Ep 028 - Smarter Remodeling - How Homeowner AI Transforms Project Planning

John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson show how HomeZada's Homeowner AI plans remodeling projects by generating material lists and cost estimates. The AI can show how a bathroom remodel budget swings from $4,000 to $12,000 based on size and materials, and surfaces product options to cut through decision fatigue.
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Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast, where you'll discover strategies to save money, save time, and be better organized in managing your largest financial asset and biggest expense, your home. Your hosts, John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson, who are co-founders of HomeZada, have been supporting homeowners for over 20 years. They are here to share with you their tips and suggestions, as well as interviews with industry experts, with the goal of helping you become a smarter homeowner. Now here's your hosts, John and Beth.
Hi everybody, welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. I'm Beth Dodson and I'm with John Bedrosian, our other host. I want to upfront apologize. I may have a little bit of a Crazy voice only because I got a little tickle back there and I'm trying to deal with it. But today we're going to talk about homeowner AI and as it relates to remodeling projects. Uh, we know, I know people love to remodel their homes.
Oh, don't they ever?
I mean, it's a huge— I mean, you even said it's a huge business. I mean, this is a multi-trillion dollar business or something to that effect.
It's in that definitely hundreds of billions. I mean, just walk to your local home improvement store on a weekend and see how many people are walking around in those stores kind of mentality.
Yeah, you're kind of right.
You know, checking out products. I mean, even on the weekdays, it's packed.
Exactly. In themselves, their revenues just kind of indicate that it's a big business. And that's just part of it. Then you got all the service providers and everybody else who are actually doing the work. To remodel your home if you're not doing it yourself. So let's talk about projects. You know, one of the things that we identify in Homesada is a lot of the common projects that people are doing—everything from physical, like construction add-ons, changes, etc.—to furnishings and and doing those types of projects. Like it encompasses so many different types of projects. Tell me what. you see about this, John?
Yeah, definitely. We, we see from talking to homeowners and customers as well as our own personal experiences, trying to categorize, trying to create a framework for different types of remodel projects. One is what I call big picture, like, uh, big systems infrastructure projects. I need a new roof, or my windows are bad, my home's 30 years old, I need new windows, or Or I want to put in a swimming pool, or I need to replace my HVAC systems.
Mm-hmm.
So a lot of these things are replacement projects, but they're really big and they affect the quality of the heating and the cooling and the moisture in the home and all those kinds of things. Then there's a second category, which are also still pretty big, but they're kind of what I call lifestyle desires and goal projects.
Oh yeah.
And that gets into kitchen remodels and bathroom remodels. You bought a home that was built 15, 20 years ago. Everybody wants an open floor plan. So you want to blow out a wall and connect your kitchen and have an island that connects to your family room, et cetera. Those are also pretty big projects. Doesn't mean you have to do them because, you know, the HVAC's gone out, But you're doing it because you want to either A, increase the value of your home and combination of you just are an avid cook and you're like, and I wanna entertain and I wanna do those kinds of projects. The last 2 for me is what I call minor project, but still lifestyle oriented. They're just, they don't bring together lots of different products and materials like kitchen and bathroom remodels. They're more like, we just need new carpets in the bedrooms 'cause they're worn out.
Right.
Or I wanna swap out the carpet to hardwood floors.
Okay.
Um, you know, maybe I need to replace my washer and dryer. Relatively small, not a lot of, you know, one single trade associated with it primarily. Um, and then for me, the 4th category, which creates the other huge dynamic, which is outdoor landscaping projects.
Oh yeah.
Because that could be, I, I just want to, you know, plant perennials, you know, or all around my house to I'm going to rip up my entire yard and I'm tired of paying the water fees and I want drought-resistant, you know, plants and I want a trellis and a patio and a barbecue and sort of you can let your imagination run wild over all the outdoor stuff.
Yeah, outdoor does involve a lot of construction, but it also can involve a lot of different trades depending on what's going on. Because someone who's trying to build an outdoor kitchen May need gas and electric lines and plumbing lines versus someone who is just trying to add a patio needs someone who's going to pour either that concrete or lay those stones or what have you. And then you've got all the landscaping team, and sometimes they're not one and the same. So yeah, there's a lot of different trades involved in that.
