Shilo, the artificial intelligence conversation analysis platform for real estate teams, unveiled a new proptech tool Wednesday that runs an actual spoken, AI-powered coaching session with each agent on a roster and no manager required to sit in.

The product, called 1:1 Coaching, builds its own agenda from an agent’s call history, holds a live voice-to-voice conversation, summarizes what got covered and remembers it for the next session. 

Every agent’s results roll up into a single report for the team leader, along with a dashboard showing who has and hasn’t completed their session.

The pitch is scale. A human sales manager can coach maybe 10 to 15 agents well before the individual attention breaks down, according to Shilo, and costs $80,000 to $120,000 a year.

Everyone else on a larger roster tends to get a group pep talk instead of real coaching. Shilo is betting that agents will actually use an AI stand-in to fill that gap.

“For twenty years, coaching a real estate team meant a manager listening to a handful of calls and giving everyone the same pep talk. It didn’t scale, and it was never personal,” Shilo CEO and co-founder Justin Benson said in a statement. “1:1 Coaching gives every agent a real coaching session built on how they actually sell — and gives the leader their nights and weekends back. We didn’t build a bot that spits out tips. We built a coach that shows up, remembers you, and holds you to it.”

Shilo says it ran the tool through a beta with 200 agents before launch, with sessions averaging 13 minutes and every measured dimension — enjoyment, likelihood of reuse, perceived helpfulness, personalization — scoring at least 7 out of 10.

Benson said the number he cares about most is 13 minutes. “Agents don’t spend 13 minutes with something that wastes their time,” he said. “They showed up, they talked, and they said they’d come back. For a coach, that’s the whole ballgame.”

1:1 Coaching is rolling out now to existing Shilo customers, who can turn it on for their agents without an added fee. 

The company integrates with Follow Up Boss, Sierra Interactive, BoldTrail, Lofty, CINC, SureSend and Bonzo, and already sells per-call grading, script coaching and AI-generated roleplay scenarios built from real conversations.

Email Nick Pipitone

Zillow, MRED and Compass will return to federal court in Chicago this week for a two-day hearing that could determine whether Zillow continues receiving Chicago-area listing feeds while its antitrust case against the MLS and brokerage giant moves forward.

The July 1-2 hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is not a trial and is not expected to decide the ultimate merits of Zillow’s lawsuit. Instead, the court will consider Zillow’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would keep MRED from suspending Zillow’s listing feeds while the broader case proceeds.

What this week’s hearing is about

Zillow filed its antitrust lawsuit against MRED and Compass on May 12, accusing the Chicago-area MLS and the nation’s largest brokerage of illegally conspiring to threaten Zillow’s access to listings in the region.

The immediate fight centered on Zillow’s Listing Access Standards, the portal’s policy for restricting some listings that are marketed privately before being shared more broadly. Zillow alleged that Compass and MRED were trying to force the portal to display Compass listings that did not comply with those standards, or risk losing access to MRED’s feed.

The dispute escalated on May 20, when MRED followed through on its threat to suspend Zillow’s access to its listing data. MRED said Zillow no longer had a license to display the listings and was violating its agreement and federal copyright law. The impact was immediate, with active Chicago listings on Zillow falling from nearly 5,000 earlier that day to a low of 699 around noon Central Time, before rebounding to 2,070 about an hour later.

Two days later, U.S. District Court Judge John Tharp, Jr. granted Zillow’s request for a temporary restraining order, requiring MRED to restore Zillow’s access to listings that originate in the MLS.

This week’s hearing is the next step in that fight, and Zillow is asking the court for a preliminary injunction that would keep MRED from cutting off its listing feeds while the broader antitrust case proceeds. A trial date for the suit has not yet been set. 

MRED and Compass have pushed back on Zillow’s framing, arguing that the dispute is about lawful MLS rules, seller choice and whether Zillow can continue receiving MLS listing data while refusing to display certain listings that are allowed under MRED policies.

The stakes go beyond Chicago listings

The stakes go beyond whether some listings appear on Zillow in the Chicago area. The case centers on a larger question of control over listing data and who gets to decide how homes move from sellers and listing agents to MLSs, portals and consumers.

Zillow has framed its Listing Access Standards as a transparency policy, arguing that homes marketed to some buyers should be available to all buyers. MRED and Compass have framed the same fight as a seller-choice issue, arguing that homeowners and their agents should be able to use private listing networks and phased marketing strategies without being penalized by a dominant portal.

