Today, many owners start their thoughts on the price of their property with an online estimate.
Today, many owners start their thoughts on the price of their property with an online estimate. In a few clicks, on a real estate portal or via a tool using artificial intelligence, a figure appears. It’s quick, simple and reassuring. Most of the time, this estimate is taken seriously but unfortunately this often leads to poor marketing management and misunderstandings in the long term. Yes, valuing a property does not consist of guessing a price, even with a powerful algorithm.
I recently experienced two very concrete situations. In the first case, I used artificial intelligence as an estimation tool. In just under two hours, I was able to produce a clear, structured and argued analysis. In a second case, without using AI, it took me a whole day of work to reach almost the same conclusion. This comparison is revealing: AI does not replace expertise, it simply saves time.
The rapid estimation tools offered by real estate portals today rely, for many, on logic close to artificial intelligence. They analyze databases, cross-reference past sales, surface areas, locations and produce an average price. These tools have a real usefulness: they provide an initial benchmark and allow a property to be located in a market. The problem begins when this benchmark is taken as a definitive value.
Real estate is not just about an address and a few criteria. An algorithm does not visit a home. He does not see the quality of the building, the real condition of the property, the work to be planned or the potential after renovation. He perceives neither the light, nor the noise, nor the atmosphere of a street. He also does not know how to analyze a co-ownership, understand its management or anticipate the impact of a bad DPE in a negotiation.
In the current context, this nuance is essential. The market has become more difficult to read. Buyers know they have opportunities, compare more and negotiate more than before. Price has become a central, sometimes decisive, element.
Too rough an estimate can block a sale for months or lead to a gradual devaluation of the property.
When I use AI, I don’t ask it to set a price for me. I provide him with a field analysis: what I saw during the visit, the technical elements of the building, the really relevant comparables, the state of stock in the sector, the dynamics of the local market, the strengths and weaknesses of the housing. I therefore feed the AI which then helps me to structure this information, to make it more readable and more educational. But the final decision remains with me.
So quick online estimates and artificial intelligence are not the problem. They only become problematic when sellers or professionals take them as final and absolute. For my part, they are above all helping tools, and certainly not results set in stone.
Artificial intelligence does not guess the price of a good. It can help to estimate it, provided it is supported by experience, expertise and knowledge of the field. In a more demanding and uncertain market, the estimate is no longer a simple number: it is an essential step including expertise, experience, methods and engaging terrain.
