Will AI Replace Your Realtor? The Truth That Could Save—or Cost—Homebuyers Thousands | Ep. 48

Artificial intelligence is changing how people search for homes, compare mortgage options, research communities, and prepare to buy real estate. But can AI actually replace a Realtor—and will relying on technology save homebuyers thousands or cost them even more?

In Episode 48 of Real Estate UnRaked, Eric Rakers and Dane Coussens tackle one of the biggest debates in real estate today: AI vs. Realtors.

AI can explain mortgage terms, estimate monthly payments, organize paperwork, build moving checklists, and answer questions around the clock. Eric and Dane use it themselves. But having information isn’t the same as having experienced representation when hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line.

In this episode, Eric and Dane break down:

•  What AI does exceptionally well for homebuyers and sellers 
•  Where artificial intelligence falls short during a real estate transaction 
•  Why negotiation requires human judgment, strategy, and emotional intelligence 
•  The inspection problems AI cannot see, hear, or smell 
•  How local knowledge can uncover details that online research misses 
•  Why builder sales representatives work for the builder—not the buyer 
•  How a buyer’s Realtor can help with builder incentives, lot premiums, upgrades, inspections, contracts, and final walkthroughs 
•  What happens when an appraisal comes in low or an inspection discovers major damage 
•  Which types of real estate agents could be replaced by AI 
•  Why the future belongs to great Realtors who combine technology with real-world experience 

Eric and Dane also put AI against a Realtor in a rapid-fire showdown, covering negotiations, home inspections, repair credits, overpriced listings, builder mistakes, contract questions, low appraisals, and the late-night problems that can derail a transaction.

The conclusion? AI is an incredible tool—but it cannot crawl into an attic, read the emotions behind an offer, recognize seller motivation, or personally fight for your interests.

If you’re buying a resale home or new construction anywhere in Northeast Florida, this episode will help you understand how to use AI without giving up the professional representation you may need.

Have an opinion? Do you believe AI will replace Realtors—or will it make great agents even better? Share this episode and join the conversation.

Need help buying, building, or selling in Northeast Florida? Contact Eric Rakers and The Rakers Home Group before making your next move.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from writing emails, creating videos, answering questions, and now people are saying it can replace your realtor and save you thousands of dollars when buying a home. So here's the question: Do you really need a real estate agent anymore? Can AI negotiate for you? Can it find hidden problems? And can it save you money? Or could it actually cost you thousands? Today we are going to be deep diving one of the biggest conversations happening right now in real estate. We're not here to fear AI. We're actually here to use it every day. But today we're going to tell you exactly where AI is amazing, where it completely falls apart, and how buyers can use both AI and a great realtor to make smarter decisions. So grab your coffee or something stronger and let's unrake it.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

All right. Welcome to Real Estate Unraked, episode number 48. Excellent. How's everybody today? Good. Hello, hello. Here I say usually everybody, but it's us, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Did we just become best friends? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Nothing to fear, Dane. We're all good. We're all good today. This is gonna be great. All right. We've got some really great stuff to talk about. And AI is pretty much have has found its way into almost everybody's life.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Good, great, brand, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah. If you have a cell phone, that's pretty much what's been doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Absolutely. It's everywhere now, and everybody's talking about it. So we decided to talk about it today ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Awesome. Well, I think it's an important topic. So we really need to get in here and deep dive it and bring some truth to the world. And that's what I wanted to talk about today. All right. So we've been seeing headline after headline AI will replace realtors. AI will negotiate offers. AI will buy save buyers money. Some companies are even advertising that buyers won't need an agent anymore. AI, yes, and it has exploded over the last two years. Consumers are researching homes differently. Their buyers are asking Chad GTP questions really before calling us agents. AI is helping people understand contracts, neighborhoods, and financing. And this is honestly, this is not science fiction anymore. You're not Star Wars or anything like that. This is legitimate reality.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Right, right. And you know, that's not a bad thing. Technology has always changed real estate. MLS changed everything, Zillow changed everything, electronic signatures changed, changed everything and made it a whole lot easier, too. Now Aya is changing everything.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I swear I've seen a lot of stuff in my life.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