That divide has been building for months. MRED expanded its Private Listing Network nationwide in partnership with Compass, while Zillow has argued that private listing networks limit access to housing inventory and undermine transparency. The Chicago-based MLS has defended the PLN as a tool for sellers seeking flexibility, but Zillow has consistently maintained that homes sold outside the open market can harm sellers and buyers.

The fight has also spilled well beyond the courtroom. After MRED cut Zillow’s feed in May, Zillow, Compass, Redfin and others launched dueling social media and advertising campaigns aimed at agents, brokers and consumers. Compass marketed its “Zillow doesn’t have all the listings” campaign across social media accounts tied to its various brokerage brands, while Zillow ran ads saying MRED had cut off access to agents’ listings. Redfin also entered the public messaging fight, telling consumers it still had access to the full suite of MRED listings.

For Zillow, a win this week would mean maintaining access to MRED’s listing feeds while the case moves toward trial. For MRED and Compass, a win would mean Zillow’s access to the feed is no longer protected by court order while the case moves forward.

The case has drawn attention from outside the immediate fight as well. Homes.com parent corporation CoStar previously sought permission to file an amicus brief backing MRED and Compass, but the judge denied that request earlier this month. The attempted intervention underscored how closely Zillow’s rivals are watching the case and how the Chicago dispute could shape the next phase of the portal wars.

What to expect next

Zillow and Compass confirmed to Inman that expected witnesses for Zillow include Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson, Zillow Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Hofmann and Lawrence Wu, an antitrust expert and president of NERA Economic Consulting. Expected witnesses for MRED and Compass include Compass CEO Robert Reffkin, MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen and MRED Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer Chris Haran.

After the hearing, the parties are expected to submit simultaneous post-hearing briefs on July 9 and responses on July 13. A ruling on Zillow’s preliminary injunction request is expected sometime after those filings.

In a post published Monday, Zillow framed the hearing as a fight over whether Chicagoland buyers and sellers will continue to have access to a large swath of listings on the most-visited real estate portal in the country. The company said it will argue that MRED and Compass conspired to cut off Zillow’s listing feed in violation of antitrust law.

Compass, in its own statement to Inman, framed the case as a fight over consumer choice and seller marketing options.

“This is about consumer choice, not Zillow’s preferences,” a Compass spokesperson shared over email. “There is consumer demand for pre-market and phased marketing. Some sellers want privacy during staging. Some want to test pricing before a public launch. Some buyers specifically seek pre-market access. Zillow’s policy punishes sellers for exercising these choices by hiding their active listings from buyers once the home reaches the MLS.”

The court’s decision after this week’s hearing will not end the case, but it could determine the operating rules for one of the country’s largest MLS markets while the litigation continues, and signal how much room MLSs, brokerages and portals may have to fight over private listings before the larger legal questions are resolved.

Email AJ LaTrace

I have trained real estate professionals for over 40 years. If you lined up every new agent I have ever coached and asked me to name the one mistake that sinks the most careers, I would not hesitate. It is not pricing. It is not the lead generation tool you bought. It is not the market. 

It is this: New agents confuse being busy with building a business.

Picture a treadmill. You can climb on, set the speed, and run until your shirt is soaked and your legs are burning. You will have worked hard. You will also be standing in the exact same spot where you started.

That is what the first year looks like for far too many new real estate professionals. Plenty of motion, no ground covered.

The work that feels like work but is not

Here is how the trap springs. You get your license, and you are excited and a little scared. So, you do what feels productive. You get your glamor shots done. You order business cards, then reorder them because the first batch was not quite right.

You build the perfect spreadsheet. You take another online class. You rearrange your contacts, post on social media and tell yourself you are getting your business set up.

Inside your head, the story sounds completely reasonable: I just need to get everything in place first. Once my branding is dialed in and my systems are ready, then I will start reaching out to people.

I understand the appeal, because every one of those tasks is safe. None of them can reject you. A spreadsheet never says no. A professional photo never tells you it already has a real estate professional. But none of them generate a single dollar, either.

The only activity that puts a commission check in your account is talking with people about real estate, and that is precisely the activity new agents avoid.

