Doorify Real Estate Podcast

How RealReports and Doorify Are Transforming Real Estate with AI with James Rogers

• Doorify MLS • Episode 90

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Agents are constantly looking for ways to stand out in a competitive market. The right tools can turn information into instant, actionable insights that clients actually care about.

In this episode, Allan Nielsen speaks with James Rogers, founder and CEO of RealReports, about how AI is helping real estate professionals gain a competitive edge. James shares the story of how a personal homebuying challenge inspired the creation of RealReports, a platform that delivers accurate property data in seconds. 

The discussion covers the integration with Doorify, creative ways agents are using the tool to win listings, and why it’s as beneficial for new agents as it is for seasoned pros. They also address how RealReports’ AI bot, Aiden, ensures answers remain grounded in fact. This conversation offers a clear view of AI’s role in supporting, not replacing agents.

This episode offers practical examples of how AI can integrate into an agent’s workflow without adding complexity. Listeners will come away with insights on using RealReports and Doorify to deliver value and efficiency at every step of a transaction.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes: 

  • Using AI to deliver fast, accurate property insights
  • Creative ways to win listings and generate leads with data
  • How RealReports integrates seamlessly with Doorify for agents

Links from this episode:

1ae5b43598204883b524f061d4880e6d10fca88c (for podfollow.com)

James Rogers [00:00:00]:
Data's not useful if you don't know what to do with it. A great agent knows how to go answer questions. They know that if I ask them a question about zoning, either they know it because they're an expert in that area or they know how to go find that. We understand that. But what we've done is allow them to answer all those questions in seconds in one place, because we built it into a really easy to use product. And then that AI allows you to even ask those questions.

Allan Nielsen [00:00:30]:
Welcome to the Doorify podcast, everybody. My name is Allan Nielsen and I am the VP of MLS systems and product owner here at Doorify. And we are joined today by James with RealReports. How are you doing, James? I'm doing great.

James Rogers [00:00:45]:
Thanks for having me, Allan.

Allan Nielsen [00:00:46]:
All right, so yeah, we're here to talk about RealReports today. And this is a new product we're about to bring to the dashboard and we're super excited about this opportunity. But James, let's hear a little bit about you and RealReports. Sure.

James Rogers [00:00:59]:
So I think it's worth understanding why we built RealReports before. I'll explain a little bit about it because I think it's a true and kind of interesting backstory. So I'm actually calling in from the other Durham. So I know some of your team is located in Durham, North Carolina. I'm in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm not going to get into a competition about which one's better, but that's where I happen to be. But before I was here, I lived in San Francisco for a few years. And when my wife got pregnant, who's now our four year old, we decided to buy a house just north of the city.

James Rogers [00:01:26]:
We had an accepted offer and we ended up getting rejected by 10 insurance companies for wildfire risk. And it had nothing to do with us or the whole area. It was a real shock to us. I mean, I think it's probably less of a shocking story to a lot of folks out there now. I'll probably hear that more commonly, but at the time we were really surprised and we almost lost a huge deposit. I work in the industry, so I was able to navigate my way out of that and get that money back. But it really gave us pause. We had started a tech enabled real estate brokerage and that's why I knew the space so well.

James Rogers [00:01:56]:
But we ended up creating RealReports out of that experience because what we wanted to be able to do for every real estate agent and then for all of their consumers, whether it's a buyer or a Seller we wanted to be able to answer any question they have whenever they need to be able to answer it. That could be on the buy side. It could be you're going to showing you're prepping an offer. You're, you just want to do research before you even walk in the door. Maybe it's on the listing side. You want to make sure that you're ready to go to market. So we've worked really hard to aggregate data from as many places as possible and make it very easy to use. Only we talk about it is it's like an AI powered Carfax for homes, which you know is a little quippy, but I think it puts people in the right headspace for it because it really is this comprehensive set of data for every property in the United States.

Allan Nielsen [00:02:43]:
Great. So you just said it. AI powered Carfax report. And this is something we have heard in the presentations that we've seen you guys doing. So tell us a little bit. What is it that real estate professionals can expect to see when they use RealReports? What is it that makes it so powerful?

James Rogers [00:03:00]:
One of the things that we hear a lot is agents are so valuable. Of course, we all know that, we work in the industry, but I think some agents have a hard time demonstrating their unique value. Why are they so great? Why are they an expert? Why should they be your buyer or your seller's agent? And so finding ways to present that unique value is challenging. And one of the things we like to think about internally is that in the market we're in right now, it's not becoming less competitive. In a lot of ways, it's very, very crazy. One of the things we say is you either know the most or you're losing to someone else who does. We want to supercharge agents and allow them to do that every time they're on a transaction. So when you pull a RealReport, which pretty soon you'll be able to very easily do with one click from Doorify, you'll have a choice.

