Yeah it’s pretty hard to imagine an AI negotiating important stuff.
I bought my first house last year and the amount of back-and-forth was insane. So many different ways to move money around, so many different conflicting and seemingly-but-not-actually-conflicting interests.
My agent recommended we get a sewer scope, even though the inspector didn’t think we needed one. Well guess what? The sewer line was fucked, and could back up at any moment and destroy the finished basement.
Thus ensued many many more emails and small changes to contracts that many people needed to sign. It seemed like such a random thing, but all of a sudden $10,000 was on the line that nobody knew existed. All because my agent had worked in that neighborhood before, and knew that those sewer lines were all old!!
After that experience, I’m convinced you cannot automate out the human element of real estate. There is so much nuance, and the stakes are so high.
But like you said, I think there’s room for a LOT of automation in tools that realtors use. And if you can make realtors more productive, maybe you can get fees down.
I think that’s compass’s main draw. They make a bunch of fancy internal tools for their realtors to use, so that they can do more business at a lower rate. At least I think I remember hearing that on a podcast once…?