The way Americans buy homes is changing dramatically.
New industry rules about how homebuyers’ real estate agents get paid are prompting a reckoning among housing experts and the tech sector. Many house hunters who are already stretched thin by record-high home prices and closing costs must now decide whether, and how much, to pay an agent.
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A 2% to 3% commission on the median home price of $416,700 could be well over $10,000, and in a world where consumers are accustomed to using technology for everything from taxes to tickets, many entrepreneurs see an opportunity to automate away the middleman, even as some consumer advocates say not so fast.
The tech-enabled AI upstarts
The home search function at Flyhomes, a Seattle-based real estate tech company that bills itself as “the world’s first AI-powered home search,” has been up and running since June.
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“The way that we designed this is really to be almost like you’re talking to a local real estate agent, and to be able to answer not all the questions because it’s not a human, but maybe 80% of the questions,” said Adam Hopson, the company’s chief strategy officer.
Additionally, Hopson said, some questions that a human agent might have to research – when were permits last pulled on the home, how close are the nearest power lines – are now readily at hand, thanks to the reams of…