James Rogers [00:03:41]:
You can either get a snapshot report, a buyer report, or a seller report. Visually, they're all going to be very similar as you go up in tiers. They're going to have more data, a few more features, but it's also powered by AI. So what that means is we've built this really powerful layer on top of it. Because another thing we say internally is that data is not useful if you don't know what to do with it. A great agent knows how to go answer questions. They know that If I ask them a question about zoning, either they know it because they're an expert in that area, or they know how to go find that. We understand that.

James Rogers [00:04:11]:
But what we've done is allow them to answer all those questions in seconds in one place, because we've built it into a really easy to use product. And then that AI allows you to even ask those questions. And one of the things that people say a lot about AI is garbage in, garbage out. Right? So if you're, if you just went to ChatGPT, for example, and you asked a question about a specific property, there's a very good chance it's going to make up part of the answer. And that's not reliable. That's not how agents should be using AI. What we've tried to do is create sort of a similar experience to that, but founded in factual truth, where we've aggregated and cleaned that data from so many different places so that when you ask a question, it's only looking at really reliable information and then doing that analysis for you.

Allan Nielsen [00:04:52]:
Right. I'll probably come back and ask a little bit more about the accuracy of AI in a little bit. But to AI Aidan, I believe, is the name of your AI bot there. So what are some of the surprising ways that agents are using it? Any, any questions or any use cases that you guys have seen so far?

James Rogers [00:05:12]:
That's a great question. I was sort of saying this before, but it's really meant to be a full lifecycle product. So there are people that use this for prospecting. They'll use it to engage with a buyer or a seller. They'll even use it after the fact with people who have maybe bought a home with them and they want to market with them on an ongoing basis. So what questions they're asking are really dependent on how they're using the product. But you know, maybe you have an investor client. One of the things that people really love to use this for is ask something like, how would this perform as a short term rental? Now that question is actually really complicated because first you have to think about can it be a short term rental? There are zoning implications, the rules around that.

James Rogers [00:05:47]:
If it can be, what else is on the market? What do comps look like for that? What's the market activity? But what's the weather? When is this going to be as busy as possible? What it allows you to do is ask a question like that and then it's going to look at every single one of those data sources and think about how they all fit together. Now Another even cooler part of it is you can actually share this with your clients. So now when your clients are using a RealReport, they can ask questions and then you as the agent get to see every question they asked and then see the answer that they were given. So it's a really great way to again provide and demonstrate more of that value, but then also interact with your client in a really neat way where you see all of that. You could interact with them and then follow up with them to say, because the AI is trained to say, here's our best shot of this answer. But of course you should go work with your real estate agent, do your homework. It's a great opportunity for that agent to really extend that relationship with their client.

Allan Nielsen [00:06:39]:
Fantastic. And I understand there is a document aspect to this as well. I assume agents can upload the inspection reports or disclosures and what have you, and I believe Aidan can even answer questions about these documents. Tell us a little bit more about that feature.

James Rogers [00:06:55]:
I'm actually a licensed broker myself and I will be the first to admit that when I was in market, if I got a 60 page document, I probably didn't read every single word of it. And I think if most people are honest with themselves, they could probably agree with that statement. So we do allow you to upload a document and Aiden will parse it, it'll analyze it, it'll summarize it. So whether that is a disclosure or maybe it's condo docs, you can ask something like, you know, is there an upcoming special assessment in these condo documents? And then not only do you get to see that, but if somebody asked that question. Coming back to your earlier question, Allan, it's a great way to see that they asked that question. You get an audit trail for every piece of every interactivity in that. An inspection report is actually one of my favorite pieces that it can analyze because depending on the type of document, there's going to be a different type of analysis. In the case of an inspection report, what it will do is the AI will actually parse out all of the necessary projects that need to be repaired in that.

James Rogers [00:07:50]:
And then with one more click in just seconds, you can go get a fully costed estimate. And this is the kind of thing where we partner with great data providers. In this case, we partner with a company that has hyperlocal data down to the zip code and at the cost of screws and demolition and labor on a project to now with a home inspection in just seconds, when you're on the, you're representing a Buyer, you can go to the seller and say, maybe. We used to always say, we think this is going to be about $20,000 in repairs. Now you come in and say, this is going to be $16,312. Here's my proof. You can see every project broken down to the level of the parts and labor. And then now you're negotiating against that.

James Rogers [00:08:28]:
That's a really great way to supercharge an agent's existing behavior. That's the kind of thing that traditionally you've got to bring a contractor in because, you know, most agents aren't understandably experts in how much is going to cost to repair or replace a deck. But you bring in a contractor, it might take days to do that. Now you can do that in seconds. Because that marriage of real, reliable data and the AI on top of that.

