Your guide to ChatGPT: the new AI tool revolutionising real estate

You’ve watched the futuristic worlds depicted in movies like The Matrix, Blade Runner, and I, Robot. Well, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here. But instead of taking over, it’s helping to make your job as a real estate professional easier, faster, and more efficient. Introducing ChatGPT, the cutting-edge AI language model that’s been making waves recently. With its human-like text generation and quick information retrieval capabilities, ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing app in history, achieving 100 million monthly users in January 2023. At a time when technology is impacting how people live and work, ChatGPT is also changing the game for the real estate industry. 

Dive in and explore what ChatGPT means for the real estate industry and how to make it work for your business:

• What is ChatGPT?
• Signing up to use ChatGPT
• How does ChatGPT work?
• Impact of ChatGPT on the real estate industry
• Benefits of ChatGPT for real estate
• Ways to use ChatGPT in your real estate business
• Tips to get the most out of ChatGPT
• Challenges and limitations of ChatGPT 
• ChatGPT’s frequently asked questions
• Unleash the power of ChatGPT with Prop Data 

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an AI language model developed by OpenAI. It uses advanced machine-learning techniques to generate human-like text in response to the inputs you give it. ChatGPT has been trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet, allowing it to generate responses to a wide range of questions and topics. When using ChatGPT, you’ll notice it provides its answers as a chatbot; you can provide it with a question or request, which will prompt it to generate a reply or response for you.

The goal of ChatGPT is to provide users with quick and accurate answers to their questions, as well as to generate creative and engaging content, such as stories and poems. ChatGPT is often used for applications in customer service, language translation, and content creation, among others.

What sets ChatGPT apart from other AI chatbots, is the way it simulates human conversation or "chatter" through text or voice interactions. Aside from some stilted dialogue, it can almost feel like you are getting a thoughtful response from an actual person. ChatGPT can answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.
Signing up to use ChatGPT

It’s a simple process to get started with ChatGPT. Here are the steps to sign up:

1. Navigate to https://chat.openai.com/auth/login and click on “Sign Up”.
2. You can provide your email address and continue. Alternatively, you can continue with Google or a Microsoft Account. Please note: phone verification may be required for a signup, so have your mobile device handy.
3. Provide a strong password.
4. ChatGPT will send an email to your email address. Please click on the link to verify your address. 
5. You will be able to log into the platform and see the dashboard. Here you can start a conversation with ChatGPT.

How does ChatGPT work?

In simple terms, ChatGPT uses deep learning algorithms to generate text. It works by analysing large amounts of text data and then using that analysis to generate new, similar text.

When the model receives an input, it breaks it down into individual words and uses those words to generate a response. The response is generated by using the context of the input to select the most appropriate words and phrases to create a coherent output.

With its training data and algorithms, ChatGPT can imitate human language patterns, allowing it to generate text that is similar to what a person might say or write.

Impact of ChatGPT on the real estate industry

At present, the real estate market is under pressure. Experts predict that there will be a shrinkage in the real estate workforce as the market suffers from the impact of rising interest rates, the rising cost of living, and high levels of poor creditworthiness. As revealed by a Prop Data poll, real estate professionals are stressed out; they have to work harder to overcome the competition and often have to wear multiple hats to get things done. 

In this arena, property practitioners are taking advantage of ChatGPT to make their work effortless. This includes using it to automatically generate home descriptions, blog and social media content, answer customer questions, drafting legal documents, and calculate repayments. While it can take you hours to craft the right listing or response, ChatGPT can quickly generate reasonably good content or help you get the ball rolling if you’re struggling with writer’s block. Since ChatGPT can rewrite content, practitioners can produce personalised responses, saving time that can be used on other tasks or closing deals.

Benefits of ChatGPT for real estate

With tech overload being a concern, real estate businesses can be wary about adding another platform to their arsenal. However, ChatGPT offers several pros that make it a worthy addition:

1. Use it for free: At present, ChatGPT can be used for free. There is a website version and an Android app. ChatGPT Plus, a new subscription plan available for $20 (approximately R360) per month, offers additional features. It was currently only available to customers in the United States who are invited from a waitlist. From February 2023, ChatGPT Plus launched internationally for $20 per month plus tax.