Right. And the, the projects that require multiple trades coming together, those tend to be more complicated because things have to fit, right? Yeah, you have to run the electrical to, you know, the, the TV that you want to mount on the wall, or you have to run the gas to the gas grill.
Correct.
You got to build around it versus what I call single trade of I just want to put hardwood floors in that room. One trade pretty much can sort of do the project. Much more simpler kind of mentality. Yeah, I think it makes sense. Another huge sort of different categorization on this, which is, am I going to DIY this? Or am I going to hire a contractor?
Huge, huge. And I really do believe that some people have the capabilities of DIYing the whole thing, because maybe they have experience, some I think they can do DIY some things like cabinets or something like that. But once you start getting electric and plumbing, if you aren't experienced, I'm a firm believer, hire somebody. They just know what they're doing.
Yeah. And to add to that, it's the more trades you need, more specified tools. Totally. So some people don't have— they want to DIY it and maybe they're willing to learn and YouTube themselves and learning these skills, but then they're going to have to make the investments in the tools, the electrical tools or the plumbing tools. There's also what I call the safety factor.
Totally.
Putting in your own hardwood floors, nothing is risk-free. Relatively low risk, right? But installing your own ceiling fans and/or electrical work, a little bit more risky, you know, in terms of the trade and the ladders and all these kinds of things. So I I think when people try to make these decisions around, should I DIY or hire a contractor? One is, do I have the skills, tools, and am I safe gonna do this?
Yeah.
The other part of it is candidly budget. Why do most people DIY something? They're either super passionate 'cause they already have that trade skill or they actually wanna learn because that's like a hobby of them. They wanna learn how to become a better carpenter and make their own wood. You know, cabinets. Yeah. And they're going to put the investment of time in there. But really what they're doing is they're saving on the labor cost and the overhead of hiring a contractor. Yeah, they're still going to have material costs. Yeah. Which is a huge point that I'd like to point out, which is every single project, whether you're going to DIY it or hire a contractor, has material cost.
Totally.
If you're going to hire a contractor, you have the labor costs that you're paying for as well as their overhead and profit. If you're going to DIY it, you are the labor essentially working for free. Now, do you have the time to do that? That's a different question.
Yeah. And that honestly could be the difference whether you're— the family that you're living with inside your home can tolerate you learning while our kitchen is not available for 3 months, you know, and you got to go out to dinner all the time. Or if you're going to do that, do it in summer. So that you can barbecue outside.
You whip out that grill.
Oh my gosh, for sure. And then at the same time, to your point, a lot of people think, you know, different projects have— to your point, different projects have different material costs and labor costs. So for instance, like when you want to paint your home outside, inside, generally the paint is more affordable than cabinets. Cabinets are just expensive. And granite countertops are expensive versus if you, um, and you're paying more on the labor side. Now, if you're building a new kitchen, the materials may actually be slightly more than the actual labor because someone might be building the cabinets elsewhere and then transporting them already built, and then you just install them. So it's ironic how all this works.
Yes, definitely. And this is why it's such a big, huge opportunity to educate homeowners about how to think about all their projects, because you're absolutely correct. There are some that are very labor intensive, but the material cost is really low. Others are high on materials. I mean, I've seen projects, kitchens and, and whatnot, you know, be as high as 65, 70, 75% of the cost is the materials. And this is actually kind of laying the groundwork for what I'm wanting to talk about when I show the AI later on. But you, the homeowner, you determine the materials you want, whether you're going to DIY it or whether you're going to hire a contractor.
Yes.
And you essentially have control over what those costs are because you can choose which materials you want your contractor to put in. And I personally think that, again, it's part of our overall theme at Be a smarter homeowner podcast. Yeah, the more planning that you can do, the more likely to have a successful project that's on your budget that you know gets done correctly. But you got to put that planning effort in, and that's what a lot of our homeowner AI is going to help them do is that planning aspect of it.
