Will AI Replace Real Estate Agents? The Future of Realtors, MLS & Home Buying

Demitri (00:00)
Well, it’s going to be more gradual, but the timeframe is very short. I don’t think we have more than two years before we’re done. In fact, it probably could be even less than that. The hurdles are legislative because as a real estate agent, we are licensed to protect you. Right. Or we have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure you are not scammed out of money that you’re not taking advantage of that.

And that

no seller gets undue favor across another seller, right?

Dylan Silver (02:07)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, returning guest, Demitri is the founder of the Demitri team, a Florida based real estate group focused on residential real estate, investment properties, assumable mortgages, creative deal solutions and more. With more than 20 years of experience and hundreds of homes personally transacted, he helps buyers, sellers and investors navigate changing markets through strategy, marketing and problem solving. Demitri, welcome to the show.

Demitri (02:33)
Hey, thank you. Glad to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:35)
Now we were talking in the green room about the changes that are happening and that will continue to happen. How do you think AI will potentially reshape the real estate space over the next couple of years?

Demitri (02:50)
You know, I think it’s way beyond where most people are pointing to because most of them are looking at how do I quickly get like a robot in essence, an AI bot to send out text messages or emails or respond to a voice, you know, a call coming in and talking to that. But I think it really gets way beyond that because AI can infiltrate everything, every aspect of real estate.

even to the part of being able to look at all the different data points that come in. So for instance, somebody asked me, hey, I want to sell my house. What should I sell it for? Well, there’s a bunch of data points I’m going to look at. did people, what other house that were like this, sell for? What are houses that are currently on the market? ⁓ You know, what upgrades did this house have compared to the other house? So there’s a lot of points. Well, AI can take that to like almost an infinite level.

where I’m for one part not allowed to do some things. And secondly, it’s so data driven, probably time permitted, doesn’t really allow me to put that much effort into it. So example, what are the crime rates for that area compared to another? What are the school ⁓ performance tests? What do those have? How close are you, let’s say to,

a new development, what kind of noise factor do you have because of highways and like all of these little data points that literally from a buyer’s standpoint would matter to them. You know, is it on a golf course? Is it near to golf? Is it near to water? Like all of these little things and it becomes something that from an analog standpoint, meaning people have to do this is just so, I don’t even want to say the word overwhelming. It’s just so many data points.

Dylan Silver (04:29)
Yeah, that’s a great point.

Demitri (04:45)
we cannot manage them to come down to it. then people just, you know, discount those and go, well, that really didn’t matter. Whereas from an AI standpoint, man, a programmer puts it together and it’s looking at everything real time. So as things change, it gets updated. And I think that’s what we’re looking at. I think we’re looking at every aspect of being AI just saying, you want to sell your house? Great. Let’s get it done. Okay. I got it sold. I mean, literally that fast.

Dylan Silver (06:01)
That is a really interesting point to bring up about how AI can really do the research that a realtor would traditionally be doing. And so it begs the question, well, what’s going to be the role even right now of a real estate agent? And will people still want to utilize someone who they are effectively delegating the process to? Because if they don’t need

the realtor for the subject matter knowledge, they can get that from an AI tool, then what’s the purpose of a real estate agent?

Demitri (06:37)
Yeah, well, today it’s very purposeful. At some point it’s probably going to be programmed out. But from today’s standpoint, and this is we’re in that infancy of AI. that is that sometimes they use the word hallucination, where the AI, you ask it something, it goes on and does it. It doesn’t really know the answer, so it makes it up. It’s a hallucination, right? You need to have the ability, the knowledge base and the tool set

to be able to decide, the answer that I get back from AI, is it valid? You can’t just accept the fact that AI did all this stuff and it’s really smart and it has all this database and all. You can’t expect that the answer is always true. It may be 100 % true, it might be 50 % true, it might be 0 % true, but you have to, right? You gotta have that ability to be able to wade through it and say, okay, maybe we’re off some or off a lot and be able to do that.

there’ll become a time where it will become just accepted and more data will be brought in, more history will happen on there, and it probably will not be checked at some point. It’ll just be accepted. But for right now, the agent is needed, even though utilizing those data points. I will give you an example. ⁓ Zillow, not my favorite place, but they definitely have done a really good job.

at getting the public to come to them to find a house. They’ve syndicated all over the country, all the different MLSs, bringing all that data there, and having people be able to search through that. That is being done from an analog standpoint, from a consumer’s point. They have to open up their laptop, they have to get on, they’ve got to go search and look at pictures and decide.

Part of that is the data that’s being brought into them is also dependent on the agent that listed the house. How much data do they bring in? Right? Do they take really good pictures? Do they take crappy pictures? Do they only take three pictures? Like, like all of this information is there. Well, in an AI totally world, which is where we would be at some point down the road, you would still have vendors, but the vendors would do the same thing on every house. So,

If you went to get pictures, it would be done the same way across all houses. You wanted to know the stats on the schools or the stats on, you know, shopping or distance from one place. Just all of that data is literally out there. It’s just a matter of, I put it together? And then from a Zillow standpoint or how they’re doing it, but this would be the improvement and hopefully it’ll be somebody else who knows, maybe me. There’ll be a profile piece as a buyer, right? You’ll put in, here’s the things that I want to know. And part of it.

because you’ve used AI, it already knows a lot about you. Like my AI knows a whole lot about me. In fact, I say hello and it says, hey, Demetri, because we’ve talked a bunch of times, right? But as it knows you more, it knows maybe what church you go to, where your job is, how much money you make, how many kids you’ve got, how old they are. It knows the trends for life. Like, OK, your kid is in fifth grade, but they’re going to

Dylan Silver (09:35)
Yeah.

Demitri (09:57)
not too long from now be in high school. ⁓ and they like football. so they might, AI might take into consideration what school, like you’re looking for a house. So what school has a good football program where your kid might have a great chance of one playing football, but also maybe even making, getting a scholarship to a college to play football. It could take all that sort of data in and say, ⁓ well here’s your best places. It matches the number of bedrooms you want, the look, the style of the house. It’s close to the golf course that you like.

all of those things and it’s just an automatic. You didn’t have to search for anything. It just said, here’s the five houses that match what you like. And you go, well, I love them all. And now it’s just a matter of, I mean, you didn’t have to worry about price point. That was all considered for you. In fact, even down to the point of we already have you approved for the loan. When do you want to move in?

Dylan Silver (10:37)
Yeah.

it’s handling a lot of the labor that would traditionally be associated with facilitating the whole transaction. And now you just have to make the decision, which one do you want to go with? Where do you see the next automation in the real estate business happening? Do you think it’s something that could potentially change this process entirely? Or do you think it’s going to maybe

be a more gradual process.

Demitri (11:47)
Well, it’s going to be more gradual, but the timeframe is very short. I don’t think we have more than two years before we’re done. In fact, it probably could be even less than that. The hurdles are legislative because as a real estate agent, we are licensed to protect you. Right. Or we have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure you are not scammed out of money that you’re not taking advantage of that.

And that

no seller gets undue favor across another seller, right?

That it’s kind of equal across the board. So there will be legislation that says, all right, well, how do know AI is following the rules for that? That’s one. The second is going to be, how do we, when we buy a house or sell a house, there’s always title involved, right? So there’s surveys for the house. There is a title to find out, are there any other encumbrances, any lawsuits? Is it got an HOA?

like all of these things. that’s another part. And you got a bunch of people making good money who are probably going to say, well, wait a minute, you’re going to eliminate my income. How do I solve that? And that too is, is legislated as well. that is there. And then you have the financial part. You’re getting a loan, right? ⁓ all the things that you want to know about alone. It really, I think what could happen quite honestly,

Dylan Silver (13:03)
Yeah.

Demitri (13:12)
is we could become at a place where your house is like a stock that you buy. It’s got all of its factors about it. It’s good plus whatever. And it’s in a sense like a stock and you’re just going to go into that trading system and go, all right, that’s what I want. And that it’s going to point out just like we would research which stocks do we want to buy. We put our profile, do our searches and all that stuff. That’s the one we want.

Dylan Silver (13:20)
Hmm.

Demitri (13:40)
even down to the point of, and these are things that, like when we’re looking at a house, I doubt anybody looks at it and says, okay, this house has been around for 30 years. How did the appreciation profile show up for this house as compared to this other house? How did the taxing profile show up for this house as compared to other houses? How did my insurance profile show up, right? Because over time, you can see,

Dylan Silver (13:55)
Yeah.

Demitri (14:07)
How much did that stuff increase? Did that municipality in that particular area because of the schools or the police department, the fire department, whatever, did their cost for your taxes that you’re going to pay annually, did that go up at a rate faster or slower than this house over here? Same thing, know, all of those things. These are data points we would never look at as a realtor, as a buyer, as a seller, but throw AI in here. Now those are instinct.

All right, you got them right now. They’re here. It’s just a matter of an algorithm to say, well, that has more value than this one does. so, yes, go ahead and ask me a question. I’m just rambling. There’s just so much to think about on this.

Dylan Silver (14:45)
No, no, no, I was gonna, I was gonna say,

when you mentioned being able to track so much of this over time, one of the hurdles that I see is that the MLS is effectively a closed loop that only realtors have access to. Do you think that that’s maybe gonna change?

Demitri (15:06)
Yeah, I do. I do think it’s going to change. think it’s so. It comes down to. ⁓

I wanna say…

Well, I’m gonna go back, I wanna back up for just a second. A couple years ago, National Association of Realtors got sued because they were in a sense a closed loop. They were forcing sellers to pay undue fees from their viewpoint. To some degree, probably very true. To other degree, no, it’s not. A seller wants to sell their house and they’re willing to, you know, let’s get it done. I don’t know what you wanna call it, but obviously the fee they were worried about was the fact that

a buyer’s agent is being compensated and the seller technically is not getting any benefit from that buyer’s agent. Actually, they are getting benefit because without the buyer’s agent, the buyer never came to the house, so they never had the opportunity. argument is here nor there. The idea was that what it points to is, is that service truly a value or an obstacle to the system? I think the

legal system prove that the national associations is more of an obstacle than a value to the system. In fact, the biggest thing that NAR does, really the biggest thing that it does is it lobbies the government. It takes our money, our dues that we put in and it lobbies it to be in favor of real estate agents so we get things done that favor us. I’m not a big fan of lobbying, but that’s really where it is. We take our local associations