2. Increase your productivity: ChatGPT can be used by several members of your real estate business from estate agents, administrators, marketers, and customer service staff to improve the way they communicate with clients and conduct their roles. 

3. Reduce your expenses: ChatGPT can help other team members fill certain functions when they aren’t available. For example, an administrator can quickly write a piece of simple copy using ChatGPT. 

4. Increase your engagement: Tailoring your content helps you develop better relationships with potential clients and elevates their consideration of your messaging. ChatGPT can help you create personalised responses in a matter of seconds.

5. Communicate in various languages: ChatGPT supports several languages, allowing you to create content in the native tongue of your audience. 

ChatGPT continues to advance following its release. It’s expected that more exciting features will be added that will provide even more value for its users.

Ways to use ChatGPT in your real estate business

When you play around with ChatGPT, it will send you down a rabbit hole of potential uses. For real estate, there are some great ways to put it to good use.

1. Create content: ChatGPT can quickly generate copy for listings, articles, social media posts, presentations, scripts, emails, interview questions, adverts, and more. You can provide context, information and your required tone which the tool will use to produce more accurate copy. ChatGPT can also help you rephrase content in new ways. This is particularly useful to refresh listing write-ups, repromote the same properties on social media, or put together personalised messages to clients focused on the same topic.

2. Brainstorm ideas: ChatGPT can come up with strategies and advice on any topic you choose. When you hit a brick wall, the tool can give ideas for client gifts, seasonal staging, or quotes to share on social media. 

3. Get help with research: There’s a ton of information available online. ChatGPT can quickly sift through content to provide answers and recommendations to your questions in a succinct manner. For example, you could ask about the best shops, restaurants, or attractions in an area.

4. Prepare for clients: You can set up ChatGPT to “act” as a certain role such as a potential client viewing a property. With specific prompts, you can have ChatGPT ask questions that could come up and that you should be prepared for. 

5. Handle tricky calculations: Practitioners have started using ChatGPT to calculate a client’s mortgage repayment schedule or return on investment. These often involve various formulas and mortgage calculators.

6. Analyse text sentiment: ChatGPT can determine the sentiment expressed in a piece of text, such as whether it is positive, negative, or neutral. This is useful to understand how a piece of content or response will be perceived by your audience before you post or hit “send”.

7. Translate text: While Google Translate may be your go-to platform, ChatGPT is equipped to translate conversations across other languages. This is useful when dealing with colleagues and clients from other countries. 

ChatGPT can work magic but it requires a user to prompt it. This can mean it can take considered thought on your part when asking it questions to get the information you need.

Tips to get the most out of ChatGPT

Getting the right responses from ChatGPT can get trickier depending on how complex your question or request is. Here are some ways to ensure your success:

1. Be specific: Provide clear and concise questions, and avoid asking open-ended or vague questions. The more specific your request, the more likely it is that ChatGPT will be able to provide a relevant and accurate response.

2. Provide context: By giving additional context or background information, you can help ChatGPT better understand what you are asking.

3. Use proper grammar and spelling: ChatGPT is trained on text data, so it is important to use proper grammar and spelling when asking questions to ensure that the model can understand your request.

4. Avoid ambiguity: Avoid using words or phrases that have multiple meanings, as this can lead to confusion and result in inaccurate responses.

5. Be patient: ChatGPT is a powerful language model. However it still has limitations, and it may take some time to find the right answer to your question. Try to rephrase your request if you do not receive a satisfactory response immediately.

6. Use clear language: Avoid using overly complex or technical language, as this can make it harder for ChatGPT to understand what you are asking.

7. Provide relevant information: Provide information that is relevant to your question, such as specific dates, locations, or names. This can help ChatGPT provide a more accurate and relevant response.

8. Ask one question at a time: ChatGPT is best suited to answering one question at a time, so it is a good idea to ask each question separately, instead of asking multiple questions in a single request.