Why this one costs the most

The painful irony is that the warmest, highest-converting business in our industry is already sitting in your phone, and most new agents walk right past it. They chase cold internet leads and strangers because a stranger feels less risky than calling someone they know.

Telling your cousin, your old roommate, or the parents you see at school pickup that you are now in real estate feels like bragging, or worse, like begging.

It is neither. According to the National Association of Realtors, 66 percent of recent sellers found their agent through a referral or used an agent they had worked with before, and 43 percent of buyers found theirs the same way. Your future clients come overwhelmingly from relationships, not from billboards or bought leads.

When you hide from the people who already know you, like you and trust you, you are not being humble. You are handing your warmest business to the competitor who was willing to pick up the phone.

How to avoid the busyness trap

The fix is not complicated, but it does ask you to do the uncomfortable thing on purpose. Here is where to start.

Define what actually counts as work

Income-producing activity is any conversation with a human being who could buy, sell or refer you to someone who will. Prospecting, following up, setting appointments and going on appointments. That is the whole list.

If a task does not eventually lead to a conversation, it is support work, and support work belongs after the dollar-productive work is done, not before it.

Protect your prospecting hours the way a surgeon protects the operating room

Block the first part of your day for reaching out, and treat that block as untouchable. A surgeon does not postpone an operation because the waiting room needs fresh magazines. Your conversations are the operation. Everything else is the magazines.

Tell your world you are in the business

Make a list of every person who would happily take your call, and let them know what you do now. You are not asking for a favor; you are offering one. It can sound this simple:

Hi Jen, I wanted you to be one of the first to know that I am now helping people buy and sell homes. I am not calling for any reason other than this: If you, or anyone you care about, ever has a real estate question, I would love to be your go-to person. Can I count on you to think of me?

Build a database and feed it on a schedule

Put those names somewhere organized and reach out consistently, not once. One conversation is a hello. A dozen thoughtful touches a year is a relationship, and relationships are what turn into referrals.

Trade bothering for serving

If you believe you are pestering people, you will avoid them every time. If you believe you are a trusted guide who can save them money, stress, and expensive mistakes, you will reach out gladly. The mindset comes first, and the activity follows it.

We’re four years into one of the most transaction-starved markets in recent memory, which is running parallel with the increasing adoption of AI and fears for what that could mean to agents.

The agents who are still winning aren’t outspending anyone. They’re out-relating them.

This is the moment to build habits and systems that don’t require a big budget and that artificial intelligence can’t automate away: nurturing your sphere of influence, cultivating your referral network, bulking up your community presence and creating compelling content.

These aren’t just strategies for a down cycle. They’re the foundation you need to put in place, so you can grow your business when transaction volume recovers. That will ensure you’re positioned to scale fast instead of scrambling to catch up.

This week in The Download, we’re looking at low- and no-cost lead-gen strategies that work, even now. Last week, one of our most-read stories was from Inman contributor Jimmy Burgess. Check it out below, along with even more ways to save money while you pad your bottom line.

Take a peek inside Kansas City real estate agent Rachel Kilmer’s relationship marketing playbook that helped grow her business and referrals. The greatest growth opportunity comes from reaching out and celebrating people, Jimmy Burgess writes.

“At its core, Kilmer’s strategy isn’t really about gifts,” Burgess writes. “It’s about thoughtfulness. Most people don’t remember the dollar value of what you gave them. They remember how you made them feel.”

---

Last week, Inman contributors provided how-tos and inspo on niche marketing, cultivating expireds and optimizing your social media content. You’ll find their insights below, along with market and mortgage data plus insights for those of you who might be considering joining a team this year.

The real estate niche every agent avoids (but shouldn’t)

In this episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, Megan Oh, a Certified Divorce Real Estate Expert, discusses one of the most overlooked opportunities in real estate: divorce real estate.

READ: Is the housing market turning a corner? What the numbers say

Expired listing surge: Old-school strategies to win your next listing

Every expired listing you convert opens up all the marketing opportunities to generate additional business from a new listing, trainer Bernice Ross writes.

READ: Is joining a team a smart move? 5 questions to help you decide

7 tips for turning social media content into measurable results

Social lead gen hub POP.STORE is expanding its focus on real estate, helping agents turn content and social media engagement into measurable business results. Troy Palmquist talks with GM Jo Wong about the platform’s upcoming VidCon appearance featuring Andrew Jevin and Glennda Baker.

