WRITING HOME

Property descriptions get a boost from DeScribe AI

By Christal Frost

Since 1999, Jason LaVanture has reimagined real estate marketing through targeted virtual tours.

His first venture used video tapes of home interiors, which were used by Realtors to market homes. As technology morphed, so did LaVanture’s business strategy, which dropped the video tapes in favor of virtual to entice prospective home buyers.

Now, with business partner Jim Blue, LaVanture has launched “DeScribe AI,” a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that instantly creates unique property descriptions for real estate agents.

After surveying local Realtors at Century 21 Northland, LaVanture realized that one of the most tedious and time-consuming components of the job is writing property descriptions.

“Pretty much everyone hated writing them,” he said.

By using existing technology, LaVanture quickly realized he could alleviate the tedium.

“It wasn’t much of a stretch for me to say, ‘Wait a minute, it’s crazy if we don’t let this thing write property descriptions,’” he said.

“This thing” – Chat GPT API – is a paid tool that allows for the integration of AI technology into applications. Such access enables users to generate authentic-sounding written content for their own businesses and product needs.

After gaining access, LaVanture tasked a programmer from his business, Real Tour Vision, to create the software.

LaVanture says that gaining access to the AI was the easy part.

“It’s so easy, you literally grab the technology when you plug into API,” he said.

Making it user-friendly was vitally important for LaVanture.

“I wanted it to be really easy for any Realtor to use very quickly,” he said.

The result is a simplified and easy-to-navigate site where Realtors can upload photos, enter information about properties, including number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, and price before selecting any number of unique and attractive amenities from a provided list, or easily add new amenities not included in the list.

After selecting a listing length of up to 1,000 words (100-200 words are recommended), a skillfully written, grammatically correct property description appears in seconds.

LaVanture says in addition to the time-saving component, the ability to create error-free listings can prevent Realtors from losing listings.

“Any inaccuracy is not a good thing when it comes to (real estate),” LaVanture said.

LaVanture says written errors can potentially cost Realtors a listing.

“If you listed with a seller and they’ve got a million-dollar home, and you spell ‘stories’ wrong, or make other embarrassing mistakes, it can cost you the listing,” he said. “(DeScribe AI) takes that all off the table, and it really adds a polished look and feel to the listing.”

So far, LaVanture says DeScribe AI has been a hit with his clients.

“It takes an agent between 10-40 minutes to write a property description for a new listing,” LaVanture said. “So if you have 60 listings every year, and it takes you 15 minutes a listing – which is on the short end – that’s 900 minutes or 15 hours just writing property descriptions.”

LaVanture says his passion lies with helping his clients succeed.

“We want to solve problems and remove the pain points for our clients,” he said.

“It wasn’t much of a stretch for me to say, ‘Wait a minute, it’s crazy if we don’t let this thing write property descriptions.’”

– Jason LaVanture, founder and executive vice president, Real Tour Vision; co-founder, BlueLaVa

“If they don’t like writing property descriptions, if this can help them be more successful, we want to do it.”

While he hasn’t heard of another real estate photography or videography company utilizing AI technology in this way, he anticipates other companies will soon start.

“I would be very surprised if we didn’t see two or three of my competitors not programming something like this, because it’s not a difficult thing to program,” he said.

By Eric Braund, columnist

The home sale process is filled with uncertainties.

How long it will take to sell? Will you get your asking price? But there’s one question that doesn’t have to remain a mystery: whether you will owe taxes on the sale of your home.

The answer depends on your eligibility for the home sale tax exclusion. Here’s what you need to know about this valuable tax break.

What is the home sale tax exclusion?

The home sale tax exclusion helps homeowners save on taxes by allowing them to exclude a certain amount of profit from capital gains taxes when they sell their home.

Under the current law, individuals can exclude up to $250,000 of capital gains from the sale of their primary residence, provided certain conditions are met.

Couples filing a joint tax return can exclude up to $500,000 of capital gains. Widowed homeowners may also qualify for the $500,000 exclusion amount if they sell their house within two years of their spouse’s death and fulfill the other eligibility requirements.

How to qualify for the home sale tax exclusion.

There are two main ways to determine your eligibility for the home sale tax exclusion: the ownership test and the use test. Here’s a breakdown of each: Ownership test: You need to be the legal owner of a property to qualify for the home sale tax exclusion. To pass the ownership test, you must have owned your home for two of the last five years before the sale date.

This offers flexibility to homeowners that rent out their homes. For example, if a person lived in their house for a year, moved somewhere else, rented the home for another year, and moved back for a final year before selling, they would still qualify for the exclusion.

You may need some or all of the following documents to prove home ownership: Deed, mortgage statements, property tax