Allan Nielsen [00:08:51]:
Yeah. And back to what you talked about earlier about, you know, AI sometimes is accused of hallucinations, and that certainly does occur. Obviously, when we talk about summaries around documents and stuff like that, this becomes very important. Can you talk maybe a little bit more about why Aidan is not hallucination or hallucinating?

James Rogers [00:09:12]:
It's really because it's grounded in that truth of about the property. So it's using the data that we've provided to it, which we've worked very hard to clean and make reliable and stitch together in the most clear and accurate way. So that's the data that it's using to give answers. It's not just going to make something up based on the last training run of whatever LLM you've chosen to use, because of course, any of those are going to have a cutoff and maybe something happened yesterday it doesn't have access to. So be first and foremost, give it the real data, and then that's how it's going to use that. Now, on top of that, I think any agent using AI should be aware that I can be fallible. Of course. I mean, you know, even.

James Rogers [00:09:49]:
Even though we believe that we have the most accurate, complete, reliable version of it, we do include disclaimers and disclosures throughout. So whether it's an agent using it for the first time or it's sending it to their consumer, whether it's the buyer, the seller, they do have to opt into that and say, I understand that this is deemed reliable but not guaranteed, like we always all say in real estate data.

Allan Nielsen [00:10:10]:
Fantastic. Switching topic a little bit here. So what we have talked about up until now, kind of been the agent in the middle of a transaction using it during a transaction. But talk to us a little bit about how RealReports can be used to lead, generate, and even win listings.

James Rogers [00:10:26]:
Yeah, this is one of my favorite ways that people use RealReports. I'll give you two examples. One is on getting a listing. So we get that if you're doing a listing presentation, the most important part of that is you. So Allan, if you're an agent, you come in and say, look, here are my marketing materials. I sold the home next door, I know the neighborhood, I'm the expert. And of course that will always be what you should lead with. It's the most important part.

James Rogers [00:10:48]:
But what we allow you to do is now, in another couple of seconds, come in. Maybe now you walk in with an iPad, you sit down with that, that potential seller and say, here's every piece of data that we need to know before we list your home. Maybe there's an open permit that we need to resolve before we. Or there's a zoning issue. Here are eight different valuations that we can measure against my own opinion of value. Of course you're going to lead with that, but you can back it up and say, here's a whole chart of valuations from eight different sources. And we can look at that and you could say, here's everything that somebody's going to see about your home when they're thinking about it. We have agents that have reached out to us and said they won three listings in one month.

James Rogers [00:11:23]:
Some of these multi million dollar listings, because they were going about it that way, they supplement their listing presentation with a RealReport. A really amazing way to stand out, be data driven, tech forward and stand out amongst the crowd. Now another example I really love is once you do get that listing, you can use it in an open house. So in every RealReport, there's something called an open house flyer. When you print that out, it has a QR code on it. So now every one of those potential buyers walking around your open house, they scan that QR code, they give you their information in real time, and now you get insights into what they care about. So maybe you're walking around my open house. I'm the listing agent.

James Rogers [00:11:58]:
I can walk up to you and say, hey Allan, I see that you're interested in long term rental potential and maybe the school's nearby, let's chat about that. Oh, by the way, I've got a listing across town that you might also be interested in. You don't need to wait until you get back to the office to process that piece of paper. Sign in sheet that we're all used to, you get that right away. So now you can engage with those potential buyers on the spot while they're in the house.

Allan Nielsen [00:12:20]:
So this sounds like a dream for new agents. So how would you advise somebody who's brand new, they just got their license and they're excited to go out there. How can RealReports support them in really kicking off their new adventure as a realtor?

James Rogers [00:12:35]:
It is another one of the things I love about this. We have total expert real estate agents that use this all the time. But I think for a new real estate agent who's a bit more green, I think this is an amazing tool. And I think one of the behaviors that you get trained on when you're an agent is look at the mls because obviously that's the source of truth that we all rely on. You guys put together what is sort of universally in America, the most reliable set of data. But that only goes so far, right? I mean that's what the agent has input, maybe you've supplemented with a few things. But now in Doorify with one more click, you can go and prep for that showing. I remember some showings that I was on where I just had to go on something I didn't have time to prep and I was just.

James Rogers [00:13:13]:
Somebody asked a question about, it was like, uh, you either you try and make something up or you guess, which is not a great way to do that, you know, or you have to just tell them you don't know. Now this is a great way to be able to maybe sit in your car for five minutes before walking in the door. And now you'll be able to wow that person and say, oh, did you know there's actually a wetland in the back left corner of the property? Or the neighbor is, is renting their property out. Or there's a, an energy incentive available. If we maybe we put solar panels on the roof, we get a discount in this area in the zip code. There are all these different things that the, that new agent can come in and really very quickly become an expert on any property by quickly looking through a rail report.