READ: Mortgage rates aren’t coming to save us. They’re not supposed to

Email Christy Murdock

Affordability is reshaping where Americans want to live, and a record share are willing to move to find it.

Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. house hunters looked to move to a different metro area in the first quarter of 2026,  the highest share in records dating to 2021, according to a new Redfin analysis.

Redfin found that 19.1 percent of its users searched for homes outside their home metro in Q1, up from 18.9 percent a year earlier. Affordability pressure is the primary driver, the company said, with housing costs near record highs and inflation pushing up everyday expenses.

Florida dominated the list of top destinations, claiming four of the top six metros by net inflow. Orlando ranked No. 1, followed by North Port, Miami and Cape Coral. Las Vegas came in fifth, and Tampa sixth.

But the data also reflects a notable cooling. Miami’s net inflow fell to 6,576 in Q1 from more than 28,000 in 2022. North Port dropped from roughly 10,000 to about 7,000 over the same period.

Florida’s cooling mirrors a broader trend. The Wall Street Journal found that residents in their prime working years are leaving the state over affordability concerns, while the stream of new arrivals has shrunk. Home prices, soaring insurance rates and inflation that outpaced the national average have all contributed, The Journal reported.

Redfin’s data points to a separate but related dynamic it calls boomerang migration — not people returning to origin cities, but pandemic boomtowns losing the gains they made between 2020 and 2022. Austin went from a net inflow of 14,000 five years ago to a net outflow of roughly 300 in Q1. Charlotte, North Carolina, flipped from a net inflow of about 3,200 to a net outflow of about 1,700 over the same period.

New York, Seattle and Los Angeles led the list of metros people are leaving by net outflow. At the state level, California’s net outflow was roughly twice that of New York, the No. 2 state.

Remote work continues to enable relocation, Redfin noted, though return-to-office mandates have put some limits on movement from high-cost cities to Sun Belt markets.

Email Jessi Healey

Compass Florida is facing a proposed class action lawsuit in Palm Beach County over a $475 transaction fee that two Florida homebuyers allege was improperly added to their purchase contract and collected at closing.

The lawsuit, filed June 23 by Jeff and Milissa Efron, accuses Compass Florida of unfair and deceptive business practices tied to what the complaint describes as an undisclosed flat fee charged to buyer clients. The Efrons, who bought a North Palm Beach property in August 2024 using a Compass agent, allege they were told their buyer agent would be paid through the commission paid by the seller, but later paid Compass a $475 “flat transaction commission” at closing.

The complaint alleges that Compass inserted the fee into an “additional terms” section of a Florida Realtors and Florida Bar-approved residential purchase contract. The plaintiffs argue that the modification was not an approved contract change and amounted to the unauthorized practice of law by a non-lawyer.

The suit brings claims under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. It seeks class-action status on behalf of Florida buyers who paid a similar Compass transaction fee during the four years before the complaint was filed, along with damages, attorney fees, injunctive relief and the return of allegedly improper fees.

The complaint alleges those buyers were charged “an illegitimate, deceptive and unfair flat fee or transaction fee” that was disclosed through a modification to a Florida Realtors and Florida Bar-approved purchase contract and then collected at closing.

In a statement to Inman, Compass defended the use of transaction fees as common across the industry.

“This has been standard practice in major markets, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., for years, and is done by many other brands in the industry,” a Compass spokesperson said.

The lawsuit comes amid heightened scrutiny over agent compensation and disclosure across the brokerage industry. In its 2025 annual report, Compass said it generates revenue from its owned-brokerage business through its share of agents’ gross sales commissions and “certain other fees, such as flat transaction commission fees.” The Florida lawsuit, however, focuses on a transaction that closed in August 2024, before Compass reportedly expanded transaction fees more broadly this year.

Email AJ LaTrace

Whenever I travel, I love looking at homes, but on a recent trip to Paris, that was practically impossible. That’s because in Europe, listings live across a patchwork of brokerage sites and localized systems, with far less centralized access than the MLS-and-portal ecosystem we’re familiar with in the U.S.

Because of that experience, I started wondering how buyers in international markets ever find anything at all. My subsequent search led me to a major European real estate network that’s reframing how property discovery works by making its entire property catalog natively readable by AI systems like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview and Claude.

Not indexed or scraped. Structured for machine reasoning.

