Artificial Intelligence for Real Estate Brokers

As a loan officer, I’ve observed the transformative impact of technology in our field, particularly through Artificial Intelligence (AI). I wanted to share how AI can revolutionize your real estate business, making processes more efficient and client experiences more personalized. Here are four AI tools that could significantly benefit your operations:

  1. ChatGPT (OpenAI): This advanced AI-driven chatbot can engage with potential clients on your website 24/7, answering queries about listings, scheduling viewings, and providing mortgage advice. It’s like having a virtual assistant who ensures no customer query goes unanswered, even outside business hours.
  2. Zillow’s Zestimate: Powered by AI, Zestimate offers real-time, accurate home valuation estimates. This tool can help you price homes more effectively, giving your clients the most current market data. It also serves as a great tool for buyers to assess market value quickly.
  3. Restb.ai: This AI tool specializes in image recognition for real estate. By analyzing property photos, it can automatically tag features and amenities, saving you time in listing creation. It also enhances search functionality for buyers, allowing them to find their dream home faster by searching for specific features.
  4. Rex – Real Estate Exchange Inc.: Rex is an AI-powered platform that targets potential buyers through digital marketing. By analyzing large datasets, it predicts who might be interested in a listing and targets ads to these individuals across various digital platforms. This targeted approach can significantly increase the efficiency of your marketing efforts.

Integrating these AI tools into your business can streamline operations, enhance client engagement, and provide valuable insights, ultimately leading to increased sales and satisfied clients. If you’re interested, I’d be more than happy to discuss how these technologies can be specifically tailored to your business needs and schedule a desktop sharing session to help get you started.

Here’s an example:

Using the following text prompt:

Write a pitch for using artificial intelligence in sales and increasing customer satisfaction.

AI generated a 2-paragraph pitch which I copied and pasted into 2 different AI applications.

The application that turns text into PowerPoint presentations generated this: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FduvqbPNJFpbE9O3Tl_jg5NV48riNr8D/view?usp=drivesdk

And the AI application that turns text into video generated this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fc3uSm9xH-pcZoGw4A8ZNTXjNRI2_4Yl/view?usp=drivesdk

I wrote this report less than a year ago: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12kuR5zU7vuBA4jcZiMSMNvoP2qy4Pa5k/view?usp=drivesdk             

Back then I was extremely impressed by the fact that AI could generate an email and an image.

Very quickly using AI is not going to be an advantage but a necessity much like the way the Internet is now.

Connect with you soon,

Denny

Categories: Uncategorized

There are 2 terms everyone needs to understand, Government Shutdown and Inverted Yield Curve

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

I wrote an email about the potential government shutdown 5 months ago and here we are again. It was avoided last time by agreeing to raise the federal debt, what’s another trillion or two?

It’s worse this time because if the politicians don’t agree on a budget by tomorrow, Saturday, the 30th of September, it is shutting down.

This means millions of government employees will no longer be paid, including the military. Not to worry though, congress and the senate will continue to collect their salaries and benefits. There are a hundred reasons why this is negative but the top 3 are:

  • Government employees and services will suffer…..a lot
  • Billions of dollars will instantly leave an already shaky economy.
  • It hurts the credit rating and reputation of the United States with other countries. (Not great with the US’s already less than stellar rep around the world)

This is a link to my previous email on government shutdowns and how the rise in interest rates is adding fuel to the fire: Federal Debt and The Prime Rate

INVERTED YIELD CURVE

An inverted yield curve happens when the financial markets think the economy is in store for a rough road ahead. In a healthy economy the outlook is that things will generally be ok and interest-bearing financial instruments reflect it.

  • Short Term interest rates are low, 6 months to 2 years.
  • If you want higher interest rates you have to commit to longer terms, 3 to 20 years.
  • Adjustable-rate mortgages have lower start rates than the fixed rates

That pricing is inverted when the financial markets suspect the economy is going to hit some turmoil, like a recession. Short term offered interest rates are higher than the long-term rates.  It means that institutions think people are worried about the future and are willing to lock their money away for a long time, even if they don’t get much in return, just to keep it safe. This economic indicator has been extremely accurate in predicting economic downturns and recessions in the past. Like in the following recessions:

  1. Global Financial Crisis (2007-2009): This recession was preceded by an inverted yield curve in June 2007.
  2. Dot-com bubble burst (2001): An inverted yield curve occurred in June 2000, preceding this recession.
  3. Early 1990s recession: Inverted yield curve occurred in November 1988.
  4. Late 1980s recession: Preceded by an inverted yield curve in July 1988.
  5. Early 1980s recession: Inverted yield curve occurred in April 1979.
  6. 1973 oil crisis recession: Inverted yield curve in April 1973.
  7. Early 1970s recession: Preceded by an inverted yield curve in January 1971.
  8. 1969 recession: Inverted yield curve happened in March 1967.
  9. Early 1960s recession: Preceded by an inverted yield curve in April 1959.
  10. 1957 recession: Inverted yield curve occurred in July 1956.

I would much prefer to be writing about all the optimism I have for the economy, but this seemed more important. The one potential positive I do think we’ll see is a hard and fast drop in interest rates in the next 12 months to try to turn the economy around. I wrote about this a year ago: September 2022 Financial Report

I hope this helps with the 2 buzzwords you’re likely to hear a lot more of in the next days, weeks and months.

