The Work Abides

In case I haven’t mentioned it here before, years later the words of my first managing broker often echo in my ears from something I learned midway through an early transaction—I asked her whether it’s the buyer’s agent or the seller’s agent who is expected to do the majority of the work once you are in escrow, and her two-word response came back, “It’s you.”

With the advent of AI, we were told that we would be able to streamline our workflows, automate our systems and gain access to expert guidance and high-level information with a few keystrokes. And they were right, it has indeed revolutionized the way professionals across many fields including real estate are able to more efficiently perform their duties.

Yet, despite all these advancements, AI hasn’t been able to figure out a way to streamline or navigate core competencies such as getting the right experts and contractors to assess and address realities and costs that often arise with a property in the course of a real estate transaction.

In one current situation, the buyer is asking for $180,000 in cumulative credits towards claimed costs of repairs, including full replacement of a septic system that hadn’t even been tested (pumpers report, anyone?) and the various estimates they submitted ended up being four times higher than the competing bids we were able to obtain from reliable contractors for the same work.

In the process of actively collecting the bids, we put together a spreadsheet to differentiate things already documented and disclosed prior to acceptance of the offer, alongside the credits asked for which were either unnecessary or inflated in their scope and pricing. All of this is being done to come up with a fair and rational solution to propose, while not knowing whether the buyer who made such claims will even be open to reason. 

For another transaction involving the sale of a townhome in a new development, after moving in prior to closing, our buyer just decided she would prefer a larger unit. This will involve opening a new escrow and repeating all the steps of the contract, due diligence and loan process, plus working out the details and logistics of adapting the prior package for upgrades and credits which had already been negotiated, right down to moving the newly-installed washer and dryer from the place she was going to buy to the one she wants instead.

As well, it also seems like for all the efficiency we gain from AI that we now spend nearly as much energy screening out AI-generated inquiries on listings, taking time back away from us.

I am reminded of a slogan I once saw on a T-Shirt that some company had printed with the claim that they were “Taking the Work out of Paperwork,” followed up with the clincher “Also, the Paper.”

In the grand scheme of things, while the way we conduct business has changed with AI, if anything the magnitude of our work remains the same or more—so in the end all that may have been taken out of the paperwork was the paper.