Long Island agents use AI to 'paint' walls, write Insta captions, more
In trying to sell a house with green paint on the walls, Huntington-based real estate agent Joseph LaViola asked an artificial intelligence platform to paint the walls white.
"I told my client, don't worry about spending the money on painting it," said LaViola, of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty.
The National Association of Realtors' 2025 Realtor Technology Survey, released last month, found that of agents who use AI in their business, 20% use it daily, 22% weekly and 27% a few times monthly. NAR Director of Member of Consumer Survey Research Brandi Snowden said the survey, to which more than 1,200 responded, offered listing descriptions as a possible use case.
"In the actual survey, we did include that one example," Snowden said. "But, I guess it would be up to the survey taker to define what that would be to them."
LaViola said he uses AI to create Instagram captions, write MLS descriptions, draft offer letters and edit photographs of homes.
The original photo of the living room, top, displayed the home's green walls. An AI-altered image shows it with white walls. Credit: Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty
When he writes offer letters now, LaViola will feed Chat GPT information like the purchase price, down payment amount and whether there are any contingencies, and ask that the platform create a formal offer.
"It literally, within seconds, will spit back something that it looks like the CEO of a company created it, who's been doing this for 40 years," he said. LaViola said he then rereads it before submitting the offer.
Sag Harbor-based Douglas Elliman agent Dennis Saglam identified himself as an "early adopter" of AI technology.
"It's really changed the way I think that a lot of real estate agents who are tech savvy started operating their business, for the sake of being more efficient, streamlining and getting rid of a lot of repetitive tasks that we were doing," he said.
Saglam said the learning curve was not steep for him, but that he founded the platform Listingcopy.ai to help eliminate that curve for other agents.
"Being able to replace manual copywriting with Chat GPT copywriting for the sake of listing descriptions and other kind of content needed for marketing listings has become a game changer," Saglam said.
Arielle Dollinger joined Newsday as a staff reporter in 2022. Previously, she covered local and national news as a freelancer for The New York Times, Newsday and other outlets.