The tech deployment, built with agentic AI platform Kleio and rolled out across Orpi’s 1,250 real estate agencies in France, points to an emerging shift: Real estate search is moving away from portals and keyword filters toward conversational AI systems that interpret user intent directly.

If that model spreads, the front door to a real estate listing may no longer be your website, an IDX feed or a major portal. It may be a direct conversation with the AI platform the buyer prefers.

From portals to AI discovery

Orpi’s real estate catalog can now be accessed and interpreted by LLMs such as ChatGPT, Google AI, Claude and others. Instead of simply publishing listings on websites and portals, the system restructures them so AI agents can reason across both structured fields and narrative property descriptions.

Before being extended to external assistants like ChatGPT and Claude, Kleio’s AI was first deployed on Orpi’s own listing portal and agency websites. This allowed it to codify Orpi’s sales expertise into the AI, theoretically allowing it to promote the right properties and services to each customer.

According to Philippe Wellens, co-founder and CEO at Kleio, the system developed for Orpi rebuilds how property data is stored and consumed, using agentic AI to analyze projects, advise users, and recommend properties, services and solutions. That allows Kleio’s Knowledge Engine to add function to the fragmented facts of property, pricing and document data associated with listings.

User intent replaces filters

Wellens framed the difference as intent-based discovery rather than traditional filter-based search. Since AI agents have trouble differentiating between structured and freeform information, Kleio’s combination of data and narrative enables conversational matching for buyers searching with AI tools.

While some portals in the U.S. have created standalone integrations with ChatGPT, Wellens said that Europe’s regulatory environment and market structure provided the opportunity for more flexibility in deploying Kleio’s service. “In Europe it is much less regulated than in the U.S. with the MLS and compliance requirements,” he said.

Without a centralized MLS, European networks had more control over their data and more urgency to reclaim distribution from online search portals. Brokerages in Europe “are bleeding money to these aggregators,” Wellens said, “so they are very incentivized to change that.”

AI search as a new distribution channel

As the buyer journey moves away from owned channels like brokerage websites and online portals, AI search becomes more important. AI search engines and agents are looking for property data that is unified, structured and accessible. 

“A user formulating a real estate search directly with these assistants will be able to receive recommendations of Orpi properties in real time,” Orpi said in a media statement announcing the partnership with Kleio. That offers a visibility opportunity that traditional search engine ranking and paid portals can’t match.

“We are redistributing the game,” Wellens said, “because for the last 20 years [buyers] had to go through aggregators.” Now, he said, AI assistants themselves become the entry point.

“The significance of initiatives like Orpi and Kleio isn’t simply that property search is becoming AI-enabled,” Natasha Terinova of REACH UK and Second Century Ventures said. “It’s a response to the fact that the entire fabric of search is changing.” 

“Real estate data is moving from static websites and documents into systems that can understand, interpret and act on information,” she said. 

In the UK, Terinova said they’re seeing government-backed reforms focused on upfront information, digital property records and more efficient transactions. “Together these developments point toward a more connected and data-driven property ecosystem,” Terinova said.

If AI systems become the place where intent is formed and refined, then real estate discovery stops being a search problem and becomes a language problem. That means that whoever owns the most legible, structured and semantically rich property data may own the first impression.

Most Americans across party lines want the federal government to do something about housing costs. Whether Washington, D.C., will deliver is a different question.

Roughly 4 in 5 U.S. residents, or 79 percent, believe there should be tax breaks for first-time homebuyers, and 77 percent say there should be policies that make homes more affordable, according to a Redfin survey conducted by Ipsos in May 2026 of 4,000 U.S. adults.

Support holds across political affiliations. Eighty-three percent of Democrats say there should be policies making homes more affordable, as do 74 percent of Republicans, the survey found. Eighty-five percent of Democrats support first-time buyer tax breaks, compared to 77 percent of Republicans.

Three-quarters of respondents back caps on rent increases, 75 percent support initiatives for building homes for low-income families and 74 percent favor down payment assistance programs.

A bill that matches the moment

Those numbers align with the broad backing behind the ROAD to Housing Act, which Congress passed on June 23. The legislation targets the nationwide housing affordability crisis by increasing housing supply, streamlining building processes and expanding access to affordable homeownership, including through provisions to expand manufactured housing by reducing federal regulations.