Yeah, and I'm and you know me, like I love to like be organized and plan for everything, but I need to budget for projects, and that's for me personally. And if If my budget is out of whack, I need to change the scope. But I can't sometimes change the scope in the middle of a project because something has already been removed or changed or what have you. And what I mean by that is maybe I have a project, and I did have something like this, where I wanted to update my family room, my kitchen, and a back bathroom. Excuse me. Excuse me. I know my little cough is driving me crazy. That's a whole nother story. But one of the things I started realizing is I had this budget, and then my friend who was helping me, the budget went higher with all the different components. And I said, all right, because I was prepared, I pulled back scope and the back bathroom did not get redone. And that was really important because I didn't want to go over budget. It just wasn't something I was interested in doing. Some people are comfortable doing that. I was not interested. So my project focused on parts of the kitchen, the nook, and the family room, not the back bathroom. And I said, I can get to that at a later time. However, had I done what we were considering doing in the bathroom, Removing sinks, removing shower doors, then prior to actually understanding the budget, then I'm stuck because now I have to do it in order to meet some sort of code, in order for your home to be livable, in order for it to not look crappy. And then 3, if— or 4, if you ever decide you want to sell your home, you need all that finished.
Yeah.
So it's like, so just understanding upfront has always been one of my biggest Pet peeves and understanding, and it gives me the ability if I need to start negotiating with my contractors something I had to do. And another good example of that, like I'll bring this up for people: landscape lights. They're just they're like the bane of my existence. Like I don't know why. Excuse me, but they are. And so I had all these landscaping lights in the front of my yard and the back of my yard. I mean a lot. And they were beautiful, this, that, the other. But then so many of them got damaged, and it was time to repair and possibly redo. Well, additionally, some bushes were growing into the lights, so they were just too close to one another. And I'm like, okay. So I worked with my contractor to review getting those lights updated, and I was smart enough. She actually made some recommendations. We don't need to add all these extra lights. What if we cut back and choose a different type of light? Instead of having a downward, um, light, have an up-facing light in some areas, and you don't need all the lights you have. Yep. You just, you need to pull back. So we were able— excuse me— to adjust the amount of lights Prior to getting started. So she's not out for materials because she bought all these extra lights. And at the same time, we reduced our, our bill in order to get these lights updated and repaired. And it was a win-win for everybody. And I now have lights that work properly and I don't have extra lights that I don't need.
Yes, there, you know, the issue around home remodeling and home improvement, I think we're going to probably end up with probably 5 or 10 different episodes because there's so many different aspects to this, right?
Totally.
And we're just covering the surface here today. And I think part of the segue of this is on how Homeowner AI helps, which is a lot of people may have bought their first home, Or they've been living in a home for 10, 15 years and they've never actually done a project before, but they need to. So now it's like, oh, I wanna do that bathroom remodel, or I need to update my HVAC equipment.
Yeah.
So it's that journey of, I have never done something before, so where am I gonna get data and information to help me with that? And even the experienced homeowners, maybe you've done a kitchen remodel before, but now you are in a different house, it's a different layout, different size, Different age, different desires over what you want, you still need to sort of make that mental preparation over how to plan for it. And so, yeah, what I wanted to kind of show you is maybe a couple of different examples in our podcast today about how homeowner AI helps with that budgeting process, because it's helpful for whether people have never done one before or even people that have done it before, but making it much more efficient and easy using AI, I think becomes, you know, a huge opportunity.
And this is one of those things I have seen. Like, I haven't seen a lot of the AI that we've had in the platform, but I have seen this and I think it's amazing. It streamlines the process so efficiently and I get so excited about this.
Fantastic. So just a little tech check, Elizabeth. I'm sharing my screen. Hopefully you can see it.
Yes. And for those who are on audio only, please feel free to come back and you can see the AI in action. On the video side of things, not on the audio.
