Why You Shouldn’t Use ChatGPT to Sell Your Home

Series: Real Estate in the Age of AI - Essay 1

AI Lingo Bingo

Last weekend, I was hosting an open house when a buyer walked into the living room, looked around thoughtfully, and told me the space felt “resolved.”

Resolved.

I nearly laughed.

Ten minutes later, another person told me the house felt “grounded.” Somebody else complimented how “intentional” the spaces felt. Another described the flow as “balanced.”

At this point, I was basically marking bingo cards in my head.

Aha. Gotcha. I see you.

Not critically. More like recognizing another person carrying the same oddly specific tool in their back pocket.

Because I use ChatGPT too. Constantly. Publicly. Enthusiastically. I think it’s one of the most important technological shifts of my professional lifetime. I also think many people are currently using it the way I would use a Sawzall after twenty minutes on YouTube.

Useful tool. Wrong hands.

I’m not anti-Sawzall. I’m anti-me-with-a-Sawzall.

Back when I worked in advertising, there were still people who proudly announced they “couldn’t really type.” They said it with the same energy that people once used to brag about not owning televisions. Meanwhile, I was twenty-two years old, sitting there thinking: there will never be a version of that for me. I will not become the person proudly refusing to learn the next thing.

So this is not a “technology bad” essay.

Google did this first. ChatGPT just accelerated it.

People now arrive at listing appointments armed with information, screenshots, pricing theories, staging advice, neighborhood rumors, TikTok psychology, Zillow screenshots, and increasingly, twenty-minute strategy sessions generated by AI.

Some of that information is useful.

Some of it is dangerously “flattening.”

And a surprising amount of it is emotionally supportive in ways that make people more confident than they should be.

That part matters.

Because if you upload a photo of your turquoise accent wall and ask ChatGPT what it thinks, there is a decent chance it’ll tell you the wall adds personality, warmth, and creative energy.

Meanwhile, a seasoned listing agent is standing there, thinking, "This room now looks smaller, darker, more specific, and significantly harder to sell to the broadest range of buyers." Not to mention potentially dated.

AI is often designed to make you feel supported.

Professionals are supposed to help you make good decisions.

Those are not always the same thing.

A good Realtor will risk losing the deal to act in your best interest.

And if that sounds dramatic, let me tell you about the seller who asked whether I thought I was smarter than ChatGPT.

Yes.

I do.

In the same way I think I’m smarter than a hammer.

Or a paintbrush.

Or a Sawzall.

Because I’m the expert. The rest are tools.

This seller had proudly spent less than twenty minutes generating what they believed was a superior marketing strategy for their home. The issue, they explained to me, was that we as Realtors simply hadn’t evolved enough yet. We needed to call in the drones immediately and start filming the script ChatGPT had thoughtlessly spit out.

And yes, they specifically mentioned they were using the expensive version of ChatGPT, as though that gave them a direct line to the mega-brain hidden inside a mountain somewhere.

At some point, the conversation stopped being collaborative and started becoming philosophical, bordering on combative.

So I ended the agreement.

That house sat for months.

Then came the price drops.

Then more price drops.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in reductions later, the market delivered the reality check the original conversations were trying to prevent.

That situation was never really about AI.

It was about confusing access to information with expertise.

Those are not the same thing.

For example...

I know enough about lending to be dangerous. Enough to ask strong questions. Enough to identify obvious problems. Enough to help clients avoid mistakes.

I also know exactly where my expertise ends and where I refer to my go-to lending partner. The one who knows what trickle-down actions in Washington could hurt or benefit my buyers’ lending options. The one who has more than just an opinion on rate lock timing, but the experience to tailor each recommendation to each client.

That’s the difference.

The danger with AI isn’t ignorance.

It’s partial expertise paired with full confidence.

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Celebrated for her next-level creative approach to real estate, Elisa Cool Murphy is the author of Prepped to Sell: What Works Even When the Market Doesn't. She is an award-winning, top-performing real estate broker in New Orleans and the founder and owner of Cool Murphy Real Estate.

You can learn more about her here.

Contact Her -

email: cool@coolmurphy.com

Facebook: @homeinneworleans

IG: @coolmurphynola

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phone: 504-321-3194