And, you know, they are a closed loop as well. Actually, in, I think it was Georgia, there’s a brokerage, the Roberts Group, they actually sued and won where they said, hey, you basically are a monopoly. You’re telling me I have to be a member and pay dues to you in order to be able to take a listing that I have for a seller to be able to put it out here into this public network that says,

Hey, I have this house for sale. You’re forcing me to be a member before I can do that. That’s not right. And they actually won on that case. Not a lot of agents realize that, but I think it’s North Carolina, Georgia and Florida are now all under that one piece where we literally could go to those MLSs and go, Hey, I want to put this listing in and might have to take a court action with them, but you that.

Dylan Silver (18:12)
you

Demitri (18:14)
Ruling is in your favor in those states. So take that to the point of like, will they go away? Are they going to end up being not needed? I think at some point they are. And a little bit of that is happening right now. Take Compass, for instance. Compass bought a bunch of other brokerages. They were all under the, gosh, I forget the name, but there’s like five different broker brands basically that were under the ever.

I forget it anyway, but any case, brought them all. So what they’re doing and they have their own software and I think they just did a deal with Redfin as well, where their listings are in their system. So you have to go to their website to find that house for sale. They are not syndicating that to Zillow. So if you want to find your house, you want to look for a house, you only get part of the information from Zillow now. You got to go to

Redfin and Compass to get the rest of the information. It’s not just one anymore. I think at some point it will become an AI platform and it would not shock me that EXP, Compass, Redfin, that any one of those and potentially homes.com, but I don’t think necessarily homes.com. I think the others would be potential players.

Dylan Silver (19:13)
Hmm.

Demitri (19:37)
to create that platform for AI to where you would put your home and view it and put it together. I think it literally could come down to the point of there’s no more need to go to a website anymore and view your home. You’re putting in your profile, you’re answering 75, 100 types, 100 questions, and matches are being made for you automatically. And what you see are the ones that match. You’re not seeing the multitudes of listings and going through and scrolling through that. You’re seeing what match saving you time.

One of the reasons the Compass, the Redfin and all that is because they are, as a real estate agent, we all have to work under a brokerage. The brokerage is managed by the state, right? Because of that, those three companies all have singular brokerages for their state. Almost every other brokerage out there is basically a franchise deal where you might have hundreds of little franchises, little brokers all managed by the state. And now,

You don’t have any one place to get an answer from. But those, one place, they’re singular. They’re designed right now to work with the legislation that would be required to be able to make this happen.

Dylan Silver (20:45)
Where do you see being the most important resource then for people to be investing in? If you’re an agent who’s building a book of business, where would you be investing your time and attention to?

Demitri (21:00)
Buyers, I would be working on everything I could about buyers and why you would want certain areas and how you would buy and the things that you would want to consider because the selling part.

While there’s a lot of agents that would love to be a listing agent because they just get the listing and then they put it out there and somebody else literally sells it for them and they make money. I think that’s the one thing that’s probably the first thing to go away because of AI. Cause it’s be like, look, if I bring you into my portal, I charge you $1,700, $2,000. And I now have your listing ⁓ automatically scheduled the,

an inspector to check your house out, a photographer to come out, you need a cleaning service or you don’t want to clean it yourself, get the cleaning. Like all the things that could happen can all be just scheduled automatically for you. Show up on this day, you set the appointment that works for you, it’s all done. So that part’s easily automated and done for a seller. And then you ship them a box and you’ve got a digital Bluetooth lock box they put on their door.

and now that is, a camera that they put in the house on the entry and a showing agent is required. And so being an agent for the buyer, think is the place where you would have longevity that AI is not, you’re not going to be the first replaced. You’re going to be later on, but at some point there still needs to be that human component. Somebody’s got to take that buyer to that house, show them the house and then

sit there and say, okay, I know this is what AI told you and this is what you’ve got. Here’s the human component into that and how you might digest that and make some decisions based on the information you’ve put in. So that’s where I see is on the buyer’s agent is the place to really create that book of business and to do it geographically.

Dylan Silver (22:49)
We are coming up on time here, Demetri. Any new projects that you’re working on or anything you’d like to plug to our audience here.

Demitri (22:56)
Sure. you know, I think the best part about real estate is owning it. And, you know, so I do a cash offer program and I’m always looking for people who have some money that would like to make a nice return on their money. so that is of interest. We buy houses actually all over the country and get good returns for people. And we could certainly have a conversation on that. that is…

That would be my plug. what I mean. If anyone by house, I’ll be glad to talk to about that too. But I’m really focusing on this cash offer program that I’m doing because I help other agents conduct business throughout the country. And that is a program that we utilize.

Dylan Silver (23:35)
Dmitri, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for your time.

Demitri (23:38)
OK, thank you.