Okay, so I'm on the dashboard for tracking all your projects, and the second icon here says New Project. So the user essentially comes in here and says, I want to do something. So this is what we refer to as templates. So Homes Auto comes with about 50 common home improvement templates. You can see the top 3 there are backyard landscape, basement finish because you live on the East Coast and there's a basement you want to finish out, bathroom remodel. Convert an attic to a bedroom. I don't need to go through them all, but you could basically scroll down this list and see all the different types of projects.
And one of the things I do like about our templates, by the way, is— and the backyard landscape is a really valuable one as an example— it gives you the ability to understand all the items you need to consider for your landscaping project or your project itself. And that's what I really appreciated because Growing up on the East Coast versus the West Coast, we have irrigation and need of it in California because it doesn't rain for six months straight. And if you want any foliage to survive, you need that. If you want a drought resistance, you probably don't need a lot of irrigation or what have you. But on the East Coast where I grew up, it rained throughout the year, so I didn't need irrigation.
Correct, and I'll show you that real time because let's say let's use the bathroom remodel. You hit create project, a little dialogue pops. pops up. You can answer a few questions. Do you want to hire a contractor or do it DIY? You can give yourself kind of what I call a swag estimate, like super high level, because this is going to try to start to shape your budgeting, but you can obviously change that. So we're just going to put in there, you know, a moderate estimate and hit create project.
Yeah.
So what the template does, exactly what you said, Beth, which is it creates the material list for your project.
Yeah.
So for the audio people, essentially just by creating bathroom remodel, it's created a list of all the typical materials that you're going to need because you're going to need cabinets and a bathroom faucet and a bathtub and bathtub tile and countertops and bathtubs and toilets and sinks, etc. So it's created the list automatically for you, which is starting point number one, which is what a lot of people struggle with. They don't even realize all the different materials that are going to be required to do a bathroom remodel, and this basically does that up front for you already. And this is a great example too, John.
There are some people that don't want a bathtub in a bathroom remodel, so they can easily delete it and then go to, you know, I'm going to have more tile or what have you, et cetera, because I'm going to have a shower versus a bathtub. But this is just like an example of it's easy to delete than not, but AI is going to take it to the next level.
Correct. So if you look at the screen here, the 3rd column has a budget for each individual item. And notice that budget is currently— it's got a blank field there. But at the very top above the table, there's an AI interaction that's probably one of my personal favorites in the product called Xana AI Budgets. So all you have to do is click on that and the AI interaction starts. And then what is it actually doing is it's taking your entire material list, the toilet, the towel racks, the floor tile, the floor grout, The countertops, the ceiling lights, the bathtub, and it's basically creating an individual line item budget where it's identifying the quantity, the unit price, the total price, and most importantly, it's giving you an assumption over what type of product you're actually going to choose there. So you can see here right out of the gate, right out of the gate, it created a budget of $4,000, almost $5,000, right? But when you think about the AI, you can essentially give it more data. So you can say, it is an 8 by 12 bathroom. I want high-end Kohler fixtures, and I want a quartz countertop.
So by no means are we a, um, a Kohler representative, just FYI. We're just using it as an example.
Exactly. So essentially, the AI estimating tool is taking your data, because let's face it, some people know the rough dimensions of their bathroom. And why is that important? Because now by giving it 8 by 12, it's increased the quantity of the floor tile. And it's increased the quality of the tile around the bathtub. It's made a greater assumption over the bathtub is about $1,500 versus the previous example, the bathtub was only $600.
Holy cow, that's a huge difference.
Right? Where's the countertop? The countertop is, you know, $1,000 'cause you want quartz material versus the countertop in one before was only $500 because it was basically a moderate price kind of manufactured kind of material. So in less than 1 minute, you would— and the total estimate for the audio users jumped to $12,000.
Yeah.
So just by giving it the dimension—
So it jumped from $4,000 to $12,000.
Correct.
And by the way, for anyone who's out there who does projects, this is how quickly people can get over budget on a project. And AI just did this in such a lickety-split time. that you can make a game time decision. And this is exactly what I had to do in my own project to cut scope.
So not only is this valuable to the first-time user because now they can have multiple interactions with this, they can say, I want, you know, something else and develop the budget, but also think about how valuable it is in terms of replacing your spreadsheet and doing a web search for every single one of these items trying to build your own.
