Real estate agents are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to handle tasks ranging from finding potential buyers to drafting legal documents, fundamentally changing how properties are bought and sold. For some, this technological shift is already translating into significant financial gains and operational efficiencies that were once unimaginable.
Georgie Smigel, a Coldwell Banker agent, credits AI with helping her team project an additional $10 million in sales this year, pushing their total toward the $100 million mark. Instead of manually sifting through old client lists, she now uses software that instantly identifies individuals looking for specific types of properties, streamlining the entire sales process.
Key Takeaways
- Real estate agents are using AI to identify potential buyers, automate marketing, and manage client communications, leading to increased sales.
- AI tools are replacing some professional services, such as graphic design and even preliminary legal drafting, reducing operational costs for firms.
- Large brokerages are investing in predictive AI that analyzes data to forecast which homeowners are most likely to sell their properties in the near future.
- Property management companies are using AI for operational tasks like bookkeeping, maintenance routing, and drafting business agreements.
A New Era of Client Discovery and Marketing
The days of agents spending hours combing through spreadsheets to find a potential match for a new listing are quickly fading. Today, technology provides a more direct path. Smigel explained that she can now simply ask her AI system to identify clients looking for a house within a specific price range and location, such as Bellevue.
"And it pops out all these people’s names and emails," she said. "We invite them to look at our listings and go to our open houses." This targeted approach ensures that marketing efforts are directed at individuals who have already expressed interest, increasing the likelihood of a sale.
This efficiency extends beyond lead generation. AI is now a central tool for creating marketing materials. Smigel noted that her team has been able to cut certain professional services from its budget entirely.
"We don’t need our graphic designer anymore, which is unfortunate. We can put an ad into AI, ask it to make a special size, ask it to look like this, give a theme, and AI spits it out for us."
This capability allows agents to produce customized, professional-quality advertisements and social media content in a fraction of the time and cost it previously required.
From Brokerages to Management Firms AI Adoption Spreads
The adoption of AI is not limited to individual agents. Large, established firms are also integrating the technology into their core operations. Howard Hanna Real Estate, a major player in the industry, has been using AI for years and continues to expand its capabilities.
Dennis Cestra Jr., president of the company’s Pennsylvania market, confirmed that the firm updated its website's search function with enhanced AI a year ago. "Also, we’ll be rolling out here fairly quickly for our agents true automation when it comes to marketing," he added.
The "Wild West" of Real Estate Tech
The current landscape is highly fragmented, with brokerages and agents adopting or developing their own unique AI systems. Mike Netzel, a team leader at Keller Williams Real Estate, described the situation as "kind of the Wild West in that everybody’s doing their own thing." This has led to a wide variety of specialized tools tailored to solve specific problems within the industry, from property management to sales.
The impact is also being felt in property management. Dustin Nulf, owner of Nulf Management Services, has integrated AI into nearly every corner of his business. He recently used ChatGPT to draft the sales agreements for the acquisition of two other management firms.
"I used ChatGPT to write the sales agreement for the transaction instead of paying an attorney over $1,000 and waiting more than a month to get a sales agreement drawn up," Nulf explained. This highlights a significant shift, where AI can handle complex administrative tasks that once required expensive legal counsel.
Streamlining Day-to-Day Operations
Nulf's company has also applied AI to streamline its maintenance and bookkeeping processes. His maintenance director uses it to convert handwritten notes from property inspections into organized, room-by-room lists suitable for generating renovation bids.
Furthermore, an AI-powered system now handles tenant maintenance requests. It first attempts to troubleshoot issues with tenants via text message. If the problem persists, it automatically assigns a ticket to the appropriate technician, a process that previously consumed hours of staff time.
Automated Bookkeeping: Nulf Management Services uses an AI-driven system that scans utility bills, automatically makes payments, and records the transactions. According to Nulf, the system "has learned the more we use it and has become better at being accurate over time."
Predicting the Future of the Housing Market
Perhaps one of the most significant advancements is the use of predictive technology. Brokerages like Howard Hanna are now using complex algorithms to identify homeowners who are statistically more likely to sell their homes soon. This gives their agents a crucial head start in securing new listings.
"It’s based on their digital footprint and historical data like how long they’ve been there and what’s their equity in the house and their most likely interest rate," Cestra said. By analyzing these factors, the AI can flag properties that are ripe for the market.
This predictive power also reshapes the buying process. Instead of starting a conversation with a client by asking what they want, agents can now approach them with a curated list of properties that AI has already identified as a strong match based on their data.
"We’re already going to be able to go out there and search for those houses before we even contact you," Cestra noted. "That’s what we mean by flattening the process out. You go straight to the buyer with a product they might already want."
For agents like Smigel, this precision is invaluable. Every piece of information a potential client provides—price range, preferred neighborhoods, school districts—is fed into a database. AI can then instantly search this data to match new listings with the perfect audience, removing guesswork and improving outcomes across the board.
