LeadingLane Podcast

Ashley (00:00)
welcome everyone back to the leading lane podcast. So interesting things as we probably are all dealing with lately is AI. And I know we've talked before about using AI specifically to help us do better as far as our systems. But what I have now started to see is AI play a role in like negotiations where the buyer or the seller is

Steven L. Burch (00:10)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley (00:29)
consulting with chat before deciding on things in the negotiations or in the offer? Have you had any situations like that?

Steven L. Burch (00:39)
We've actually had a an agent out of our off not from our office that outside of our office that we were going back and forth on something and they sent a screenshot of Google of what they were trying to Make their point about and I'd honestly don't remember what it was But that's where you go to like you go to Google and also on the top of Google You know, it has the AI summary right like so

They're pulling off of AI of the summary of what it thinks should be best. end of the day, was like, you know, Google is not the real estate agent. They're not licensed in Kansas. They do not practice real estate. I don't care what Google says. mean like specifics directly from the real estate commission site? That's a different story. The black white, the law, but not what Google thinks we should do. So what about you like?

Ashley (01:30)
the legal hotline.

Steven L. Burch (01:36)
What do you think the most wild situation that you've had with AI in that manner? Because I think this is where it goes on the opposite. Like I'm pro AI, but this is, this is where shit gets out of hand. Right.

Ashley (01:45)
for sure.

Yeah, so

probably the two most frequent ones are recent ones that I can think of ⁓ is a buyer decided basically that they wanted to back out of the offer, not due to contingencies, et cetera, just kind of changed their mind. So obviously the seller was looking to get the earnest money back as default. And they said that ⁓

I looked on chat GPT and chat GPT said that sellers almost never received the earnest money and a real estate transaction. And I was saying to myself, how many times sellers have received earnest money in a real estate transaction. So it wasn't our, our buyer or our, our agent. had, we, our office had a listing agent. ⁓ So that other agent was trying to explain to them, like you can't use.

chat GPT as reference and then that's not true. So then I just ended up talking to that broker and I was like, I understand that's what she's getting out of chat GPT, but she should read lines XYZ of the offer to the purchase that clearly deep, you know, talks about what happens in default. ⁓ but it was like a several day event that Nope. Chat says I don't have to do that. It's like the chat is not above the law. So, ⁓

Steven L. Burch (03:12)
What ⁓ was the broker's response?

Ashley (03:16)
As far, well, yeah, I mean, they were just like, there's, haven't had any luck in getting through to her. Like it doesn't matter what we tell her. It's just not, not registering. you know, and sometimes again, that's not my office. So, so I don't know, but I think this goes back to realtors in general, or I do think a lot of them are just emailing over offers to sign like, Hey, I want to offer $150,000 on this property.

type it up for me. And I don't think that people are actually going through like line by line, like, okay, sure. I sent this over to you, but this is what default means. This is what a home inspection contingency means. This is how you ask for repairs. I think a lot of people aren't doing that. I figured that out just from people where I've met, like maybe they worked with someone a year or two ago and then I work with them now. And then they're like, wait, we never talked about that when I bought, when I lost bottom house, you know, and I was like, what?

So think that there's some of that, like if you're not actually reading the contract to them, do they actually understand what happens if they change their mind?

Steven L. Burch (04:21)
Obviously if the agent's not even knowing the outcome or what can happen, did they read the contract? I don't know. Sorry, go ahead.

Ashley (04:26)
Yeah. Right. And then, no, I was going to say

the one that I had is my client. I sent him over the inspection and then the inspection repair requests and what my suggestions were, which were to make the electrical repairs. You know, I feel like a lot more people are doing inspections now. A lot of people are asking for more repairs than what they were. I feel like electrical is probably the most common thing, especially when it comes to GFCIs.

Also, right, a lot of times that gets called out on an appraisal for safety and health. So we need to worry about it coming up later. And he's been great to deal with. And he just said, I know I probably shouldn't be referencing chat, but I did ask chat GPT if I need to make these repairs. And it said that since the age of the home predates that requirement, I'm not required to make those changes. I was like,

I understand where they're coming from. ⁓ however, it is a safety and health issue item. So regardless of when your house is built, regardless of when the timeframe's changed, the inspectors are still responsible for pointing out things that could be safety and health. I was like, so now obviously these got changed to be laws because things happened and that's why we have GFCIs now. And I said, so sure. I if you don't want to fix it.

It's going to come up in the appraisal and then they're going to be back to square one. And then you have to decide if you're going to let her buy your, buy your walk over. I think it ended up being like $175 that the electrician changed to change or charge to change all those. GSC is like, I get where you're coming from. also said like, it's not like a localized practice here. Like we don't say like, well, the house was built before whatever time. So, no, not so sad. Um, and so I appreciated that he was like.

