Real-Estate Agents Look To AI For Sales Boost
American technology leaders at Realogy, Compass and Zillow hope to augment human savvy with algorithms.
American technology leaders at Realogy, Compass and Zillow hope to augment human savvy with algorithms.
Information-technology executives at some real-estate firms are rolling out artificial-intelligence-based tools designed in part to help agents close deals faster, which could prove useful in today’s hot housing market.
While the selling and buying of homes remains an agent-driven business, IT leaders say such tools can augment their efforts, especially in a market with record prices and tight inventory.
“AI can play a significant role in simplifying and automating processes where traditionally humans have been involved,” said Rizwan Akhtar, chief technology officer of business technology at Realogy Holdings Corp., which owns brokerage brands including Coldwell Banker, Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty.
Artificial-intelligence efforts in the real-estate sector are benefiting from advances in cloud computing and data analytics, as well as improvements to algorithms, according to technology leaders at Realogy, Compass Inc. and Zillow Group Inc.
Realogy uses more than 25 AI models, Mr. Akhtar said, including models that can help agents predict their chances of converting a prospective client into a paying client and others that can predict the optimal percentage split between a broker and an agent on a property.
The company is in the early stages of testing an AI app that aims to predict when certain milestones will be reached in the home-buying process, he said.
At real-estate brokerage Compass, an AI-based tool that predicts whether people in an agent’s contact database are likely to sell their homes within a year resulted in more “listing wins” for its agents, said Joseph Sirosh, the company’s chief technology officer. In the second half of 2020, the tool’s recommendations led to a 94% higher “win rate” than the rate for properties that weren’t identified as likely to sell, he said. The technology was released last summer.
Agents reach out directly to people identified by the tool as likely to sell. Traditionally, agents knock on doors, rely on word-of-mouth referrals and make calls to meet potential clients, Mr. Sirosh said. “Agents save time when they are far more targeted,” he said. The model takes into account dozens of variables to make a prediction, including how often homes sell in that region, what the last sale price was and how much the home has appreciated over time, he said.
Realogy offers agents a similar tool.
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in boosting adoption of AI tools among agents, Mr. Sirosh said. During the height of the pandemic, “agents could not work without technology which meant that everything associated with technology, like AI, which provides efficiencies, became incredibly useful,” he said.
Online real-estate company Zillow recently announced that its Zestimate tool, which estimates a home’s market value, is powered by a neural network that learns on its own and takes into account hundreds of millions of data points. The data range from the home’s square footage and unique features to location and how the property differs from surrounding homes, said Stan Humphries, the company’s chief analytics officer.
A neural network is a branch of artificial intelligence that aims to mimic the way the human brain learns.
AI-based models can’t account for human intuition or empathy, though. Buying and selling a home is a “deeply emotional, very risky transaction,” Mr. Humphries said. “Humans are always going to want another person, an expert, to help them with that process.”
AI can add value for agents in incremental ways but real estate will always be a heavily people-focused industry, said Mike DelPrete, scholar in residence on real estate technology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Real-estate companies sometimes tout their prowess in technology and AI to attract agents, Mr. DelPrete said. But the degree to which agents will actually adopt AI and other software tools is uncertain, he added.
“More people are talking about AI in the real-estate industry as a point of differentiation…but the reality on the ground is that it’s more of a marketing tagline,” Mr. DelPrete said.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: June 22, 2021
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Chinese users of Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, welcome Americans fleeing a feared TikTok ban
They call themselves TikTok refugees—and the app they are fleeing to is a lot more Chinese than the video-sharing app whose U.S. fate now hangs in the balance.
After Supreme Court justices Friday seemed inclined to let stand a law that would shut down TikTok in the U.S., the Chinese social-media platform Xiaohongshu , translated in English as Little Red Book, has received a flood of American TikTok users. They are looking for a sanctuary or a way to protest the potentially imminent TikTok ban—never mind that they don’t speak Chinese.
Charlotte Silverstein, a 32-year-old publicist in Los Angeles, downloaded Xiaohongshu on Sunday night after seeing videos on TikTok about migrating to the app, which Americans dubbed “RedNote.” She described the move as a “last act of defiance” in her frustration about the potential TikTok ban.
“Everyone has been super welcoming and sweet,” said Silverstein, who has made three posts so far. “I love the sense of community that I’m seeing already.”
By Monday, TikTok refugees had pushed Xiaohongshu to the top of the free-app chart on Apple ’s App Store.
“I’m really nervous to be on this app, but I also find it to be really exciting and thrilling that we’re all doing this,” one new Xiaohongshu user said in a video clip on Sunday. “I’m sad that TikTok might actually go, but if this is where we’re gonna be hanging out, welcome to my page!” Within a day, the video had more than 3,000 comments and 6,000 likes. And the user had amassed 24,000 followers.
Neither Xiaohongshu nor TikTok responded to requests for comment.
The flow of refugees, while serving as a symbolic dissent against TikTok’s possible shutdown, doesn’t mean Xiaohongshu can easily serve as a replacement for Americans. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the U.S., and it has drawn many creators who take advantage of the app’s features to advertise and sell their products.