You remember when everyone said Zillow was going to replace realtors? So how did that work?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Technology isn't replacing great agents, it's replacing average ones.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

We're gonna give AI some credit here because it actually does some incredible things and it does it very well. And what AI can do usually is, and what the consumer usually uses it mostly for when it comes to real estate is really explain mortgage terms, compare neighborhoods.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

It builds moving checklists, answers questions 24-7, calculate payments, explain closing clocks a bit, excuse me, explain closing cost, research schools, estimate commute times, create home buying timelines, and it also organizes paperwork.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, and here's something people might not expect. We use a, for example, we use it for marketing to help us, you know, market what we have to put out there, you know, whether we're doing listing descriptions or video ideas. We do that a lot. Yeah. Social media, you know, so it helps us with all that market research, you know, gives us ideas. You know, we might hit a wall sometimes trying to think something up, and it will give us some ideas that we can uh work with, and then brainstorming, you know, throwing some ideas off of it and it'll help us go in deeper what we're trying to figure out. Email writing, which is helps us sound a little smarter sometimes than we probably are.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, I actually have it, you know, you used to have that spell check button and Microsoft Word. Right. And now it's a little bit different. Now it kind of tells you that hey, you're you're a horrible writer.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

It's good, it was quite honest sometimes. An organization, it does help out tremendously with the organization for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So, but if you're not using AI today, you're already behind.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, AI reminds me to drink water, and I still ignore it.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Well, this is where things are gonna get interesting for us, okay? So the first thing we need to understand is AI, is it really negotiating for us? AI doesn't negotiate emotions, people do. Sellers get offended, buyers panic, and agents solve problems.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Right. And home inspections, you know, AI cannot smell mold, hear a noisy AC, fill a soft floor, spot poor workmanship, or crawl into an attic. You know, AI is is there, but we have to be there too. We gotta take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Well, the other thing is is reading people. You know, there's certain talking points when you're having conversations with people, the seller motivation that that goes on that you gotta focus on. Yeah, somebody that's dealing with a divorce, a job relocation, you run into the estate sales, you know, people pass away, that kind of thing, financial hardship, timing, the multiple offer situation, reading body language, and you know, just having phone conversations.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Buying house isn't just math, it's psychology. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Well, the local knowledge as well with AI, AI can tell you about, you know, if the HOA exists, but a realtor can tell you where to send the HOA, how they send the violation letters because your your garbage can stayed outside six minutes too long.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, and AI knows the HOA rules. Your realtor knows which HOA president measures your grass with a ruler as well. No doubt.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

And when it comes to builders, this one drives me crazy. We've already discussed just briefly, you know, the advantages of AI and what it can do to benefit the customers and the buyers that are out there, and kind of what the realtor does and just the little things that the AI won't be able to do. But we're really gonna jump into that. Okay, before we do, I'm gonna rapid fire some questions off. I want you to tell me AI realtor, Dan. All right. All right, who negotiates better? Realtor. All right, who catches inspection issues? Realtor. Oh who explains contracts? Realtor. Who helps during a low appraisal? A realtor. Who saves relationships when emotions get heated? Definitely a realtor. Who answers a call at 10:30 at night? Definitely a realtor. Who spots overpriced homes? A realtor.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Ooh, yeah, yeah, I can too do though. Yeah, I mean, if you if you put out the right info, you gotta give them the right info and let them jar in. Maybe 60% of the time it works every time. But I'm gonna go with realtor on that one.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

All right. Who catches builder mistakes? Definitely a realtor. Yeah, we we do that a lot. Right. Who actually fights for repair credits? Realtor for sure. AI might answer you in two seconds, but it isn't crawling into an attic. No helping you find the right stuff. No, it would not. No, absolutely not. Before we jump into what AI is gonna tell us, I want to jump into will AI replace real estate agents?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