I know I shouldn't be, but I wanted to see what I said. ⁓ but I think that that, and then I think another agent had one as far as that's what I think the seller told them like the amount to counter at. And I think it's, I think what's maybe wild to me is like, you've hired us to work in your best interests. You've hopefully hired us for our experience, but yet there's still this like trust issue line that you're going to rely on a.

Steven L. Burch (06:24)
Right.

Okay.

Ashley (06:51)
computer generation output versus our 15 plus years of experience to tell you what we think is best. I think that's the thing that was like wild to me is that they're trying to get, you know, like a verification, if you will, from like a non-human.

Steven L. Burch (07:09)
And I mean, just like the Zestimate, Like, that's a non-human and people are... I saw a...

Ashley (07:11)
Yeah.

My estimate said, about those ones that are $150,000

left that we're to go buy those?

Steven L. Burch (07:21)
Yeah, no shit. And I saw something on Facebook. was like, don't get don't make fun of kids that still believe in Santa. There's still people that follow with his estimates are, you know, so freaking funny. So true. But also like the legality side of this. So you're telling me that you're willing to go and stand in front of a courtroom, a judge or a law and say, chat, GPT told me so. That's why I advised my client or that's why I chose not to make this repair.

Ashley (07:28)
even there. ⁓

Steven L. Burch (07:51)
Like how, kind of legitimacy is actually going to be continuing with that? Like it legit on chat GPT says it can be making errors, right? Like all of these different things. And I read an article to where, no longer chat GPT can no longer do ⁓ legal advice and medical advice. So like, there's now more disclaimers in here saying

You know, I'm not an attorney, blah, blah. This is my opinion type of thing. And really that's the end of the day is it's AI's opinion. That's it. Are you willing to go record over that? No.

Ashley (08:27)
Right. Well, that's what I think

it goes back to is, you know, like, we've been doing this for however many years, like you've been in transactions, I see what happens when someone backs out. I see what happens when people don't make $150 repair, like, please use like my expertise. That's why I'm here. I'm trying to help you is so that we can get to the closing table. So I do think that I think it's going to be continued. I think it's probably going to get worse.

Steven L. Burch (08:42)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley (08:56)
I think that there are going to be times where people will say, like make a legal decision that they should not have and they'll end up in court over it is what I think will happen in the future.

Steven L. Burch (09:07)
There was a training that I did that basically was talking about the higher the risk, the less AI you should rely on. Right? Like, so it's risk, I think it was risk reward and making sure that you are really analyzing, is this something I should be moving forward with? You know, I think it's different. Like I trained a custom GPT on our contract.

Ashley (09:27)
Mm-hmm.

Steven L. Burch (09:35)
And it was more so checking for the signatures, the dates, verifying the difference, right? Like kind of more the compliance side of things, just as an extra set of eyes. So that works beautifully because you can train it black, white. Now, once you get over into the opinion side of things, that's I'm not going to go there. Like I'll maybe look at it from a different perspective or learn from it, but I'm still going to be making my judgment call at the end of the day. I'm putting my signature on their chat, not chat to be team.

Ashley (10:03)
I that's why you say that. think I sent it to you too, because I thought it was crazy. I have fixed their AI on my email. And so it's getting to learn me, right? So there's like common requests for community tours and I have a response about, you what I want to show them or whatever. And so the last couple of times it's come up, it's already like auto-generated my whole entire response, which is great. So was like, oh, would have taken me five minutes, write that up or whatnot. But it auto creates a draft for you. And so sometimes I don't get to the draft before like I start my own response or whatnot.

Steven L. Burch (10:09)
Any other

Ashley (10:34)
So I recently received a cash offer on a property and then I started, I reviewed it and I started writing, do you have a proof of funds? Cause there was no proof of funds with the offer. And then here I saw, fixers response was back to the agent and it said, could you please provide a proof of funds? I do not see one provided. So it's like, it like auto generated it before I responded in it, looked through the

Email and saw that it wasn't there and it knows me enough probably because I asked that in like every frickin offer. Um, but knew enough to know that like within five seconds of getting that email. I'm able to just, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is crazy. But those are like, those are the benefits. Like those are the ways to help you and use it beneficially. I think we just have to make sure we're not using it legally or making bad decisions with it.

Steven L. Burch (11:09)
I think that's it.

that.

Right. And I think that's where the difference of people of understanding, like I truly do not believe AI is going to replace the service industry and replace realtors, replace agents. Right. I do think that if you don't start adapting into AI and utilizing these different tools and resources, you're going to be left behind tremendously. So I think making it realizing that this is your force multiplier. This is your enhancer, not a replacer.

