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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

#271

Post by fakedang »

greenfish6 wrote: post #93
eldavido wrote: post #84

I tried to automate a big chunk of property management (mostly commercial) over the past few years. The main thing I realized is that it's mostly a people business, and AI (or computers generally) are never going to stand over a vendor's shoulder and keep them honest (e.g. make sure they sweep up or don't scuff the walls), or have a difficult conversation about late rent with a tenant, or show up after hours when a p…

I think people are constantly changing their comfort zones when they fall in love with different products. People definitely would be open to real estate w/ software. Otherwise, by this logic, why do people use Zillow? Why don't they just drive to their local Relator office to ask about local listings? How could you trust an online algorithm to show homes instead of someone describing homes to your face? We are seein…

> People definitely would be open to real estate w/ software. Otherwise, by this logic, why do people use Zillow? Why don't they just drive to their local Relator office to ask about local listings? How could you trust an online algorithm to show homes instead of someone describing homes to your face?

Actually why not both? People check Zillow for a ballpark, or end up finding an actual place, and then book a tour through a local agent at Zillow (who might suggest other places too).

Your product seems like a replacement for Zillow, with a conversational touch. I can see a scope for its use, but not sure how it's a moat. The moat here is the database of homes and the local agents network that Zillow uses.

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

#272

Post by infecto »

I am not sold on what the service is.

There are sellers out there that already do instant tour unlocks. There are also companies like Redfin that tried to attack this problem but I think are still struggling to fully crack it. You only mention that rates are negotiable, there is no way I am using this kind of service unless you offer drastically lower rates. That was the attractive part of redfin, they automate and standardize as much of the workflow as possible and can work with lower rates for that process. I don't care about an OpenAI chatbot that can send me some listing information via text message.

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

#273

Post by bastawhiz »

Raffi_Isanians wrote: post #26
mattw2121 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raffi doesn't scale. Are you going to hire more Raffis?

There is only one Raffi. -Raffi Edit: AI is currently being coded up to mimic my behavior/tone/advice/etc.

An AI with your behavior/tone/advice/etc isn't going to call title companies.

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

#274

Post by infecto »

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.

To tack on what others said, the fee reduction is huge but that is what RedFin has been doing and while I believe it to be a better workfow as a buyer/seller, I do not believe they have been a massive disruption to the market.

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

#275

Post by imranhou »

dkasper wrote: post #243
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.

The fee is already 1% in a lot of places after the NAR ruling earlier this year so that arbitrage is mostly gone.

Is there any data or statistics you could point to? I’m really curious as to how much shift has occurred since the shift by NaR

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

#276

Post by Lionga »

greenfish6 wrote: post #252
foobiekr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much market share do you have?

Why would we mimic Redfin, who's a fairly small & declining player in the real restate brokerage space, when we could mimic features of much more successful players like Keller Williams

Rarely read from someone so immune to constructive criticism, that is so full of himself, it is reason enough to avoid anything he touches.

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

#277

Post by knodi123 »

itake wrote: post #104
koolba wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 6% fee was paid by the sellers, not the buyers. Buyers didn't pay anything to the agents. Buyers are the ones paying everything. At 6%, that means the seller is willing to accept 94% of the sale price for the deal. So with a lower fee or simply less middle men feasting on low information transacters, a buyer with 94-100% could purchase that house and both parties would be happier.

No. Buyers never consent for "their" money to go to the buyer's agent or sellers agent. The selling agent's contract with the seller (not the buyer) is the seller will pay the 3% fee to seller's agent and offer a 3% fee to the buyer's agent. Buyers historically have never negotiated the fee paid to their agent, other than choosing an agent that would refund part of their fee.

> Buyers historically have never negotiated the fee paid to their agent

Negotiated, no. Paid, yes. If the government adds a 6% tax on shoes, I promise that doesn't mean a 6% drop in Nike stock. It just causes the price to go up.

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

#278

Post by sgc »

bookofjoe wrote: post #182
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic justifies any amount of fees. They can be excellent brokers and still not deserve $6000 (selling a $1M house) for maybe 40 hours of work as a very generous estimate.

6% of $1M = $60,000

More typically in that price range: 5% of 1m = 50k. / 2 brokerages so 2.5% = 25k. * 80% to agent = 20k. - agent costs = You would cry at how little net most agents make.

You are not paying an agent hourly for the amount of time they work on your transaction, but for their knowledge and experience - which cost them significant amounts of money - to guide you through the transaction and not shoot yourself in the foot. There is a fine line to walk between getting rejected outright and a deal never happening, and overpaying. You also might be buying a lemon (and not just from the perspective of a home inspection - people *regularly* want to do things with properties and transactions that just won't fly. They need to hear that from somebody on their side before they wind up losing much more than a couple percent). An agent will help you avoid them. Add on top of that how agents can help avoid the many lawsuits there are when people feel slighted and/or are actually slighted in RE transactions, and real estate agents are a decent value.

Agents are functionally like mini-attorneys + advisors for real estate. You wouldn't walk into a court room without a lawyer, and it is not a whole lot smarter to enter into a real estate transaction without an agent.

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

#279

Post by knodi123 »

greenfish6 wrote: post #252
foobiekr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much market share do you have?

Why would we mimic Redfin, who's a fairly small & declining player in the real restate brokerage space, when we could mimic features of much more successful players like Keller Williams

Because your mission is to make home buying easier, faster, and far more enjoyable?

Sounds like you just said you don't care about that, and your real mission is to maximize your profits.

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

#280

Post by knodi123 »

fakedang wrote: post #255
kevinob11 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so excited when I saw this and now I'm disappointed. This kind of statement "quit on trying to win clients that are trying to get the best price" creates a false dichotomy of those who are trying to pay nothing and those willing pay whatever. There are tons of customers in the middle who are happy to pay for important services but think 30K (3% in high COL areas) is too much for the services rendered. That bein…

> We are charging for the service. > Our service is rendered by an AI. I really don't know what their eventual value-add is. I doubt anyone's going to be paying 2.5-5% to househunt with an AI.

They say in theOP "Our mission at Modern Realty is to make home buying easier, faster, and far more enjoyable."

But here in the comments, they say their mission is to get rich with AI. Tricky! I wonder which claim is right.

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