Here’s how AI and AR could transform real estate marketing

I hate seeing bland houses as the default.

I don’t mean that I swan about pooh-poohing all over other peoples’ tastes…publically…often. Genuinely, if you LIKE cream and gold ‘Live Laugh Love’ prints and framed jerseys, you should HAVE them. We can’t all live in homes that look like a Screamin Jay Hawkins meets Howl Jenkins fever dream.

Not least because it presents a severe tripping hazard….

My problem is more institutional. Best practices say you can’t sell a house even to ‘fun’ people without taking the time to strip all the personality out of it, and that’s disappointing. I promise I understand that certain colors in certain rooms straight up make more money. Just…at what cost? It’s definitely the bitter renter and serial anthropomorphizer in me, but it makes me a little sad seeing whole houses stripped down and painted up before anyone else will love them.

However, AI could change all that for the better!

I’m as surprised as you are, but it finally happened – I found a use for AI-generated images that I actually like. Go figure, it’s for customization-based marketing.

With image generators like Dall-E and MidJourney, Realtors who aren’t also picture-perfect digital artists can change the color and furniture and lighting of a room to suit their client’s desires in a context that doesn’t pass off artificially amalgamated work as their own creation OR come saddled with the reasonable expectation that a talented full-time designer should be paid for doing that work.

I love the idea of walking into a virtual pre-tour of homes tailored to inspire me specifically before I actually schlep myself around the physical locations. Imagine clients walking in, taking a quick look at their aesthetics, and hitting settings like ‘Art Goth’ or ‘Bro-core’ to make it even easier for them to fall in love with a location!

Smash that 60’s psychedelic button, just so I can see! Marketing at it’s finest.

I can certainly see concerns about a dropoff of interest once a physical walkthrough happens and your Swedish Minimalists brush up against the leftover Cottage Kitsch of the previous owners, but I think it’s something that a professional with silver-tongued skills and a tablet on hand could easily navigate.

And a bigger potential obstacle is a legal one.

Senior NAR Counsel, Matt Troiani, raised a flag regarding copyright law not quite catching up to the new technology yet.

“Ensure that you have copyright protection for the works that you are creating. Make sure you have a directive element over the generative AI and be careful not to infringe on someone else’s copyrighted work.”

Sound advice!

Now maybe you can tell your sellers with hot pink walls that they don’t have to change them?

Hashtag stopdécorshaming?

We’ll see…more on marketing to come!