Incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the property industry will save Aussie home buyers thousands of dollars in conveyancing and property law costs, experts say.
The growth of language-based generative AI is set to transform the property purchasing process for investors and home buyers as well as those working in the industry.
The tool’s ability to shave dozens of hours off time-consuming and pricey admin work per property transaction will see buyers and sellers save thousands in soon-to-be unnecessary fees.
Conveyancing is one of those jobs, with the process of transferring legal ownership of a property from one person to another essential in every real estate purchase.
Currently, the work is done by licensed conveyancers and solicitors who can charge an average of $800 to $2200 for their services, depending on property price and other factors.
But in several years, experts say AI will be undertaking this task on behalf of buyers and sellers, meaning they’ll need to contract solicitors for less time or possibly not at all.
Meanwhile, the same time-saving effects are set to impact the property law sector with AI able to interpret, translate and answer questions on all property law legislation and civil case documents it has access to.
This means it could theoretically be used to draft legal responses, letters, and legal advice on behalf of a solicitor for their clients –or, again, by the home purchaser or seller directly without a solicitor being consulted at all.
Early AI adopters set to benefit
While this sounds like it could be bad news for those working within the property law and conveyancing sectors, Conveyancing software company triSearch chief executive Chris Gibbs says those property law and conveyancing firms that better implement AI’s timesaving features would likely outperform their competition.
“AI is already a game-changer for lawyers and conveyancers, and the data tells us why,” he said.
“When the business down the street has saved several hours a day on the administrative work they do, that translates to being more competitive, and that means being more profitable.”
“If you crunch the numbers and look at the 25 million time-pressured jobs carried out by around 10,000 practitioners in our industry, it is fairly conservative to think of the saving terms of millions of hours a year.”
Numerous surveys analysing the impact of AI on the sector show that the tool positively impacts efficiency, productivity, accuracy, security, and compliance readiness, ranging from 30-90 per cent depending on the task at hand.
Mr Gibbs says conveyancers will be using AI to draft emails and legal correspondence to clients in a matter of minutes, with the software even able to produce an 80-page strata report for a specific by-law in just seconds.
“We’ve seen it first-hand at triSearch where the feedback from clients and our own in-house, licensed conveyancers is that AI will change the landscape in ways we haven’t seen,” he explained.
“When you see how quickly a Matter can be set up and worked through, shaving off so much time, it’s an incredible must-have resource.”
However its not just the property law sector that AI is set to impact significantly, with the software set to also significantly impact many other aspects of the property industry, including construction and business management.
No work-around for AI introduction
Futurist and AI expert Steve Sammartino told Build-it that AI is here to stay, and learning how to use and communicate with the tool would have significant benefits.
We are right in the middle of a huge revolution, this resolution is (the equivalent of) humans inventing fire,” he said at the HIA Future Homes Forum.
“We’ve finally taught computers to speak out language… you have to get good at talking to computers you have to get good at prompt engineering.”
“You can use the same AI language model for engineering, science, maths and legal and the reason is because its language based.”
“Now the internet (Through AI) is essentially a giant brain and it will generate whatever you want based on what you put in it.”