Mm-hmm.
Right? That takes a lot of time. If I had to do a web search for, in my materials list, every single one of these items, which is probably about 15 or 20, and then go do a web search, figure out which site I want to look it up, enter in the quantities, go back to my spreadsheet, enter in a line item, and you're trying to build your budget the, the what I call old-fashioned way using spreadsheets and web searches. This is the power of AI. One click of the button and it just does it for you kind of mentality.
It's fucking crazy.
Right? Crazy. And so now at the bottom of the—
This is key, John. This is, this is preparation.
Massive preparation.
This is preparation at its best. And like, I'm just stunned at how, you know, you picked the project based on what we offered. And then when you course corrected the using AI saying, okay, I appreciate this, but I actually want This, this, and this, and how it quickly changed. So people can make informed decisions about their projects by using AI to give them clear, specific budgets on their remodels.
Correct. And it's a huge time saver. You did this in, you know, 2 to 3 minutes versus hours, you know, either on a pure web search or walking around a home improvement retailer store or calling a contractor and having a, 3-week dialogue to try and figure this thing out. I did this in basically 2 minutes. Now at the end of the process, the user at the bottom can hit the Save Items, and essentially now what you're doing is you're saying, okay, this is the good budget. I'm picking the $12,000 budget for the audio listeners. You can make any edits if you want to. You hit Save, it returns it back to reviewing your budget estimates, and now that detailed materials list that started out with showing all those items has an individual budget for every single one of those line items.
I also see this as a benefit of work. If you choose to work with a contractor, you're having a more informed conversation with your contractor, and you are also having a better relationship with them. I hear a lot of stories where people just don't have great relationships with their contractors. This is a better informed relationship, and I think contractors would also appreciate that.
Could not agree more. That is such a huge point, Beth. I want to just reiterate even more. I believe that homeowners need to do their own research prior to even picking up the phone or website to try and call the contractor.
Yes.
Because if you start doing this via AI, you're starting to understand what your material budgets are based on all your different choice options.
Mm-hmm.
And you contractors want a sales cycle that is, if I have an informed homeowner that kind of already knows what they want, already has a pretty decent budget, they're much more likely to get to a point of, okay, tell me what you want. I'll give you a quote for the labor and material and when I can start. And they're doing that in, you know, 1 or 2 phone calls versus multiple ones that are going on over multiple days. So it really goes to my advice to everyone is every homeowner should be responsible for the material portion of their budget. And do this upfront prior to even engaging in a contractor discussion. Yeah.
And I got to tell you, contractors will appreciate this.
Yes. But I'm going to show you—
The worst thing that happens though, FYI, the worst thing that happens when you're with a contractor is when you're wishy-washy. That can drive budgets up out of control. It could cause problems. You want to redo things, this, that, the other, and contractors get frustrated and they don't want to work with people like that. Yep.
So if you think this was amazing as it relates to creating a budget of $12,000 for my bathroom remodel, I'm gonna show you 2 more things that are gonna blow your socks off, Elizabeth.
Perfect.
If I go to, like, for instance, bathtub, over on the right-hand side for the audio listeners, there's another AI action called product research. So before I click on that, I'm just gonna kind of walk you through a mental picture. Many of us have walked through a home improvement retailer, and maybe we walk down the bathtub aisle. So many different product material types to choose from, and it becomes a little bit overwhelming over like, well, what type of bathtub do I really need?
Right.
Because every single material— that's why the home improvement retail stores are so big with so many aisles— every single material that you have to choose from Probably has 5 to 15 different material types to choose from.
Easy. Yes.
Click on product research. Watch the educational value of this particular AI action. What it's actually doing now is saying the AI tool knows you're trying to do a bathroom remodel, and it knows you're basically trying to research not necessarily the brands up front, but what I call the different product types or material types. So Beth.
Holy cow.
Do you want to describe what you see on screen or would you like me to?
