CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. – Coldwell Banker agent Georgie Smigel spent hours sifting through spreadsheets and old investigative lists to find out who might be interested in a new listing.
Now she simply asks her artificial intelligence software who is looking for a $250,000 house in a particular neighborhood or suburb of Pittsburgh.
Georgie Smigel of Coldwell Banker Realty poses for a portrait on December 10 in Cranberry, Penn.
“And it shows up the names and email addresses of all these people,” she said. “We invite them to check out our offerings and attend our open houses.”
Ms. Smigel said a real estate coach told her a year ago to “start small” with AI — using it to write ads, clean up listing descriptions and other small tasks.
But with the help of her two tech-savvy sons, she continued. She has trained her AI tools to power much of her business, from finding prospects to drafting marketing materials and staying in touch with customers.
The payoff has been real. The team Ms. Smigel leads is on track to reach $100 million in sales this year, about $10 million more than in 2024 — and she credits AI for helping her get there.
She’s not alone.
Real estate agents across the country are integrating AI into nearly every aspect of their work, and the technology is changing the industry faster than many expected.
The use of AI in real estate has evolved into a wide range of tools that can automate marketing, analyze buyer behavior, generate ads and social media posts, and even draft agreements that once required a lawyer.
Agents who do their own marketing find that they can cut certain professional services from their budget.
“We don’t need our graphic designer anymore, which is a shame,” Ms. Smigel said. “We can put an ad in AI, ask it to create a special size, ask it to look like this, give it a theme, and AI will spit it out for us.”
Major changes
Major brokers embraced AI early and haven’t looked back.
Howard Hanna Real Estate, the largest real estate company in the Pittsburgh region, has been using AI in one form or another for years, said Dennis Cestra Jr., president of the company’s Pennsylvania market.
“A year ago, we updated the search function on our website with improved AI capabilities,” he said. “In addition, we will be rolling out real automation of our agents in terms of marketing here quite quickly.”
It seems like every real estate agent, property manager, and broker builds or buys their own system, each tailored to the task or problem they are trying to solve.
“It’s kind of the Wild West because everyone is doing their own thing,” says Mike Netzel, team leader at Keller Williams Real Estate in Pine Township, Pennsylvania. “Some are much more systematic and consistent about it.”
For Dustin Nulf, owner of Nulf Management Services on Washington’s Landing in Pittsburgh, AI has opened the door to dramatic changes in the way he runs and grows his business.
When his property management company recently acquired two other management agencies, he did not hire an attorney to draft the sales agreements. He turned to ChatGPT.
“I used ChatGPT to write the sales agreement for the transaction instead of paying a lawyer over $1,000 and waiting over a month for a sales agreement to be drafted,” Mr. Nulf said.
AI now touches almost every operational corner of Mr. Nulf’s business.
His maintenance director uses it to turn raw property notes into organized, room-by-room listings that can be turned into renovation bids.
Its maintenance routing system uses AI to resolve tenant issues via text message before assigning the ticket to the correct technician – a process that previously took hours of staff time.
Even its back office is becoming increasingly automated.
“We use an AI-driven accounting system that allows us to scan utility bills, and it reads the bills and automatically makes payments and books the costs,” Mr Nulf said.
“It has learned the more we use it and has become more and more accurate over time,” he said.
Direct agreements
Brokers are also investing heavily in predictive technology: tools that not only complete tasks faster, but also attempt to predict customer behavior.
At Howard Hanna, Mr. Cestra said the company is now using algorithms to identify homeowners who are statistically more likely to move in the future. The idea is to help agents be the first to secure listings.
“It’s based on their digital footprint and historical data, such as how long they’ve been there, what their net worth is and what their most likely interest rate is,” he said.
A buyer’s agent already has a good idea of which house and at what price a potential buyer is likely to be interested.
“We can go out and look for those houses before we even contact you,” Mr. Cestra said.
“That’s what we mean by flattening the process. You’re going straight to the buyer with a product that they may already want,” he said. “Instead of starting the process by asking what house and what price you want.”
For Ms. Smigel, the power of AI lies not only in the amount of work it takes off her hands, but also in the precise way it connects her with buyers.
Every inquiry her team receives—the price range someone mentions, the neighborhoods they explore, the school districts they prefer—is entered into a database that AI can instantly search and compare with new offers.
She doesn’t have to guess who the right audience might be.
Ms. Smigel has even used her AI tools in her personal life — she asks it to compose music for her.
“I have a song that I put on Facebook for everyone’s birthday,” she said. “It’s for everyone I know in real estate or personally who follows me. I wish them a happy birthday with a song I wrote for AI.”
