The Mid-Carolina Regional Association of REALTORS® is seeking a dynamic Chief Executive Officer to drive strategic growth, member engagement, and operational excellence in the heart of Pinehurst, NC—a world-renowned golf destination and luxury second-home hotspot.
$27,000,000,000. Nine zeros. That atmospheric number is Iceland's annual GNP. It's also the total homes sales volume real estate titan and Texas legend Ben Caballero of HomesUSA.com did as an individual sales agent over the last two decades (2004-2024). As a solo sales agent for every listing verified by the MLS, Ben averages over $1 billion in home sales annually. Last year, Ben did nearly $4 billion in home sales. Again, that's $4,000,000,000. That's greater than the combined annual GDP of Grenada and St. Lucia! Over seven thousand home sales: one year, one man Ben’s record-breaking billions are only eclipsed [...]
In the real estate industry, we thrive on connections – between agents, clients, and data. For MLSs, seamless data sharing isn't just a convenience; it has become necessary to stay competitive as geographic borders disappear, creating an even more interconnected marketplace. Even with the reduction of MLSs across America, overlapping market disorder continues to plague data management for brokers spanning multiple markets. MLSs can better serve their broker clients by fulfilling the need for efficient tools to break down data silos and deliver access to broader listing pools. Traditional data-sharing models have often been a roadblock. Costly, time-intensive data-sharing connections [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 48 REAL AI is a human-created weekly roundup of all things related to artificial intelligence in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact our industry. We post a new edition every Friday, and our free newsletter is delivered every Monday. Canva AI for photos rocks We’ve been “Crazy about Canva” for a long time but exceedingly addicted to its AI photo editing capabilities. Besides the Chatbots we use daily, Canva is another practical AI tool we turn to throughout the week. If you haven’t used [...]
It could imply that certain decisions or changes could set a precedent or trigger a series of consequences that are difficult to control or reverse, potentially impacting the industry in a negative way.
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 38 REAL AI is a human-created weekly roundup of all things related to artificial intelligence in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact our industry. We post a new edition every Friday, and our free newsletter is delivered every Monday. KW and practical AI At the burgeoning Blueprint VC-tech conference in Las Vegas this week, I had a chance to meet with Chris Cox, Chief Technology and Digital Officer at Keller Williams. KW is the world's largest real estate franchise by agent count, with over [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 29 REAL AI is a human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. We post a new edition every Friday, and our free newsletter is delivered to your inbox every Monday. Joining the AI image generator movement Have you noticed that the photo or image atop your favorite news story or feature often is crediting Midjourney? Chances are it used to say Adobe Stock, Getty Images, or a similar paid licensing image site. You will still [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 23 Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate, posting weekly. Images are AI + human generated. Will AI avatars attend meetings for you? File this one under "please don't." Sometimes, just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. Someone needs to tell Google and Zoom that – and pronto! Both firms are working on AI avatars that will attend meetings for us. The initial results are frightening, [...]
Ben Caballero is an improbable and incomparable real estate legend. How can an individual real estate agent based in Texas sell an average of more than 19 homes daily, every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays? Again, 19 homes a day, times 365 days last year, would be 6,935 home sales. Ben sold 7,012 homes in 2023. He is the sole listing agent on every sale, verified by every Multiple Listing Service he works with in Texas. He does not work with any other agent or team at HomesUSA.com, the brokerage where he also is CEO and founder. [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 15 Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate, posting weekly. AI will make the big, bigger Today, AI is in the business news headlines everywhere you look. Within 12 hours this week, OpenAI, Google, and Meta announced new AI versions. The French AI startup Mistral also released its latest version. Meta is launching its third version of Llama. Google released Gemini Pro 1.5 at Google Next 24. OpenAI issued its final [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 12 Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate, posting weekly. Does AI have a gender problem? As a long-time advocate of gender parity, an email in my inbox this week from Laura Meli with Girls Who Code asked this question as its subject line: “Is AI another boys’ club?” The email immediately notes that technological innovation and progress demand diverse perspectives, adding, “This is especially true in the field of [...]
By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 11 Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate, posting weekly. How current are the Chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Pi? A client recently asked what seemed to be a pretty straightforward question about AI chatbots. “What is the most accurate and up-to-date AI engine available for content?” The truth is there is no easy answer to this question. First, the leading Chatbots continually improve through iteration and new training data. [...]