Most of the content on Xiaohongshu is in Chinese and the app doesn’t have a simple way to auto-translate the posts into English.
At a time of a strained U.S.-China relationship, some new Chinese-American friendships are budding on an app that until now has had few international users.
“I like that two countries are coming together,” said Sarah Grathwohl, a 32-year-old marketing manager in Seattle, who made a Xiaohongshu account on Sunday night. “We’re bonding over this experience.”
Granthwohl doesn’t speak Chinese, so she has been using Google Translate for help. She said she isn’t concerned about data privacy and would rather try a new Chinese app than shift her screentime to Instagram Reels.
Another opportunity for bonding was a photo of English practice questions from a Chinese textbook, with the caption, “American please.” American Xiaohongshu users helped answer the questions in the comments, receiving a “thank u Honey,” from the person who posted the questions.
By Monday evening, there have been more than 72,000 posts with the hashtag #tiktokrefugee on Xiaohongshu, racking up some 34 million views.
In an English-language post titled “Welcome TikTok refugees,” posted by a Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu user, an American user responded in Chinese with a cat photo and the words, “Thank you for your warm welcome. Everyone is so cute. My cat says thanks, too.” The user added, “I hope this is the correct translation.”
Some Chinese users are also using the livestreaming function to invite TikTok migrants to chat. One chat room hosted by a Chinese English tutor had more than 179,900 visits with several Americans exchanging cultural views with Chinese users.
ByteDance-owned TikTok isn’t available in China but has a Chinese sister app, Douyin. American users can’t download Douyin, though; unlike Xiaohongshu, it is only accessible from Chinese app stores.
On Xiaohongshu, Chinese users have been sharing tutorials and tips in English for American users on how to use the app. Meanwhile, on TikTok, video clips have also multiplied over the past two days teaching users the correct pronunciation of Xiaohongshu—shau-hong-SHOO—and its culture.
Xiaohongshu may be new to most Americans, but in China, it is one of the most-used social-media apps. Backed by investors like Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group , Xiaohongshu is perhaps best described as a Chinese mix of Instagram and Reddit and its users increasingly treat it as a search engine for practical information.
Despite its Little Red Book name, Xiaohongshu has little in common with the compilation of Mao Zedong ’s political writings and speeches. In fact, the app aspires to be a guidebook about anything but politics.
Conceived as a shopping guide for affluent urbanites in 2013, Xiaohongshu has morphed into a one-stop shop for lifestyle and shopping recommendations. Every day, its more than 300 million users, who skew toward educated young women, create, share and search for posts about anything from makeup tutorials to career-development lessons, game strategies or camping skills.
Over the years, Xiaohongshu users have developed a punchy writing style, with posts accompanied by images and videos for an Instagram feel.
Chinese social-media platforms are required to watch political content closely. Xiaohongshu’s focus on lifestyle content, eschewing anything that might seem political, makes it less of a regulatory target than a site like Weibo , which in 2021 was fined at least $2.2 million by China’s cyberspace watchdog for disseminating “illegal information.”
“I don’t expect to read news or discussion of serious issues on Xiaohongshu,” said Lin Ying, a 26-year-old game designer in Beijing.
The American frenzy over a Chinese app is the reverse of a migration in recent years by Chinese social-media users seeking refuge from censorship on Western platforms , such as X, formerly known as Twitter, or, more recently, BlueSky.
Just like TikTok users who turn to the app for fun, Xiaohongshu users also seek entertainment through livestreams and short video clips as well as photos and text-posts on the platform.
Xiaohongshu had roughly 1.3 million U.S. mobile users in December, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which estimates that U.S. downloads of the app in the week ending Sunday almost tripled compared with the week before.
Sensor Tower data indicates that Xiaohongshu became the top-ranked social-networking and overall free app on Apple’s App Store and the 8th top-ranked social app on the Google Play Store on Monday, “a feat it has never achieved before,” said Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.
Run by Shanghai-based Xingin Information Technology, Xiaohongshu makes money primarily from advertising, according to a Xiaohongshu spokeswoman. The company was valued at $17 billion after its latest round of private-equity investment in the summer, according to research firm PitchBook Data.
Not everyone is singing kumbaya. Some Chinese Xiaohongshu users are worried about the language barrier. And some American TikTok users are concerned about data safety on the Chinese app.
But many are hoping to build bridges between the two countries.
“Y’all might think Americans are hateful because of how our politicians are, but I promise you not all of us are like that,” one American woman said on a Sunday video she posted on Xiaohongshu with Chinese subtitles.
She went on to show how to make cheese quesadillas using a waffle maker.
The video collected more than 11,000 likes and 3,000 comments within 24 hours. “It’s so kind of you to use Chinese subtitles,” read one popular comment posted by a user from Sichuan province.
Another Guangdong-based user commented with a bilingual “friendly reminder”: “On Chinese social-media platforms please do not mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs!!!”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.