But the bill has not been signed into law. President Trump canceled a scheduled signing ceremony on June 25, saying he would not enact the legislation until the Senate passed an unrelated voter restriction bill, according to reporting by The New York Times. Trump has described the housing measure as being “of minor importance,” The Times reported, even as members of his own party have promoted it ahead of November midterm elections.

What happens next

Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he would formally send the bill to Trump after meeting with the president at the White House, a step that starts a constitutionally mandated 10-day window — excluding Sundays — in which Trump must sign or veto it.

If he takes neither action, it becomes law without his signature, though legal questions remain about whether a pocket veto could occur during a congressional recess scheduled to begin July 3, The Times reported.

“For over a decade, the prevailing view was that housing was a local issue best left to city councils and mayors — but housing affordability has become a national crisis,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said. “By passing this bill out of the Senate Banking Committee 24-0, Republicans and Democrats alike showed that affordability is a priority. The great accomplishment of the bill itself is that it uses solutions like zoning reform and improved permitting to prove that government policies can make people better off without spending big.”

Email Jessi Healey

A persistent argument about the use of artificial intelligence in the real estate industry is that there will soon be a stark divide between agents who use AI and those who don’t.

TAKE THE INMAN INTEL INDEX SURVEY

Yet surveys consistently show that a large majority of real estate agents already use AI to some extent. The real gap that’s emerging, according to interviews with several industry professionals, is between agents who’ve adopted an AI tool and agents who’ve rebuilt their workflows around one in an increasingly challenging market.

Everyone uses AI, but not everyone is using it right

Realtors Property Resource’s February 2026 survey of 225 National Association of Realtors members found that AI adoption was at 82 percent.

NAR’s own 2025 survey — drawing from a much larger random sample — put the figure at 68 percent. The gap likely reflects more than a six-month surge, but the directional story is the same: Adoption is near-universal.

Cameron Walker, who manages the real estate agent network at Clever Offers and tracks agent performance metrics across major markets, says the adoption number obscures more than it reveals. Adoption numbers only tell half the story. How agents deploy AI matters more than whether they do.

“Right now, speed is everything,” Walker told Inman.

Walker noted that, according to RPR’s 2026 data, 68 percent of agents save at least one hour per week using AI, and 34 percent save more than four hours.

“Most of this time is being used to increase their speed in responding to leads,” he said. “A two-minute reply from the agent beats a two-hour response every single time, and AI makes the first response possible.”

The key thing Walker is seeing is not merely adoption of AI, but conversion.

According to NAR’s 2025 Technology Survey, 17 percent of agents reported a significant positive impact from AI on their work, another 33 percent reported a moderate positive impact, and 46 percent reported no noticeable impact.

“The conclusion is that success does not come only with purchasing a tool. It comes from rebuilding one’s strategy around it,” Walker said. “Those agents in our network who treat AI as a lead-response tool, not something new to toy with, are the ones whose volume remained consistent despite the market’s shrinkage.”

The agent who built a second business with AI

Andrew Fortune, a brokerage owner and Realtor with 14 years in the business in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is among the agents who say AI has unlocked scale he couldn’t have built manually. 

“I use AI for everything in my business,” Fortune told Inman. “I used it to set up Google AdWords campaigns, then analyze and adjust the campaigns over time to make them perform better. I rely heavily on AI to research and write new content for my thousands of webpages and blog posts.”

His success with AI tools led him to start a second company, Peak 5 Digital, to write content for other agents’ websites to help them rank better. The use of AI has also allowed Fortune to expand his business from Colorado Springs to Denver.

“I’ve been planning to do that for more than a decade, but the task was too big,” he said. “Now I feel I can handle it and succeed at it.”

Fortune said the agents he is watching struggle right now are not bad at their jobs.

“They are doing everything manually in a market that now rewards leverage,” he said. “When transactions are plentiful, that is fine, but when they are scarce, the manual agent spends all day on tasks that AI handles in the background, leaving them with little time to actually talk to clients.”

Fortune acknowledges that AI can’t replace relationships or local knowledge, but says it can dramatically influence lead generation, which is the heart of the real estate business.

“It just frees up the hours to spend on the parts of the job that actually close deals at a high volume,” he said.

