MAKE TECHNOLOGY YOUR B*TCH

WELCOME

Happy Amazon Prime Week! Did everyone stock up on smart gadgets for their homes? If not, what are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present to make your home a little more intuitive and easier to live in.

I have to tell y’all, I love me some smart homes. Nothing gets me more excited than a listing where everything is networked, from the lighting to the security system to the home theater. I’ve been selling real estate since Jesus was a baby, so I remember how much more work everything used to be. Heck, our parents had children just so they’d have someone to change the channel for them! How lucky are we to be living in a reality when we can just, say, adjust the room’s temperature on our phones?

Now, what goes hand in hand with the networking to help us manage our homes better is that which aids us in running our real estate businesses.

This week, we’re talking about making technology work for us, whether it’s at home or in the office, so let’s get to it!

It sure beats having to get up. (Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash)

THE REALITY OF REAL ESTATE

The Future Is Now

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot topic lately. Suddenly everyone’s afraid the world’s going to turn into an apocalyptic Will Smith movie as AI takes over. Now, I can’t promise you that AI won’t someday cause an existential threat to humanity, but I can promise you it will make your day-to-day life easier. (I mean, right this second, you could have a robot vacuuming your floors and cutting your lawn!)

My suggestion is that instead of fearing what AI might be someday/building yourself a doomsday bunker, let’s explore how AI can help you do your job better. Many of us are already using AI to automate our tasks and improve efficiency, like by creating virtual tours. AI can be used to automate all those mundane tasks we hate and put off, such as data entry, scheduling showings, and generating reports. AI can even help us organize our leads and be better marketers.

AI can crunch all sorts of data (I’m talking past sales, trends, valuations, etc.) and give us insights into the market. It can do anything from helping us with appraisals to calculating risk for mortgage lenders.

In getting us that data, we, the real life live human real estate agents, can recommend the best course of action for our clients because we know them and we understand that a person’s decision matrix is more than just numbers in an algorithm.

Of course, when I decided to consult with AI on how it thought it could be used to help us all do our jobs, I had to laugh. Do you know that it suggested to me that it could provide a personalized experience for our clients by learning about their preferences and interests?

No. No, it cannot.

That is literally our job. That is our value-add. That is the essence of what we do. Until a machine can listen with empathy, interpret feelings, and pair hopes and dreams with the proper address, y’all can lay off building those bunkers; we’re not going anywhere.

SUGAR & SPICE REAL ESTATE ADVICE

It’s a Supplement, Not a Substitute

As helpful as technology is, remember, it’s never a substitute for a skilled real estate agent.

@glenndabaker

Is there really a need for a real estate agent? All of the information is online. So where is the value in an agent? #GlenndaBaker #RealEs… See more

ONCE UPON A TIME WITH GLENNDA

Some Days, I Miss Dial-up

For as much as I love and am excited about all the technology that helps us be smarter, more efficient, and safer, once in a great while, I miss the old days of just not knowing.

Last year, I was out in the Hamptons to record my Glitter and Gay podcast with Tyler. I’d recently moved into my spankin’ new dream house and I wanted to check on Robert, my guy who was mounting my televisions. Tyler and I were fixing to go to dinner, so right before we left, I called my assistant to confirm the project’s on track. It’s what I do; I check on things. In that respect, I’m a little bit like Mussolini. My name is Glennda Baker and the trains run on time in my world.

One of the first things I did in the new house was set up my security system, opting for the camera and motion sensor in the primary bedroom. When there’s motion, the camera records for a bit. My notification pinged and I didn’t think much of it because I knew Robert had been there. But checked out the footage, and low and behold, no television!

I called Robert and I found out he wasn’t there because my son Lucas was, and Lucas told him he didn’t know where to put the televisions. While we’re talking, he mentions that my son had some buddies over because I was asking about the sound system. He wasn’t trying to be a narc so much as just letting me know the Sonos was up and running, connected to speakers on my deck. This was not in the plan and this was not okay. I immediately called Lucas and do you what he did? He accidentally answered the phone, realized it was me, and he hung up on me! Then he wouldn’t answer for the rest of the night!

I tell you what, snot flew out of my nose and my head spun around because that boy was throwing a party in my brand-new house. I hadn’t even had a party yet!

Tyler was teasing me that day because I use voice to text technology to send messages. He said he could hear one floor away me getting more and more heated as I was texting Lucas, all, “Are you having a [expletive] party in my [expletive] house, question mark, exclamation point, send!”

(By the way, autocorrect? I did not mean “ducking.”)

I tried to put the party out of my mind and we ended up having a fabulous dinner and a great night. But the next morning, I did what any good coach does—I reviewed those game tapes. And oh, my stars and stripes, was that a mistake!

Not only did my son have a party at my damn house, but one of his little friends slept in my bedroom with some girl. And here’s the thing, thanks to technology and live action footage, I know they were not just sleeping. While I’m glad there was consent between the couple, no one asked my bed for it.

What ended up being so infuriating is that when they staggered into my private space at 3:05 am, I could hear the girl ask, “Are you sure this is a guest bedroom?” and his little friend assured her, “Trust me, it’s a guest bedroom.” On my phone, I can see them go to the bed and start taking the covers off the bed. The girl goes, “There's so many sparkles everywhere!” On my bed, I keep four pillows that are beaded and they're fabulous. They cost me an arm and leg! And do you know what happened? That girl threw my beautiful pillows on the floor!

The next morning on the tape, I can see my son’s other friends help clear out of the bedroom and some random guy folds up the blanket—he wasn’t even a participant! I think they all knew how much trouble my son was about to be in, so they were trying to mitigate the damage.

It so happens I have my son’s friend’s phone number in my phone, so I texted him and asked how his night was. He had no idea I had seen everything.

And I really wish I hadn’t either

Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, technology is great.

But that one percent of the time? It turns into a Black Mirror episode. Just ask my son’s friend who hasn’t been able to look me in the eye since then.

Speaking of TVs, here’s an expensive lesson I learned about home theater systems: