Unless you’ve been held hostage at an open house in recent weeks, you’ve likely seen stories of homeowners who skipped working with an agent and instead relied on ChatGPT to sell their home on their own.
If you’re like most agents and brokers, your first reaction was probably something along the lines of, “He’s lucky, but that approach won’t work for most people.”
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you are not wrong. But at the same time, this is an increasingly common problem and one we cannot afford to ignore.
Yes, AI platforms like ChatGPT are powerful, but they often provide advice that overlooks important details, which can lead to dangerous outcomes when it comes to complex financial decisions.
Unfortunately, the people with the lowest financial literacy are also the ones most likely to adopt a DIY/ChatGPT approach to “save” on transaction costs. They are also the people most likely to be financially harmed by bad financial decisions.
But because we have a stake in homebuyers and sellers who use agents, we need to not only tell people that relying on AI in real estate transactions is risky, but explain exactly why it’s risky in a way they can understand.
Brokers who fail to teach their agents how to do this will suffer in the years to come. So in this article, I’m going to share exactly how we train our agents to handle this scenario.
build a personal brand
Anyone who has talked to me for more than three minutes knows that my views on building a personal brand are almost cult-like.
Because I know firsthand the impact it has on agents. A strong personal brand will help you stand out among 1.5 million other agents. Most agents are seen as a commodity because they do nothing to differentiate themselves. It helps you prove your expertise. And most importantly, it helps you build trust with your audience.
Personal branding was discussed in detail in a previous Inman article. The article is as follows.
Your personal brand helps you differentiate yourself from your competitors, get more leads, and build and nurture relationships with them. Remember that home buyers and sellers who choose not to hire an experienced agent are doing so because they haven’t seen evidence that they provide real value.
A personal brand changes that to your advantage.
Demonstrate your expertise
Your content should consistently demonstrate your expertise by educating your audience, but there is one area of particular focus here: creating content that demonstrates your expertise while clearly explaining the risks associated with relying on AI tools in your real estate transactions.
One way to do this is to analyze specific aspects of a real estate transaction, highlight all the variables involved, explain the impact if something goes wrong, and then ask AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, and Perplexity to advise you on real-world scenarios. More complex scenarios are helpful here, as the tool is more likely to give the wrong answer.
And when you consider all the variables involved in a typical real estate transaction, you have hundreds, if not thousands, of potential topics on which to create content.
The advantage of this approach is that it does not say that AI tools can be dangerous for real estate transactions. Instead, it is demonstrated by the tool itself.
And it’s not just about informing them of the risks. You will also demonstrate your expertise, both in your understanding of the process itself and your ability to identify and mitigate potential minefields that could disrupt a deal.
Side note: One aspect that is often overlooked is the tax implications of the transaction. It is clear that this is likely to be similarly overlooked by the AI unless specifically instructed and provided with all relevant information. Although you may be well-informed about this particular topic, it is important to stay on your toes and leave tax advice related to real estate transactions to a qualified tax professional. However, you can mention the risk of AI overlooking this in your content.
This won’t change everyone’s mind, but it won’t change anything.
Build and nurture relationships
Many agents are great during the deal, but fall short when it comes to nurturing relationships afterwards, so many agents don’t get any follow-up business from the clients they worked so hard to acquire.
This is a huge opportunity loss.
You can give your clients the best service in the world, but if they’re looking to move and you’re not top of mind at that point, they’re more likely to find a new agent, or worse, rely on AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, or Perplexity. Especially in today’s economy, everyone is calculating every dollar amount they might spend.
Emails and text messages are both very effective, but be careful not to overdo it. You should always send useful information often enough to get attention, but not so often that people unsubscribe. The key here is to make sure it’s really useful and appealing to them from their perspective. The telephone can also be an effective channel. Although you have to spend more time, you can build a much stronger relationship over the phone than over email or text.
You can also host local events to which you invite your clients and prospects from time to time. This is a great way to foster relationships, especially if you can connect attendees with other attendees who could be valuable connections in some way. Be prepared for a significant investment of time and capital to achieve this.
The goal here is to stay in touch with your clients and prospects so that your name is the first thing that comes to mind when they think of real estate.
Bottom line — you must always demonstrate and deliver value.
As AI tools become more commonly used, this problem will not go away for us or for those who rely on them, as more people will flock to them to perform complex tasks such as real estate transactions. In fact, it’s only going to get bigger.
Proactive brokers train their agents on how to prove why they are still needed in an AI-driven world. Those brokers (and their agents) will succeed if they master the basics, while those who don’t will suffer.
Therefore, if we want to remain competitive in today’s increasingly challenging marketplace, we must stay ahead of the AI ”agent” landmines that are firmly planted in our path.