‘The main issue is speed’

Natalia Bassova, a licensed real estate agent and owner of Resort Real Estate Inc. in Summit County, Colorado, believes agents are not losing to AI but rather to other agents who have chosen to use AI alongside their local knowledge base.

“The main issue is speed,” Bassova told Inman. “Prior to even attending a client’s first listing meeting, AI can produce a competitive market analysis, draft listing copy, market the property in a fraction of the time it takes a person to perform these tasks, and send a list of filtered listings based on criteria entered by the buyer when the new listing goes live.”

As far as retention is concerned, Bassova said her clients typically don’t rush into making a purchase decision. From the time a potential buyer first contacts her office until they sign the final contract can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months. 

“During this period, there are many opportunities for our clients to travel back and forth to Summit County and/or conduct site visits before purchasing the home,” she said. “Unfortunately, unless you have a CRM system that tracks each and every relationship you maintain with your clients, you risk losing track of them in the middle of this long process.”

Bassova said that when you lose contact with a client during this timeframe, they end up contacting and hiring the agent who was last able to reach them.

“Using AI, we create profiles for each buyer and generate customized communications that continue to engage them throughout their search,” she said.

For instance, if one of her Houston-based buyers contacted them in January, indicating their interest in purchasing in Silverthorne, Colorado, they would use AI tools to begin sending them targeted updates via email, phone, and text message from February through May.

“This keeps the client engaged with our team and eliminates the need to recreate conversations with each subsequent interaction,” Bassova said. “By the time our clients schedule a visit to see the properties they are interested in purchasing, we have already established an existing relationship with them.”

‘Like competing with 1 hand tied behind one’s back’

Walker draws on Gallup research showing that technology sector employees who rarely use AI are three times as likely to be laid off as peers who use it frequently. He argues that the pattern is playing out in real estate through a slower, less visible mechanism. Nobody fires a self-employed agent. The market does it for them.

“When agents compete in an already difficult market with the part-timers and low-volume agents getting squeezed, refusing to use AI is like competing with one hand tied behind one’s back,” Walker said. “Over the next two years, those who will survive are the agents who will let AI do the speed work and paperwork while spending time on the human element of closing a deal.”

Email Nick Pipitone

Mortgage rates are not coming to save us. And honestly, they were never supposed to.

The Fed has cut, and the 30-year fixed has barely budged. Freddie Mac put it at 6.47 percent in mid-June, down from 6.81 percent a year ago. That is not the dramatic relief anyone was selling.

So the old talk tracks need to go.

• “Buy now before they climb.”
• “Wait, and you’ll lose your dream home.”

If that is how you have been coached to move clients, it is going to stop working, because our clients are smarter than that. They have the same information we do.

Your job is not to scare anyone into a decision. It is to help them interpret what is happening and make it practical. The best agents have stopped predicting where the market is going. They talk about where it is right now. Whether your client moves today or six months from now, helping them make that call with clarity is the entire value you bring.

Here is what that sounds like in three of the conversations we are all having right now.

1. The buyer who wants to wait

Inventory is climbing. Across the Bright MLS footprint, active listings were up about 10 percent year over year this spring. That means more to choose from and more negotiating room, even though well-priced homes still move fast, with the median time to contract hovering around three weeks.

So the message is not “Hurry.” It is:

“Let’s be ready. If we find one you love, we can look at the seller buying down your rate, and the longer a particular home has been sitting, the more room you have. Let me show you how each option changes your payment.”

2. The seller locked in at 3%

“Keep it. Why give that up? You may be better off holding it as a rental, and I am happy to run the comps on what it would bring.”

Sometimes the best move is not selling at all. Saying that out loud, even when it costs you a listing today, is exactly what makes you the person they call for the next three transactions.

3. The client who says ‘maybe next year’

That is not a closed door. It is a follow-up. The deals we lose are not lost to rates. They are lost to silence.

Use your CRM, use AI and actually stay in touch. Even a quick “Rates held steady this month. Just keeping you in the loop” keeps you the agent they call when they are ready.

That kind of honesty, the good, the bad and the ugly, is how you earn a client for life and the referrals that follow.

Too many of us walk into an appointment trying to leave with a signed agreement. The ones who win walk in trying to understand the client. Do that, follow up like you mean it, and the rate environment stops being your problem.

It becomes your advantage.

Kyle Crawford is VP of Strategy for Century 21 New Millennium. Get connected on LinkedIn and Instagram.