And so making sure that you're not putting it before you like you are the professional. Um, but I think the more tools that you can adapt into utilizing AI, the better agent, more efficient agent you can be or in sales business, anything in life. Um, and there's so many different things that are out there, but I'm not going to rely on any of it to like, it's almost like our, you know, our, vehicles like has, it's not self-driving, but it is self-driving. I know there's a different term for it.

I still have a hard time letting go of that. Yeah, the super cruise. There you go. Um, I have a hard time even with that, but I still have to pay attention, right? Like I still have to make sure what's going on. My eyes still have to be on the road. So it's not a hundred percent like self-driving. Like what was that in Arizona? The cars? Yeah. Like, um, no, no, I'm not going to do that. Like,

Ashley (12:29)
the super proofs.

the Womble or something like that. Yeah. No, thank you.

No, but I

don't know if I told you this. We stopped in Manhattan because the car was so dirty. Can I tell you this? Okay. And so I wanted to get the car cleaned and the only one I could find was like a Tommy's Express.

Steven L. Burch (13:02)
No.

⁓

yeah, you did say this, but it's a good one. I love it.

Ashley (13:14)
And like neither Ben

or I have ever done one before. so Ben was driving at that point in time. I get the concept. I've been through a smaller one and I have never seen like Ben have so much anxiety. So, you know, if you haven't been through one, like it basically gets your car like on a carriage and then it like takes you through the car wash and all the stages, but it says like, don't turn on your wipers. Don't press on the brakes, those types of things.

I mean, Ben was like, I don't like this, how much longer? When is this done? This is not okay. What if I hit the car in front of me? And I was like, my, calm down. And then he turned on the wiper blaze and I was like, you are not supposed to turn the wiper. He's like, I need to see how do I not hit that car in front of me? And then I could see he was gonna put on the brake and I was like, do not. So something as simple as going through a car wash and letting someone have control.

Steven L. Burch (13:49)
I that's good.

Hmm.

No, that's it.

Ashley (14:13)
But now I understand why Ben refuses to use the supercruise.

Steven L. Burch (14:14)
Great.

Yeah. Um, did you figure out how to put your car in neutral when you went through? Okay. Well, that's where I could not figure out. like, I don't even know how to, how do you do this? Like I'm part drive. Like I'm all over the place with it. So.

Ashley (14:29)
I had time.

We didn't know when to put it back

into drive yet. It was a whole situation.

Steven L. Burch (14:36)
Okay. So funny.

But no, I think that the risk in using something like that in not only just your profession, but other people's livelihood as far as like AI into the real estate transaction, like too high of a risk, not willing to do it. And I think if I were that broker, like one, I would have had.

wild discussion with my my agent that you put this in writing about chat. She BT says, and really, if we can't get past getting this agent out of slowly using it, you got to go because I heard he was the agent. ⁓ tracking. OK, OK. I was like, that's there's no way.

Ashley (15:15)
think it was the agent's client that used it and then sent it to her.

Well, no, yes, the agent ones is super

even more so concerning.

Steven L. Burch (15:25)
OK, yeah, yeah, that's where I thought this is where we were at with this is the agent was the one that was using it, not the.

Ashley (15:29)
No, but I definitely think there have been some

other situations that I have seen where agents may have used AI in some part of it. like, I don't think that that's.

Steven L. Burch (15:40)
No. Not kosher here, kid. Not kosher.

Ashley (15:42)
You

know, I've even done it, I do like, like, I'll help it, have it me like summarize an offer. Like I already have a template for that. I like how chat makes it a little bit prettier, but then like I rerate it and then it'll say something that it didn't say like buyer does not want inspection. And I was like, that is not what I said. I mean, so you do really have to double check everything.

Steven L. Burch (15:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right. It's again, it's your force multiplier is supposed to help cue things up. If it got 90 % of it, correct. Hey, that saved you a lot. But if it got that 10 % like that's wrong, that could, that 10 % could be some of the biggest key indicators throughout this transaction. And that's, that's a no go. Like not going to work for me at all. So where do you think AI like it's already progressed in the last three years, four years, tremendously.

Ashley (16:10)
Saved me 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Steven L. Burch (16:35)
I mean, even last year it's been crazy. So where do you think in five years, what do think AI is going to be like in the real estate industry?

Ashley (16:44)
You know, I think that

a lot of that's going to come down to regulations, right? Cause there have been obviously changes like you talked about what it can give advice for and whatnot. I know that I've seen like robot type things that people think will be very active in the next five years. I still, in my opinion, feel like I'm not going to have a robot, like open a door for me to show me around already, right?