No, I would. So the first thing I started seeing is I was, because I was watching the AI work and I was getting so excited because I was watching it start saying everything it was looking for. And then it built a table and it said material type, the estimated unit price, which is super important. The features and the value proposition of having each one, because that's also important for some people. And then it says the action, so you can do more shopping, search, or what have you. It also, when it comes to features and value proposition, which I also think is pretty impressive, it's actually giving you some specific brand names that offer these types of products. And I think this is key to helping people understand what is— excuse me— what is available to them, who makes it, the cost behind it, and helps them make their decision based on true important data. Not looks and feels just yet, but literally on true data. And it also helps people, and I find this to be really helpful when you're in a remodel project, it may make it easier for you to eliminate options. And sometimes elimination is easier than, oh my gosh, I still can't choose, because you will get decision exhausted if you're doing remodel projects. And a good example of that is I'm looking at this one. A stone resin tub is $3,000. It is the most expensive. It is durable. It's nonporous. It's all these different things. It's heavier than acrylic. I don't know if that would require some sort of machinery to bring it in. I don't know. But you may not want to spend $3,000 on a tub. So you may be willing to go with something moderate of the road. And so you may be willing to go with cast iron or even acrylic. Versus something totally lower end, but also something so high end. And I think that makes your decision criteria. You eliminate things, which I think is important, and it allows you to focus on what you can afford or choose to afford, and also what you desire versus let's face it. Remodel projects, I'm going to say this to everybody, they're not life or death. They're just remodel projects, but they can quickly get out of hand, meaning expensive-wise, and they can quickly frustrate people because they're thinking, oh my gosh, it's got to be perfect, but it really doesn't.
Absolutely agree with everything you said. Perfect. I mean, it's sort of like it's combined all this research. It's given you, like you said, do I only want to spend $900 on the fiberglass tub or do I want to spend $2,000 on cast iron? And this was just for the bathtub. I could go back to every single product in that bathroom remodel. The faucets, the tile. Do I want porcelain? Do I want ceramic? Do I want glass tile? The drain, the light fixtures, the countertops.
Yeah.
Every single product. And that's just for the bathroom remodel. It's for every single project that you could think of. Your roof, your windows, your landscaping. So much of this is just a massive amount of education around all the different choices and what a general unit price is. Because you are in control over what products you're going to select and is a huge driver in you determining what your budget is on these types of projects.
The other thing I can think of too, and this made me think of it, is this type of scenario is good for— excuse me— investors who they want to have a project. They really don't want to get into all the details. They need to have something selected nice, but they want something affordable. And they want to go, okay, I want this, this, this, this, this, and the shopping choices just make it so much easier.
Correct. Now I'm going to do one more AI interaction for you. So we've talked about our templates, 50 common home improvement, but let's face it, there are many homes that have unique desires for certain projects that we may not have a template for.
Oh yeah.
So I'm going to put in here and say I need a new New driveway. And I'm just going to hit Create Project. And now we didn't have a template for that, but the user essentially created a project because let's say their home is 30 years old, the driveway's all been ripped up and you need a new driveway. And you can see the Items tab has no items.
Nothing.
That was where our template came in and actually created items for you. Now it goes, I need a new driveway. Let's hit Zada AI Budgets again. Again, that, that is one of the most magic buttons or links in HomeZada that I encourage people to use. Click on that, and now it's going to pass that to the AI tool. But notice the first thing it says is, hey, you know what, to provide a budget estimate for your new driveway, I need the approximate dimensions.
Yes.
Why? Because that project has a huge amount of quantity. Is it a small driveway or a big driveway? So quantities become such a huge thing. So let's just say— I'll give it an example. It is 20 feet wide by 50 feet long. Watch the magic that's happening in front of your eyes now, Elizabeth. It has created a table and it's identified the— all the items of everything from like, okay, I need to do the excavation and grading because I need to probably take out the additional stuff. I need to put in base material, which is gravel. I need to pour concrete. I need to put rebar. I need to finish the concrete expansion joints. I need to seal it. I probably have a waste cost and an estimated labor cost. Every single one of those, based on those dimensions, has essentially been created for you, and it's automatically created all those individual items. Now granted, this is probably not a project that most people are going to DIY themselves.
