Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Replace Property Management Companies?

Entire industries are being upended these days by artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is quickly upsetting content creation and teachers are sleepless in horror at the prospect of having to rewrite all of their lesson plans. DALL-E 2 is putting artists and stock image companies out of business. Creative industries are on track to being some of the first businesses that will be significantly altered by AI. Most of us thought (or hoped) that accountants and lawyers would be the first to be replaced by AI. Realtors have been afraid for about a decade that Zillow or Opendoor would find a way to cut them out of the home selling or purchasing equation in an effort to pass those savings onto homeowners. These “ibuyer” companies haven't figured out how to do that just yet, but they sure are trying.

So what about property managers? Can they be replaced by AI?

While AI is certainly going to flip upside down certain industries, property managers are quite safe for now. AI won’t replace a physical property management company, but will instead augment how property management is carried out. Here are a few reasons why you will still need to hire a property manager for at least the next decade:

Overseeing Contractors or Vendors

Plenty of property management work relies on local connections with vendors to carry out maintenance on the property. These days, finding a reliable and affordable landscaping company is typically still found via word of mouth. Plumbers, electricians or other specialty contractors that won’t rip you off or do shoddy work are worth their weight in gold. Property management companies that have been in business for a long time will have vetted contractors and other vendors that they can provide and oversee. AI doesn’t yet have the capability nor expertise to communicate with a contractor if a window or kitchen sink was properly installed.

Writing Property Descriptions and Qualifying Tenants

While Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT can help a property management company write their property descriptions, it doesn’t know how to choose a qualified tenant. Surely there are some moral and legal quandaries to consider with using AI making decisions on who does and who doesn’t get to rent a property. On the other hand, AI who qualify tenants based purely on numbers such as income or credit score may inherently be a more fair and just system as long as they know how to follow local, state and federal fair housing laws. One day, we may all just become glorified AI babysitters, but that day isn’t today!

Touching Up Pictures and Virtual Walkthroughs

AI’s photo editing skills are pretty decent these days. Whether they are generating one thousand new logos for your business or they are editing a batch of property photos to all have the same levels of lighting and contrast, they do a pretty good job with a few tweaks by a human of course. You can also convert the photo into any file type when you download them. Doing this one at a time would be similar to working in one of Dante’s circles of hell: Neverending and painful. AI also can stitch together photos to create a virtual walkthrough. Companies such as Matterport have created their entire company around this technology as potential home buyers and tenants demand more and more information available to them online.

Website Chatbots

These days, websites try to funnel all support questions to chat-boxes. Artificial intelligence will read your text and first try to direct you to clicking on one of their suggested guides on how to solve the issue yourself. If that doesn’t work you can usually chat with a real person. Currently this is a frustrating process that typically ends in you needing to talk to a real person anyways, but I’m sure it does help solve some questions without human intervention. Property management companies may start to use AI to answer tenant requests or even maintenance requests as a way to help the tenant “Self-solve” the issue before escalating it to a real person. It’s a cheaper alternative than having to pay a salary to a real person, but less friendly, less personable and most of the time you end up needing to talk to a real person anyways.

Legal Compliance

The first “Robot Lawyer” was hired by a client to help defend themselves in court. It didn’t go over so well, but the theory behind it is still something that property management companies can use to their benefit. Whether you are a property owner or a tenant, we could eventually see a legal helpline for real estate related questions. We already see some companies using ChatGPT to write legal notices and then editing them to their liking. Without a law degree, experience in property management or staying up to date on all of the new laws coming down the pipeline it is a scary world where not only can a robot write legal documents, but also misinterpret them.

In summary, artificial intelligence cannot currently replace the entire property management process, but it can shorten and make more efficient, certain processes within the property manager’s scope of work. A smart property management company will embrace the use of AI to improve the creation of property descriptions, speed up the bulk editing of property photos, and complete automated tasks such as giving notice to tenants or reminding them that rent is due soon. Maybe one day we will also use AI to give us all legal advice. Ask your property manager if and how they use artificial intelligence to improve the property management process.

Ask Realicore Property Management how we use artificial intelligence to improve managing your property! (909) 810-2108.