When it comes to transactions, do think, you know, and what we've determined through is that it will be able to pull a lot more information. So like when you're getting ready to list, right, like there is going to be so much data as far as how much it sold for before the tax bills updates, you know, I think a lot of that will be helpful. Like that takes us a lot of time right now to pull all that information. I think that will be helpful. I think it'll probably give more information about sales.

recent sales, sales around that. think all of that, which will be helpful. ⁓ I think as far as like the actual contract, I'm not sure. I will say that I, I don't want it to get much more in depth than what it currently is. I mean, I, I like the helpful responses or whatnot, but I still think it's taking the time to explain those things to people, which I don't think chat can like relate it. Cause I like to give examples when I'm explaining a contract, you know, like

⁓ any, any damage between now and closing. So I'll be like, a neighbor throws a baseball through the window, right? Like you have to help people understand how they can relate those things. And I just don't feel like chat has that. Or the empathetic part, right? If something happens in the transaction that someone's really struggling with, I don't think that they have that emotional intelligence to be able to help. And, people do real estate for,

myriad of things, right? It could be a divorce, could be a death in the family. And I mean, I am sure you're the same thing with you, like you've sat at tables where people have been in tears and you have to, that piece we can't lose otherwise, like we all become almost like robots. ⁓ I think the information polling will be very quick. And I think it will also ⁓

Steven L. Burch (18:51)
three.

Ashley (19:00)
you be able to analyze ahead of time, like who's looking to sell, who's looking to buy. already have some of those analytics. I think it'll be that much farther along.

Steven L. Burch (19:09)
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And maybe this is where just because I'm to be a little bit biased with it because I don't want it to be the replacer. Right. Like that's not what I'm after. But I do think that there's going to be so many different administrative tasks that it's going to be able to do and help. And I think that we're in this very delicate situation in the society right now of. We already.

have people that are keyboard warriors and people that do not have the social connection, ⁓ engagement, conversation piece, you know, like we've gone away from that tremendously, the compassion, all of these different things. So I think that if we continue to have people behind the computer screens and solely do that, you're right, like we're going to, I think as a society now, just in real estate, like have even

more social awkwardness, social disbehaviors that are happening out there if that happens that direction. ⁓ But what I hope happens is that this actually allows for more of those connections, more of the face-to-face, more of the helping people and truly understanding them. And I think if it goes that direction, it's actually going to remove a lot of the people that are not keeping up with how real estate is working.

⁓ and even the changes in laws and everything, I think it's going to continue to wash and weed those people out. So I can actually foresee agents that are adopting AI and using this as a resource and the, ⁓ amplify your business that you're going to. Increase your business tremendously because you don't have to be stuck behind that computer anymore. You get to talk to more people and you make more connections. Yeah, absolutely.

Ashley (20:58)
It's all about, like you talk about all the time about relationships, right? So like the more time that we can

use establishing relationships and repeat business and helping them through the biggest purchase or sale of their lives, like that's what makes it more important and more relatable.

Steven L. Burch (21:15)
Right. And, you know, like I'm going to give you an example. I mean, not really AI, but as far as just adapting a tool, we've always used Matterport, the 3D imaging virtual reality walkthrough. Here in the last probably six months or so on the property management side of things, ⁓ we've made it a requirement for people to view the property through the virtual walkthrough ⁓ before we will even meet them at the property in person.

And so when we implemented that, of course, the staff was like, that's not good. Like we want the customer experience. We want this. We want that as I do as well. But when you were legitimately showing properties all day and you're not getting the, you know, the applications and conversions over onto the lease side, like you're just a showing person at that point. Like, that's not what I want.

⁓ And so I think it really pushed our staff and our group to kind of let go of understanding this is to help them because then our phones lines have decreased, which I never thought I would say was a good thing. ⁓ But the people now that are inquiring, the people that are now really showing to are completely different level of magnitude of seriousness.

and ready to, you know, submit application, go forward with a lease, et cetera, versus just the looky-loos that are all over the place. So when we implemented that, now that's something, I mean, we always had it on all of our rental properties, but now that we enforced it and made that a policy in the company, our production has increased because now my team is not having the tedious task of showing nothing, ⁓ not making relationships, but now we can actually help more people because we're more available.

Ashley (23:07)
Yeah,

that's great.

Steven L. Burch (23:09)
Yeah, so good talk. think it's going to be really interesting. Even this next year, there's going to be so many different things that I've seen in the pipeline. So I'm excited. I'm a little nervous. Can't lie with some of these things that are coming through, but I do, you know, I kind of feel old. remember when people like the MLS went onto the ⁓ online instead of the book and the internet and everything else, right?

I remember people who like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be resistant. And then hearing people how they're like, I wish I would have really jumped on that bandwagon and adapted to it versus just being resistant. I don't want to be resistant to it, but I also can see how very quickly people get overwhelmed and shut down because there's something new every single day. So I think it's just sticking with one thing and learning and then, you know, compounding another tool on top of it and continue to move forward. So.

Cool. All right, well, thank you for tuning in and we hope that you'll listen next time. We appreciate you guys.