9. Use the right tone: ChatGPT is trained on text data, so it is important to use the right tone when asking questions. For example, if you are asking a serious question, it is a good idea to use a formal tone, whereas a more relaxed tone may be more appropriate for casual conversations.

By following these tips, you’re sure to unlock everything ChatGPT has to offer.

Challenges and limitations of ChatGPT

There’s no doubt ChatGPT is a wonderful tool with plenty to offer real estate professionals. However, this AI chatbot has some red flags you should be aware of when using it.

1. ChatGPT can provide incorrect information: It can provide answers that appear accurate and plausible but they can contain factual inaccuracies. Some answers may even provide harmful information. If a question is ambiguous, the AI chatbot will provide its best guess rather than getting more information. You should always take care to fact-check all the information it presents. According to Google, AI-generated content is not against its guidelines. Provided the content is original, high-quality, and people-first, it can rank in its search engine results pages. Google advises against using AI like ChatGPT to generate content primarily to manipulate search rankings, which is against their spam policies.

2. ChatGPT lacks a personal touch: While the AI chatbot can produce some decent copy, there’s no substitute for a human professional in a related field. A copywriter, for example, can provide accurate information, keep within your brand tone, understand context, and interview your team. ChatGPT excels at repackaging existing content instead of offering a unique perspective. 

3. ChatGPT can be tricky to use: While some questions have straightforward answers, ChatGPT can need context and follow-up questions to provide the answer you need. Some questions may need to be tweaked for the AI chatbot to better understand your thinking. 

4. ChatGPT can be biased: Despite being an AI chatbot, ChatGPT isn’t infallible. The output has made headlines for being discriminatory on racial, gender, and political orientation grounds.

5. ChatGPT has limited knowledge: It has limited knowledge of the world and events after 2021 and is unable to provide responses requiring this insight. This means some of the answers it provides are no longer relevant. 

6. ChatGPT isn’t always available: At least if you’re using the free version, you may encounter the “ChatGPT is at capacity right now” error message and may not be able to log in to use the AI chatbot. 

7. ChatGPT needs internet access: The AI chatbot relies on technology and internet connectivity, which can be a limitation in areas with poor or unreliable connectivity. 

According to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, this is “an early demo of what's possible and there’s still a lot of limitations - it's very much a research release”. There’s a chance these challenges and limitations will be ironed out in future versions of the AI chatbot.

ChatGPT’s frequently asked questions

Q: Is ChatGPT free to use?

A: Yes, there is a free version available. Alternatively, you can pay for ChatGPT plus which offers:

• General access to ChatGPT, even during peak times
• Faster response times
• Priority access to new features and improvements

Q: How much is ChatGPT Plus?

A: At present, it costs $20 (approximately R360) per month for select users plus tax.

Q: Can ChatGPT translate sentences?

A: Yes, it can translate sentences from one language to another. However, its training data is limited to a specific set of languages and the translations may not always be accurate or idiomatic.

Q: What does “ChatGPT is at capacity” mean?

A: This means OpenAI’s servers are too busy to handle your request. Essentially, the website has too many visitors and cannot accommodate additional traffic for the moment. 

Q: Why is ChatGPT not working?

A: The main cause is that OpenAI’s servers are at capacity. You can wait for a bit and refresh your page, try a different OpenAI account, clear your cache, use ChatGPT in incognito, or try a VPN. The easiest way is to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus if this is available to you. 

Q: Are there any ChatGPT alternatives?

A: Yes, there is a range of options including Jasper, ChatSonic, Replika, and YouChat.

Unleash the power of ChatGPT with Prop Data

Now LIVE: Prop Data clients on EOS4 are now able to access ChatGPT as an add-on service via our CleverCompose tool. By simply stocking various data points like location as well as interior and exterior features/amenities as part of the standard listing capture, CleverCompose will use this to effortlessly write beautiful marketing headings, full descriptions, and social media posts. The tool has been engineered to easily re-write previous descriptions as well as check and correct grammatical and spelling mistakes which may have been made. Get in touch with your Account Manager to learn more about this service.