No. I think it's a great tool for real estate agents to use to help them do better with their clients and their overall workload for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Well, my answer would be some, absolutely. And the reason why I say that is because your average agent, the ones that are order takers, the ones that open doors, that just push paper, yeah, those jobs are actually going to disappear. Bye-bye. The great advisors are never going to.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

No, no. The future isn't AI or realtors, it's AI plus great realtors. Yep. Kind of what I was just uh mentioning there at the beginning there.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Well, the agents who embrace AI are going to dominate. And it's as a matter of fact, I'll let everybody in on a little secret. I've been heavily working with AI to create a brand new website for our team.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, and I'm I'm excited to see the results. And where AI is going to help us with this is they're going to be constantly searching the internet with interesting content, information content that's going to be one central hub for anybody that's looking in Northeast Florida. They're going to be able to go to this. They're going to be able to compare new construction communities, see the incentives, be able to reach out to us. That's going to be awesome. And everything's going to be right there. And the only thing that we're going to be go that's really going to be left to do is to actually physically go be visit these communities. Right. And go do it. All that, all your answers are going to be right there in front of you. It's going to be a huge information hub for any buyer and seller that's looking in the Northeast Florida area.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

That's going to be huge. That's going to be a great tool.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Really, really excited about. So when I tell you that I didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars on this web design, right. Have a web designer help me do that. I actually use several different AIs to help me generate it and walk me through step by step and us create a huge blueprint for this. And I'm in the construction stage of it right now, and it's amazing. And then the integration of AI inside the actual interface of it, it's going to be really cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, from what you've told me so far, I cannot wait to see the final result of this. This is going to be not only a great tool for us, but any customer that's looking, looking at homes or probably even possibly selling their home is gives them some insight before they you know connect with us and we'll be able to help them that next step.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

No, I absolutely am excited about it. I hope my customers, our customers get excited about it and our team. Yeah. And we do a lot of things because we do we do a lot of stuff from this podcast to our videos to everything else that we do, but they're just all over.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, and this will be a good thing to help.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's crazy. Yeah. We just actually had a business rate on the Google reviews and Google itself that we were ranked number three, or we were tied for second, right? We were tied for second. We were tied for second last month of being the top real estate team in Fleming Island.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, that's awesome. That that is cool. Because you don't really see the fruits of your labor until you see stuff like that. No. But we definitely want to take care of more people, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, absolutely. And and it's it's an honor to have that, you know. It is. You know, for to be recognized. So that means our hard work is starting to show, and we're hoping people will take notice and give us a call.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

But the genuine heart of all this, yes, is AI intertwined, you know, in our business, in our lives. Absolutely, it is. Who's probably the the first AI person that you probably ever used besides Siri in our in your life? Gosh. Okay. Uh everybody's probably used it at one point in time.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Oh, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Alexa from Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Well, uh, Siri and Alexa kind of came out the same thing. I did.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah. That that was really the start of it. Then you got into these other programs where it was actually doing small, tedious little tasks for work. Right. That everyone's using that right now. There's actually been requirements of some businesses when people are doing it to help them with their tasks so they can do more during the day. Right. It's almost a requirement now to provide and use AI for that. Which for us, is it gonna replace our jobs a hundred percent? No, it's not, because you still need that human, um, human aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Very much.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And there's gonna be things that we catch that AI is not gonna catch. I mean, you can actually type it in later and say, hey, this is what my real estate. I guarantee you that if you do that, it's gonna tell you that you have a really good realtor.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

No doubt. But one thing I uh that I I like to stress here is yeah, it's not always 100% accurate or correct. So if somebody's just using it, throws it out there, then they're not using it properly. You're gonna have to double check everything. And I mean everything, because you don't we don't want to put false information out there to anybody. And so we uh we do our due diligence and double check everything before we if we use an AI before we put it out there.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yeah. Real quick, Dane, this is gonna be fun. Um I'm gonna say, what would AI say? So I'm gonna ask you an AI question, and then I want you to kind of tell me what you think AI is gonna say.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Oh my goodness. All right.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

