I've mentioned that the real estate industry is being disrupted. That's right here. That's not hype. That's reality. Yeah. And I've always seen AI as being a real threat to the industry. This weekend, my, my mindset shifted and I started to see that if properly gone about, AI doesn't have to be a threat. It can be the most powerful leverage tool to empower great agents to continue to be well paid and not to be paid like baristas or Uber drivers. But to be paid as they are, but by adding more value. And that's always what I've thought is if agents are going to continue to get paid what they get paid, they're going to have to add more value. And today, this weekend, I had this mindset shift that AI is not the thing that's going to cause them to be marginalized and have their margins compressed, it's going to be the thing that allows them to add more value.
Cool. Well, right in the old story of the Luddites, right? Which is now just a word that means somebody who is against technology. But the Luddites were a group of people who smashed weaving looms. They were actually a group of people and it was like, oh, those looms are taking our jobs of weaving cloth together.
Oh, I haven't heard this story. Maybe some of you haven't either. Y
Yeah. So that's where the term luddite comes from. If you've ever heard that term before. And what we can't do is say, oh, the machines are going to beat us and I need to somehow be against the machines. It's where I'm going to refuse to participate. Instead it's like, wait, how can this machine make my life better? And the reality is there's so many of us that are living with machines that make our lives better, right? And it doesn't have to be high tech. I mean, the shovel made people's lives easier. Before you were using a stick and now you know, my smartphone makes my life better. And, and here's the other interesting thing is I think people are afraid of technology because they think, oh, I have to be tech savvy. But what Apple taught us, what the smartphone taught us is, I don't understand how my phone works. Do you understand how your phone works?
No idea at all.
Right? I don't know how my car works anymore either. And yet I use my car, I use my iPhone? And so it's simply a matter of being willing to commit to the process of learning how to use the technology and then allow the technology to enhance what you already are. So, hey, guess what, I've got birthday reminders in my phone. It actually makes me a better friend and son and brother because I remember my people's birthdays and so the technology makes me a better human being and I have become acutely aware of it.
I mean some of the technology that's being being rolled out in the real estate industry now is similar to why you and I love Amazon. But the reality is your Amazon is different than my Amazon. You go to Amazon, you get a certain experience. I go to Amazon, I get a different experience. We both love it. Same thing with Netflix. And what I realized is that agetns have tried to do that for a long time and that's why they've worked their absolute brains out to try and create a customized experience for their clients. And now using artificial intelligence, they have the ability to offer a very customized experience at scale. And not have to be managing spreadsheets constantly to make it happen.
Yeah. That's a powerful concept. Well, a real simple example of that, right? A good real estate agent will say, Hey Josh, when you're looking to buy a home in the next 30 days, now you've really risen to the top for me as somebody I need to be paying attention to. So now I go in and check out our hot sheets once a day to see if there's any new listings that match your criteria. But that's a highly labor intensive practice and it's a very human practice, so it's just going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort to send you what you need. Yeah, but here's the thing, you're not going to move right now. You might not be moving, looking for a year or two years, five years, but you like looking at houses. Who doesn't? Right? It's like one of the best forms of voyeurism, I'm just looking at other people's houses and you, so we do that, right? We're looking at houses were sort of window shopping for houses, but I can't listen if you're five years out, I can't do that.
Yeah, I'd go broke. Honestly, if I'm five years out, I'm less interested in houses that I am if I'm three years or three months out. Absolutely. You're less relevant to me in that conversation.
And by the way, I've got a huge ramp up period to get to know you and what your preferences actually are in the midst of that, right? Unless I've had this machine sitting on your shoulder for five years, that every time you go in and look at how every time you drive by an open house and you open up your phone and go, Hey, what's going on with that one? And every time you go in and be like, man, I like, I like granite counter tops better than, than Corian counter tops, you know? And I like, um, you know, stainless steel, better white appliances and it is tracking is doing that for you. Now all of sudden it's just like you've had this experience, right? You're on Facebook and all of your sudden you're like, how did it, know I like those shoes from zappos.com right now. First of all, that once you get over the big brother aspect of that, because that feels a little creepy at first, but when you actually embrace that and go, hey, that's actually cool. I actually like that thing and I liked it. It follows me around what if your technology is able to say, Hey, I happened to notice that you like these kinds of houses.
And it starts to deliver me stuff that is exciting to me as opposed to stuff that's irrelevant to me.
Oh yeah, and I think version 2.0 that we're going to see if this is your investor profile, like, hey, this is what I'm looking for from a cap rate? These are the types of properties I like investing in and it's like. Hey, by the way, we have one of those in Boise, Idaho that might fit your criteria and we have one in Corpus Christi, Texas that might fit your criteria. I mean that's how you can become a real big deal in investing too. So this is going to be such a value add for our real estate agents for their clients, right? And hey, this is just one technology platform. We have to think it's the one that's leading the pack right now and we're grateful for what their doing in real estate. If you're in real estate, you have to be embracing the technology and you've got to be paying attention right now. You've got to be paying attention right now because there's a whole lot of travel agents, there's a whole lot of cab drivers that were blindsided. They'll tell you it happens faster than you think it's going to happen.