No.
They're going to hire a contractor for everything. But you already have a $17,000 estimate and you have a detailed material cost, which is now, again, if you pick up the phone and start calling contractors around, hey, I need a new driveway, you have the ability to now start to check their quantities and check their unit estimates over what they're estimating. And I could go into, well, maybe I don't want concrete, maybe I want asphalt, or maybe I want paver tiles on my driveway. And you could start to, again, use all these iterations of AI to essentially create your individual budget for the new driveway because it's automatically created that for you on the fly. Again, less than 1 minute.
And I wanted to test the AI to see if they actually did have the extraction or removal of the previous driveway, and it did. I was so— that's impressive.
And so Whether it's, I want a new front door, I've got something unique, I want something, just literally create the name of your project, hit Zada AI Budgets. It's going to be smart enough to kind of determine— it's not perfect, but it's going to do a very good job at creating all the materials that you might need and create an initial unit cost. And as we've seen before, you can have those multiple iterative conversations with it. To sort of tweak it if you know that there's something specific that you want.
And once again, you're prepared prior to dealing with a contractor. I mean, something as simple as knowing AI forces you to go get, in this example, the size of your driveway. Having that data is important to get an accurate estimate. And there's a lot of people that don't even know that. And I'm like, this is asking you for accurate information so that you can actually get a budget. And then that in turn, you can take that information to the contractor. Yeah.
Like I said, I've been a homeowner for 20, 30 years of my life. I've also been in software technology for a long time. The AI is absolutely amazing because it, even for the people that consider themselves smart homeowners, they're going to save such a massive amount of time, much less the people that are brand new homeowners who can't even conceive of these things.
Yeah.
It's just such a huge game changer. And it goes back to, again, our mission is to just make people better and smarter about all the decisions that they need to do when it comes to home improvement projects. And candidly, Elizabeth, I'm going to set the hook. We have so many more exciting things to show you on home improvements. That's why this is not just one episode. There's even more. You kind of saw a preview, or it said shopping search. But we'll leave that as a teaser.
Yeah. And the reality is, I'm like, you just— the whole— this whole information on this particular AI, it literally goes back to my original conversation about scope. Like, you— if you build scope without having a budget, then you could end up going into debt or having to take from savings or who knows what. And you're not comfortable and you're frustrated. And all of a sudden, this amazing remodel project that you just finished, you resent because you went over budget or this or the other. This prevents that from happening. You can actually go into this and say, you know what? I love the whole thing. It's amazing. My remodel project. When do I start inviting everybody over so they can see it and then go, wow, this is amazing. And then they can tell everybody they used Omzava's AI to streamline the process.
Correct. It, it, it just makes everybody a much better expert at creating the budget and understanding all the material trade-offs in that upfront planning process. Because it's the old— I'm going to do it again— it's the ounce of prevention is better than, you know, a pound of pain.
We got it wrong, I think, the last time, so I don't know what it is.
But it's, again, in, in how long has our podcast been? It's been like 15, 20 minutes on this part of the demo. We planned a kitchen, a bathroom remodel. We planned our new driveway. We've done some product research and we've got a whole bunch of data.
Yeah, it's true.
I could go on and on and on about solar energy landscaping, but we probably need to—
We'll save that for another time.
Save them, save it for later. Massively excited about, again, just communicating this to all of the homeowners in America because I think it's It totally is.
It's totally efficient. Any last parting thoughts?
No, I've got to save something for all my excitement on future podcasts.
So basically, for everyone out there, get ready. John is super excited. He wants to talk more and more about HomeZada AI and specifically Homeowner AI as it relates to how you manage your projects. So stay tuned for all that and so much more. But we hope you enjoyed this episode of Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. If you did, please like us, please share us with anyone you think could use this. And by all means, if you want to know more about HomeZada, you can check us out at www.homezada.com. That's H-O-M-E-Z-A-D-A.com. And we hope to see you again at another Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And this is us signing off. Have a wonderful day.
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