You think you can do that? Well, we'll find out. All right, question one. I'm buying a house with four offers. Submit your strongest offer. Okay, how strong? Oh my goodness. You know, this this is it's interesting how the AI reacts to it. Right. You know, my you can tell it, hey, my inspection found roof damage. AI is gonna tell you negotiate repairs. Right, right. You're asking with who, for how much, before what deadline? Yeah, no doubt. It's it's well, and a realtor is gonna tell you all that stuff without that. Right. You know, here's another one. The appraisal came in low, and AI is gonna tell you, hey, you know what? Renegotiate. And I'm gonna say, Oh, great, thanks. How am I gonna do that? Right. Another, you can say to AI, hey, I'm nervous. And AI is gonna say, buy a home is buying a home is stressful. No kidding, right? Yeah, no doubt. AI has never ugly cried at a closing table. Oh my goodness. It has never done that. So just with those examples that I was talking about, these it's so cut and dry and transparent, but it may not be accurate.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right. No, and and you know, AI doesn't, you know, talking about realtor and AI, AI has no emotion. So, and you gotta have emotion when you're dealing, you gotta have empathy and whatever sympathy, or however you want to word it, when you're dealing with somebody that is selling their home or trying to find a home at the right price or whatever, you know, you gotta you gotta like what we always say, you gotta do the hat with all our different hats that we gotta wear.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, so uh AI can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Jack of all trades, master to none. Yeah, right. If you want to say it that way. AI, it do we do we know? I mean, people can talk about science fiction movies, you know, it's gonna be like iRobot or you know, the Terminator or anything like that. I don't think we'll ever get there. No, but the commonality in all those movies is you're right, AI has zero emotion.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

It's got one task and one task only, and it's gonna do everything it can to accomplish that task.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Now, do you know that in the real estate business or any business that we do that does require human emotion or that's gonna create and spawn human emotion, that's where AI is gonna fall to the wayside.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I mean, if if you're a cold-hearted person and you like being that way, well, guess what? AI is gonna be your best friend. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. But here's five things that AI will never tell you about a house. The neighborhood feels completely different at night. No, the seller would probably accept 15,000 less if approached the right way. Probably the builder has a history of offering better incentives at the end of the month. A house backs up to a retention pond that floods after every major storm. Oh, heaven help them. And the floor plan looks great online, but the layout doesn't fit how most families actually live. Right. So the final takeaway is this if AI helps you become a smarter buyer, use it. We do, but don't confuse information with representation. Because when six figures are on the line, you just don't need answers. You need someone who's been there before.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Technology does not replace experience, it amplifies it.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

So if today's episode helped you better understand where AI fits into the buying a home, share it with somebody who's thinking about buying or selling. We'd also love to hear from you. And do you think AI will replace realtors or will it make great agents even better? Drop your thoughts in our comments, send us some message. We love seeing that, especially on our short videos and all the comments. Right. Oh my gosh. It makes me chuckle. And I'm sure some of the AI stuff responds to us as well. Yeah. But we we love seeing all those comments. And if you're thinking about buying a home anywhere in Northeast Florida, whether it's a resale or new construction, give us a call before you make the next move. We'd love to hear and help you. That way you can use every tool available, including AI. Yeah. While making sure someone is still fighting for your best interest. So again, follow us on social media, watch our YouTube videos. We've got some great new construction videos coming out. Yep. And you know, one thing I'm always going to start talking about after we're done with every episode is this how crucial is it to have us as your real estate agent when you go to these new communities? The site agent isn't my friend.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

No, the site agent's only worried about the builder and again that what they need for them, somebody else to represent you.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

And I can't tell you enough how important it is to have a good realtor to go with you. Yep. All right. Well, thanks for listening in, guys. And until next week, we'll see you soon.