Why AI Should Never Be Your First Call in a Home Purchase

By William “Bill” Boswell

Bill is widely known as one of New Jersey’s most sought after real estate agents and is a sales associate of Keller Williams Prosperity Realty.

Can trusting AI cost you your dream home? The answer is unequivocally yes.

We’ve moved into a time where buyers and sellers are turning to AI as their first go-to for advice, more than I’ve ever seen anyone lean on a single source before. Here’s what I see play out. Someone consults AI, then comes back to the professionals, and I usually bring everyone back to earth with realistic expectations and get the parties back on the same page.

The trouble is human nature. If that happens too many times, sooner or later, someone isn’t going to come back. One egregious ask, following what would otherwise be a perfectly normal closing process, can push a buyer and a seller so far onto different pages that they simply can’t reconcile.

AI is a second opinion, not your first call. It’s an incredible tool, and as many of you know, I use it all the time. The key is to treat it as a second source of advice, not your primary one. When you’re in a real estate transaction, you’ve surrounded yourself with professionals you can trust: your real estate agent, your attorney, your mortgage broker. Lean on them for your initial advice. Then, if you want to confirm you’re comfortable with what you’ve heard, run it by AI for a second opinion. That order matters more than people realize.

The inspection report is where I see it go wrong. Take a home inspection report, where the inspector is paid well to cover all their bases and list every single item in a property, and upload it into a chatbot. It’s going to spit out a laundry list. Historically, a buyer might never have looked at those items and thought, “Wow, let’s add all of these up.” Now that laundry list creates discomfort between buyers and sellers, and it opens gaps that, on occasion, can’t be bridged.

In a seller’s market, the relationship is everything. When you’re hunting for your dream home in a market that is still a seller’s market, keeping the buyer and the seller, no matter which side you’re on, close enough and respectful enough to negotiate through a challenging transaction is extremely important. Lose that, and the transaction can come apart over things that were never really problems.

Use AI to see more, not to decide for you. You can trust AI for secondary advice. You can trust it to point out things you might otherwise miss. Be cautious, though, about making it your sole source, because I have seen situations, and will keep seeing them, where it creates a problem that never existed in the first place.

If you’re getting ready to make a move in this market, surround yourself with the right people first. Give me a call at 973-224-4605, email me at northjerseyluxury@gmail.com, or visit blog.theomegarealestategroup.com. As always, I’m Bill Boswell with The Omega Real Estate Group, and your search ends here.