't make financial sense to pay agents as much as people have been. Also, agents wouldn't have been colluding to the extent they had been if they believed a free market was good for their bottom lines.

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#194

Post by lxe »

This piques my interest, as I have worked in this space for some years, AND I've had terrible experiences purchasing homes in Bay Area and elsewhere.

Product questions:

- How is your solution better/different/cheaper for buyers who would otherwise choose a discount buyer realtor services from Zillow or Redfin?

- Who will be doing the tours?

- Are you offering a tour-only non-exclusive representation agreements?

Business questions:

- Seller agents in the Bay Area will definitely "blacklist" buyers who use this, as they've done for Redfin and Open Listings. How are you solving this?

- Why are incumbent giants not building this? Are you worried or solving for some unknown pressure that stalls tech-realty startups in general?

- Residential real estate transactions more often than not require some high-touch shenanigans due to things like liens, solar loans, inspections, contingencies, negotiations, etc... how are you solving for this?

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#195

Post by lxe »

thinkmorebetter wrote: post #62

I think it’s a bit misguided in the pitch by too boldly trying to replace all buyer agents. A lot of what realtors offer, especially to first time buyers (~1/3), is emotional support and confidence/security for making the biggest financial decision in their lives. I don't believe an AI isn’t going to be able to do that. But if you’re a second+ time buyer, then I think it makes more sense.

After my first home buying experience, I can assure you that "emotional support" is actually "emotional manipulation"

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#196

Post by conductr »

greenfish6 wrote: post #106
alemanek wrote: post #99

I am actually your target market. We are looking to buy a house early next year. But, one thing that put me off is that you don’t list what fees you charge, is it flat rate or a percentage, ..etc. In the FAQ I see this but no mention of the standard terms of the buyers agreement: > Do I need to sign a buyer agreement? > We will let you know if you need to sign a buyer agreement. You will for sure need to sign a buyer…

Other relators do not put their fee pricing on their websites so we decided to follow suit. We have the same pricing model - negotiable. But we provide better service.

So 3% and even lower touch service, oh yea “the seller pays for it” right? Buyer Agents are already grossly overpaid for the amount of actual work involved IMO, you so much as pointed that out in your stated value prop except found a way to keep the greedy commissions and not actually improve anything for the buyer.

There’s flat fee agents that will do exactly this without AI and at a cost of $500-1000 where I live. You should do that and go for volume. Edit: Oh and their offer doc includes a clause that effectively negates the 3% buyer commission and nets seller the same amount without letting their agent keep the full 6%

If you could normalize this, you will have truly disrupted the industry. As is, your an ai substitution for status quo

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#197

Post by pzo »

cortesoft wrote: post #190
pzo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you selling any kind of product or service the price you gonna charge will take into account expenses that you have to sell or make this product, e.g. if you sell app in appstore and Apple and other taxes will eat 45% of your app price and you know you will break even at $1 per app profit then definitely you will ask user for $2.

This doesn’t apply to most people selling a house. Sellers are not setting the price for their house, buyers bidding for it do. Anyone selling a house using an agent isn’t someone who manufactures houses. They are mostly people selling their own home because they are moving to a different home. They are going to put their house up for sale, buyers will make offers, and the seller will choose the best offer. The buyer…

> They are making the same offer no matter what

Obviously seller can decide if agree on minimum price. Otherwise I doubt if someone would sell if bidding would end at $1k for a home. If seller wanna sell apartment for $100k then they expect that someone bids with $105k to covert agent fee.

> And sellers aren’t going to take 6% less if they don’t have an agent.

Why not? I many times did a deal with AirBnB host after few weeks of renting by talking with them directly and asking for the same rent minus AirBnB fees. They had no problems with that because they would earn the same amount and only cutting the middle man.

> the cost to make the good only sets a price floor,

Fee based on percent like 6% doesn't have any floor. You really believe that if we now change this fee to 66% this wouldn't have any impact on buyer and buyer would be fine because this 66% fee is paid buy seller?

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#198

Post by homefree »

keeptrying wrote: post #46
eagleinparadise wrote: post #29

Best of luck. I’m a commercial real estate professional who has spent time as a broker, lender, and private equity investor. Residential definitely is a lot More of a ridiculous market. But ultimately as an agent, you get hired to work with mostly irrational actors (sellers and buyers). As someone who is very interested in AI and taught myself how to code (I don’t know any other real estate people who know anything a…

The ludicrous 6% fee is whats going to drive adoption by end users and in turn by brokers. Move that fee to 1% for buyer agent and you have a massive market.

It's a corrupt market imo, like car dealerships - they work to legislate their continued existence.

Any market structured where you have some people doing many transactions and some doing few ends up skewed to benefit the person doing many while screwing the person doing few.

It's true with realtors, IPOs with investment banks, car dealerships, funeral homes etc. and it's a hard problem to fix.

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#199

Post by edmundsauto »

evantbyrne wrote: post #193
whiplash451 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a serious opportunity to arbitrage under the 6% fee, you bet that someone would have done it already — and well before the AI era.

Prior to the changes which only went into place in August, agents were colluding to keep fees artificially high. Buyers' agents would actually hide listings that promised less than what they wanted and all of that information was hidden from buyers until the buy/sell agreement. It is way too early to say exactly what the impact will be, but as an anecdote my agent accepted 2% on the home I just closed on. My predicti…

Some fees will drop, there will definitely be an H&R Block version of agents.

Other agents will have such demand, their fees will remain high.

It’s not clear to me as a potential buyer that I want to go with the commodity, especially in quirky areas like TICs in San Francisco. We’re in for an interesting ride, best of luck to this team!

Re: Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers

#200

Post by cortesoft »

pzo wrote: post #197
cortesoft wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t apply to most people selling a house. Sellers are not setting the price for their house, buyers bidding for it do. Anyone selling a house using an agent isn’t someone who manufactures houses. They are mostly people selling their own home because they are moving to a different home. They are going to put their house up for sale, buyers will make offers, and the seller will choose the best offer. The buyer…

> They are making the same offer no matter what Obviously seller can decide if agree on minimum price. Otherwise I doubt if someone would sell if bidding would end at $1k for a home. If seller wanna sell apartment for $100k then they expect that someone bids with $105k to covert agent fee. > And sellers aren’t going to take 6% less if they don’t have an agent. Why not? I many times did a deal with AirBnB host after f…

AirBnB is very different. They are taking that deal because it is easy, and they don't have an easy way to find other renters without airbnb... airbnb is providing a match making service between renters and rentees. When you are selling the house, it is a one time sale for a large amount of money. In this market, you will get a LOT of offers for your house; you will obviously accept the highest offer, whether you have an agent or not. Why would a seller choose to make less money? Your airbnb example wasnt the person taking less money, they were getting the same money; the house example would actually be taking less money. They would never do that.
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