Allan Nielsen [00:13:50]:
So yeah, we are very excited about RealReports coming to Doorify subscribers. As I mentioned in the beginning here, launch is expected at the end of August. So that's right around the corner. And I know the implementation has gone extremely well between us. So for our subscribers, they will have a RealReports tile on the dashboard. So James, what happens when they click on that?

James Rogers [00:14:13]:
Well, Allan, we're excited to bring value to Doorify Members as well. We're thrilled about the launch, but once somebody clicks on a button, depends on which button that is. So it'll be in a lot of different places. I know you do. Front end of choice. We will be integrated with all the different options, so it doesn't matter which one they're using. Will also be integrated with Tangella. So if somebody clicks on a general link, it'll just take them and give them their subscription.

James Rogers [00:14:34]:
Doorify is going to be providing a full RealReport subscription. It's a huge value. Somebody went and got that Without Doorify started. $120 a year. Your members will pay nothing for that. So really great benefit there. So when they click on that button, it'll take them right into real course. Give them that subscription.

James Rogers [00:14:50]:
If they get there from a listing page, they click that button and it'll take them right into a snapshot report, which are unlimited and free to all of your members. So we have people throughout the country that use hundreds of those per month. Again, maybe they're using them in prospecting. They use them on every single showing. And if they want to upgrade into a buyer or seller report, that's one more click. And it's very easy to do and get a big discount on those through Doorify as well. Another really cool feature is when you enter a listing into the Doorify system, we'll automatically send you a RealReport right to your inbox as a free member benefit as well. That's a great way to start marketing that listing again.

James Rogers [00:15:26]:
If you choose to upgrade that, add more data you can, but you don't have to. So your members never need to spend anything if they want. If they would like, just use those Snack Power reports, the great tool and a lot of different use cases, and it'll be one click away for all of your members.

Allan Nielsen [00:15:40]:
Fantastic. This year started introducing premium and freemium products and you guys would fall in the freemium product category. And some agents take that as, oh, they're just going to tease us a little bit. And then we'll be asked to charge. But it sounds like be asked to pay, but it sounds like with RealReports, they get us the base product in that is very, very strong, right?

James Rogers [00:16:04]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, we have people that through their MLS get something similar to this and like I said before, they might pull hundreds of reports a month. They use it on a daily basis. And we've really tried to make what Dora Phi is providing to your members something very valuable, where, you know, there is additional value that you might take advantage of if you want to. But this is not meant to be some sort of bait into something additional. We're very happy if people just use what Dori provides. We aim for that to be a really valuable subscription that the agent can really take advantage of without having to do anything extra.

Allan Nielsen [00:16:36]:
Yeah, we can't wait to hear the feedback from the users. We're quite certain that it will be very positive if we look ahead a little bit. So what do you guys have coming out in the future? What are you guys working on? What makes you guys excited?

James Rogers [00:16:51]:
Well, one of those is that I know you like you yourself, Allan. Obviously you work with a lot of other great technology providers. We are going to be working on some really cool integrations with some of those. But on our own product, something that we're working on that we just started teasing recently, it's in development. I'm very excited about it is really leveling up the AI. We're going to be introducing something that we call AI workflows. And what that's going to be is a new mode to aid in where it's still grounded in all that truth about the report. But if you think about what's possible beyond that, it's not just analyzing a document or answering a question that you might have.

James Rogers [00:17:26]:
What else can you do with that data? We're going to be launching fully configurable workflows that maybe output the data in various formats that you need. So this could help you with something like doing your research for a CMA or maybe outputting a flood report if that's what you need. Or there are going to be a lot of different tools in there and I don't want to spoil the fun by talking about all of them. It's going to be a really powerful feature that will be included in premium RealReports, so keep an eye out for that. Probably the next coming quarter.

Allan Nielsen [00:17:52]:
We are so excited about AI. It's amazing what it can already do. And again, as everybody says, today is the worst there will ever be. So we can't wait to see what you guys are coming out with. Just to close this out here. If people don't have time to sit and watch 20 minutes of a podcast and you want to leave them with just the key takeaways that they should leave with, what would that be?

James Rogers [00:18:14]:
I think there are people in this industry that talk about how AI is going to replace the real estate agent. We really believe that that's not true. AI is not going to replace real estate agents, but at the same time, something that we really do believe is that agents who adopt AI in meaningful ways. And that doesn't just mean one tool, it means finding the right things for your existing workflow to make you level up. I think the people who adopt AI in meaningful ways are going to out compete the ones who don't, and we really want to help agents do that.

Allan Nielsen [00:18:41]:
Fantastic. James, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast again. We are so excited to bring RealReports to the Dashboard Watch the end of the month. We will have different events and communications going out between now and then, so please look for that. Everybody. Thank you for joining us. See you next time.

James Rogers [00:18:57]:
Thanks Allan. Appreciate it. This was fun.

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