Buyers have found a way to save themselves thousands of dollars after closing on a house – and real estate agents are panicking about their bottom line.
House hunters frustrated by hefty agent commissions are cutting the realtor out altogether in favor of artificial intelligence (AI) that will do the work for less money.
Buyers are using AI to search for homes, determine market trends, make draft offers, review disclosures and follow through with closings.
In some instances it’s saving them upward of $50,000.
AI-powered real estate site Homa, the first of its kind, lets you cut out the middleman and buy a home on your own – then credits you back 75 percent of the buyer’s agent commission at closing. The other 25 percent is the fee for using the site.
It automates 95 percent of the entire process, and helps buyers schedule viewings.
Tampa resident John Harrison, 21, told the Daily Mail he saved the $12,000 an agent would have pocketed after he bought a $400,000 house using AI. He put the money toward closing costs and furniture.
‘I thought, “Is it feasible I can do this with no agent? I’m doing all the legwork myself,”‘ Harrison said.
In the know house hunters frustrated by paying hefty commissions are cutting the realtor out altogether in favor of artificial intelligence when buying a house
Tampa resident John Harrison (pictured), 21, saved the $12,000 that would have been an agent’s commission after buying this $400,000 Florida house using AI
‘I didn’t know if it was real at first, but I found a house that I somehow missed on Zillow that was an amazing deal. It was painless. Worst case scenario was someone taking all my money and scamming me but the process worked out perfectly.’
Homa CEO Arman Javaherian, a former senior director at Zillow, said he invented the site after seeing how confused and upset buyers were by exorbitant commission fees.
‘I saw firsthand how buyers felt about the process and, a lot of the time, the word was the buyers were doing all the work, so why are they paying an agent?’ Javaherian said.
‘The buyers are searching for the home, talking to the lender to secure financing, researching neighborhoods, schools, everything. And then an agent comes in and they make $30,000 on a million-dollar home for maybe a few weeks worth of work.’
Since going live last May, 10 homes have sold through the site and another 12 are in the process of closing. In January, more than 1,000 new people signed up to use the service, and Javaherian expects the popular spring housing market to give the site a huge boost.
He also said his timing was just right.
Buyers became more cautious about the process after a 2024 National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement which requires agents to have written agreements with buyers before touring homes either in-person or virtually.
He hopes to ease buyer fears with Homa.
Javaherian made the site easy to navigate, and compared how it works to rideshare app Uber.
Miami resident Frank Sweet (pictured left with his wife), who buys investment properties, wanted to avoid a $16,000 agent’s fee so desperately that, at one point, he considered getting his own real estate license – he used AI instead
‘People go on the site, they search for homes, and when they want to see a home in person, they check off the schedule tour button,’ Javaherian said. ‘A realtor that is in the area and maybe having some downtime gets paid by the hour by our company to show up with the key for a viewing.
‘We have a network of agents all across Florida that show up just like calling an Uber. So they don’t get a commission, they just let you in the home.
Homa CEO Arman Javaherian (pictured) founded the site after working as a senior director at Zillow and seeing how upset buyers were by commission fees
‘Realtors love to meet people and connect, so this is a way for them to do that and make some money in the slower periods.’
Javaherian said about half of the home buyers he speaks to are struggling to even come up with a down payment.
‘We are hoping to ease that a bit,’ he said. ‘We have people saving thousands of dollars.’
Javaherian said one client who is about to close on a $2.1million home was shocked to learn that she would save $61,000 using AI.
‘We charge $2,000 for the whole process, so she saved the rest,’ he told the Daily Mail.
A lot of people also don’t want an agent who is pushy, making the buyer feel like they’re being pressured to close quickly just so the agent can collect their commission.
Real estate agents are earning huge commissions so homebuyers are taking matters into their own hands, using AI to bypass agents and save money
Javaherian explained that in the traditional process, an agent will ‘make more money if the home is purchased for more money, which is not helping the client.’
‘So they actually like the fact that the agents that go on our showings have no kind of point of view or ulterior motive,’ he added. ‘No one’s pushing them to make a decision. They’re just opening the door.’
Florida realtor Jeff Lichtenstein (pictured) isn’t convinced AI is the future
At the end of 2025, Redfin predicted that AI would play a larger role in how people house hunt this year.
‘AI will increasingly help people decide where to move, identifying cities, towns, neighborhoods and homes that fit users’ budgets and lifestyle criteria,’ Redfin said. ‘Instead of a typical geographic search, homebuyers will search for precisely what they want and have a back-and-forth conversation with search sites, giving feedback to tailor their search results.
‘These tools will allow house hunters to find homes with niche features. AI will help luxury house hunters find homes equipped with advanced air-filtration systems, whole-house water purification and amenities like meditation rooms.’
But not everyone is thrilled with the advancing technology.
Florida realtor Jeff Lichtenstein said using AI to buy a house is untenable.
‘It sounds like a South Park episode,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘Buyers think that they found the house and the realtor just opens the door. [But it’s] not so simple. There are so many variables.’
One of them, he said, is pricing.
‘An appraiser looking at valuations looks at comparable homes sold from three to six months back, but they don’t understand what is happening on the ground. You have to feel when marketing conditions are changing in real time.’
A 2024 National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement, which requires agents to have written agreements with buyers before touring homes either in-person or virtually, turned off many potential buyers. Now, they’re looking for homes on their own
He said that AI also will fail to understand the intricate details of a home.
‘How is AI supposed to know how the kitchen is working? Can AI possibly know that the room feels dark? Does it know the up-to-date pet restrictions in the subdivision? Can it read the personality of the sellers to know how to present an offer? Has AI heard the rumor that the seller is being transferred next week and needs to sell now?
‘AI is reading past information, which might be good information or bad information.’
But, despite what Lichtenstein said realtors bring to the table, buyers relying on AI is only becoming more common.
The majority of Americans are embracing AI to navigate the housing market, with 82 percent saying they use it during their search, according to a recent survey by Realtor.
ChatGPT and Gemini were used most, with more than half of respondents saying they’re excited about how AI personalizes their search.
Miami resident Frank Sweet, who buys investment properties, wanted to avoid a $16,000 agent’s fee so desperately that he considered getting his own real estate license in order to do so.
Instead, he used AI.
‘Once you sign up, you can browse properties and rather than filling in the filters, you can just describe what you want down to the smallest details like a two-car garage and a small backyard but big enough for a pool,’ Sweet told the Daily Mail.
‘After we saw a bunch of houses, AI found comps and gave us a suggested offer price based on how long it’s been on the market and the condition of the house. And we made the right offer.’
Sweet said the AI process works for him because he’s bought a handful of houses and knows what he’s looking for.
‘I don’t need somebody else’s opinion telling me how cute this is or that is,’ he added. ‘You know, my wife and I talk about it as we walk through it and we decide ourselves.’