The US Prime Rate and The Federal Debt Ceiling

Many of the people I speak with in finance and in general ask me why I believe interest rates will be dropping in the next 12-18 months.

It has to do with what the debt ceiling is, what the prime rate signifies and what they mean for the economy. I wrote this to help clear it up a little and show the connection between what seems to be the start of a recession and the fastest increase in interest rates in history.

The US Prime Rate

The US prime rate is the interest rate that banks use to lend to their most qualified business clients. They also use the rate to set the rates on other lending products like secured loans and credit cards.

Just over a year ago the prime rate was 3.5% and a year later it is fast approaching 8.5% more than doubling in less than 12 months.

The impact on business and the economy is substantial. The prime rate doubling took mortgage rates right along with it and effectively doubled the cost of borrowing for homeowners.

Business owners with variable debt have seen their expenses jump. On a hundred-thousand-dollar credit line the monthly payment has increased from $292 a year ago to $708, a 248% increase in 12 months. The rapid increase in interest costs not only affects current debt costs but also makes it much more difficult to get new business financing.

The Debt Ceiling

The US federal debt ceiling was established by congress in 1939 when the federal debt hit $450 Billion. In anticipation of the out-of-control spending that could happen by politicians spending someone else’s money the ceiling was put in place. The first ceiling was $45 Billion. In theory, the government was limited to a total amount of debt that could not exceed $495 Billion.

The current federal debt is $32 Trillion. The ceiling has been raised 100 times since it was first established and has a significant effect on the US economy and our reputation around the world. I can’t understand why they continue to call it a ceiling and not a wish. 

The reason you are hearing so much about it in the media is that we are hitting it again. If congress doesn’t lift, or as they refer to it raise, the debt ceiling the US government will effectively become insolvent. If that happened payments would stop to:

  • The US Military
  • Social Security Recipients
  • Medicare
  • Government Contractors
  • Foreign Governments
  • The Interest Payments Due on The Debt

This would cripple the US economy and destroy our reputation around the world. There’s nothing to worry about, they will absolutely raise the ceiling again. They have done it 100 times before. The scary part is the size of the debt.

The US Prime Rate and The Debt Ceiling

The current amount owed on the federal debt is $32 Trillion dollars. When applied to the debt means for every 1% increase in interest rates the annual interest on the debt rises by $320 Billion or over $6 Billion a week.

Let’s do some math. The prime rate is up 5% from a year ago. That’s a potential increase in the expenses of the US government of over $1.5 Trillion per year or $30 Billion a week in just interest expense. This doesn’t include the debt of each of the individual state governments, but they are being managed by politicians as well and is Billions per state.

Over 8 months ago I wrote a BRIEF REPORT on the economic indicators I was seeing that made me nervous about the coming recession and possible bank failures. I noticed some of the same economic issues I saw before the 2008 crisis.

Here’s a quick overview of those the issues from my report:


Current Economic Indications Also Seen Prior to 2008 Crash:

• A massive run up in the value of real estate, 10% in 2020 and

20% in 2021 largely based on easily available financing

• The removal of the easy financing rates and/or programs

• A restriction of the money supply not just due to the higher interest rates but also to much more difficult qualifying guidelines

• Inflation, which is purchasing power and savings eroding

• Bond and Stock markets dropping by percentages not dollars

These are a couple of the ways I wrote to prepare for economic turmoil:

  • Tighten your belt. Conserve cash and start cutting back spending
  • Create a severely scaled back budget and hope you never need it
  • Consolidate debt on fixed rates

In conclusion there are many reasons I think we will see interest rates drop soon:

  • Interest rates have never risen this fast
  • Economic activity trails a quarter or 2 before we see the full impact
  • The past couple years the feds have been using interest rates to manage the economy
  • Dropping to rates to all-time lows and the fastest increase in history
  • There is a presidential election next year and a full-blown recession will hurt the democrats

I hope I’m wrong and the economy doesn’t spiral out to the point that dropping interest rates fast is used as a rip cord, but I wasn’t wrong last year.

Categories: Uncategorized

The economist that predicted the crash in 2008 says housing prices will drop 15% in 2023

That prediction doesn’t bode well for interest rates going forward but there are a few benefits that come with higher interest rates.

Here’s the linked image to an Ad Free PDF of the economic article:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YLv68H_AQB_coNNdhhRZpeAUt7SMRvxa/view?usp=sharing

Here’s a linked image to an Excel spreadsheet I wrote that shows real estate buyers may actually be better off buying now or with even higher interest rates rather than waiting for lower rates with the increased competition and higher prices. You can change the variables for your real estate market to run the numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zsR0kUfcjlB6tlYYSOGZ-UaXOBDwzYtL/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=115011096715103751689&rtpof=true&sd=true

The last benefit I’ll mention in this email is that with very little refinances and lenders slowing down the process has sped up. This is a congratulations from a lender that we closed a loan with, loan application to closing in 2 weeks:

unnamed.jpg

I hope you found something useful enough to share with your clients or friends and if you have any questions give me a ring at 425-753-2602 or email me at denny@dennyandrews.com

Categories: Economic Data