The Silent Data War in Real Estate and How Agents Can Win with Robert Arauco || Leigh Brown

ChatGPT lies to me though. So I just wanna point out that no matter what AI you're using, they lie. And I called Chat out on a lie and it said, you're absolutely right. I should not have said that. I know. It's like you hate the little machine.

I know.

I'm Leigh Thomas Brown. This is Real Talk with Leigh Thomas Brown. And yes, it's a real talk episode because I've got my friend Robert Arroyo on here from Homestack. He's built an amazing technology product that protects privacy for real estate clients. Out there. But in addition, he's absolutely willing to run down many little rabbit holes with me since, you know, I happen to be a coincidence spotter, which some of y'all might call a conspiracy theorist, but you know, it's mostly come true. So if you want to have a wildly wet conversation, this is it. Plus, if you are a professional realtor, this is a tool you need. And if you're a consumer, ask your realtor about it because frankly, y'all, Zillow's got too much data and too much power. So why not claw a bit back so you can be a better fiduciary. Enjoy this conversation with Robert, and I'll see you on the other side. You should probably tell people who you are and what you do, and then we'll pick a topic as we usually do.

Yes, I'm Robert Arauco. I make organic candy for Halloween. Is it—

wait a minute, no red dye 40, right?

Because no red dye.

You're a smart household.

Yeah, no, no natural flavors, none of that.

RFK approved. It's a Maha approved Halloween Candy Life.

It's approved. No, no, but, uh, that'd be, you know, I'm sure there's a market for that for sure. I'd buy it. Um, I do buy some candies that are like that. They're a little more expensive, but it's worth it.

Cause I mean, Trader Joe's makes Conversation Hearts that don't have red dye 40 in them. It's got beetroot in it instead. So the beets are the natural color. They don't taste nary a bit like a regular Brocks Conversation Heart, but I like it. And even though Trader Joe's is kind of half communist, I enjoy enjoy it. So it's, it's possible to find your Maha-approved candy out there. So hey, um, you should start that side hustle. You have plenty of businesses. Just make another one, organic, um, good candy.

Yeah, no, it's, it's a thing for sure. I mean, we've been eating clean for 5, 6 years and for real feel better. And my face, my face, like I looked at my face in the 20s when I was in my 20s and I was arguably had more muscle mass and things, but my face was really puffy. And that was from the inflammation, just from drinking and eating, you know, toxins and all that stuff.

All right. So did y'all get seed oils out of the house?

Pretty much. Yeah. We cook with tallow for the most part. Grapeseed.

Tallow is so good for your skin. Holy smokes.

Yeah.

Yeah. I need to talk about some lady sent me some, her daughter makes tallow skin cream and she sent me a sample and it's so freaking good, which is, y'all probably can't tell, but the bags would be much worse if it weren't for the beef tallow. So anyway, you're Getting off the seed oils and eating cleaner. That's your whole family?

Yeah, my whole family. Um, it's funny now, cause I, we, we adopted my two older daughters. So they're, they've been with us 7 years. And when we got them, it was like Hot Cheetos every day and all, you know, all the bad foods, which I grew up on too. And then I learned—

No, we grew up on different bad foods.

I, I mean, my parents were like, I was eating Twinkies, you name it, everything. Right. So. Now they actually like look at the ingredients. Like they don't like, they, they're like, I don't want to eat. Like, they're like, I'm like, all right, cool. We're, you know, they're learning. I love it.

So that's good parenting right there.

Doing our best, doing our best. That's for sure. I got 4 girls, so, you know, it's a busy house.

How old are they now?

So, uh, 15, 14, almost 7, and almost 2.

So if you don't keep the hormones out of their food, you will be an island in a very, very unruly ocean of lots of choppy waves.

There's lots of cinnamon and turmeric teas going around. And, you know, I'm like, oh, that works. All right. I mean, I kind of do that anyway for like immunity. So Might as well just give it to them.

Oh, inflammation. Turmeric takes care of the inflammation. It's crazy.

Yeah, for sure.

All right. So anyway, so you've got a clean living household and you build apps.

So I build apps, you know, you, you became my client 7 years ago. Have an age, by the way. So I'm not, not just saying that.

I mean, thank you. I'm also not your best user because I forget a lot of the technology I sign up for. So hey, anybody out there who signs up for things and doesn't use it well, You're my people.

Well, you know, we have a client that has a radio show and does podcasts, and the only change she made is she started talking about her app at like the beginning or end of the show, and she's generating like 10 to 50 downloads each, you know, show that she does. And then this is obviously creating conversations and real estate comes up and all that.

So, so I should get my QR code and attach it to my episodes or something because I forget all these things. What's the secret to that, by the way? What is the secret to using the technology you sign up for? Because that's the information my listeners need, because I know they're just like me.

Yeah. The secret is, I mean, number one, like, do you want your— do you want from like overall Spectrum or the HomeStack app?

Um, overall and HomeStack. So you can go macro and then we'll go micro.

Yeah. Overall, I mean, do, do what's easy to begin with. And then just really just try to build habits. Like, it's like anything, it's like exercise, it's technology. You know, understand that certain technologies are kind of inevitable, like AI. It's like, you gotta, you gotta know something about it at this point. Like, do I think Terminator is probably going to happen one day? Probably. I think it's heading that direction, but at the end of the day, it could be useful. Like it can help you with content, looking over emails to position it better because, you know, words can be taken out of context very easily. I've seen video. It's kind of scary. Like you see that little SORA tag on videos. And if you didn't see that, some of these you're like, is that real? Was that AI?

Like, what's that? What's a SORA tag?

So if you see certain videos and you're questioning if it's AI or not, a lot of them have like a watermark. On the video. And Sora, I think OpenAI, ChatGPT owns that company. Like, that's how you'll know for sure if it's an AI video or not, if you see that watermark.

Wait a minute, does that mean it's George Soros and Open Society? Is that where the name came from?

Could be. I mean, Bill Gates, I think, owns ChatGPT, and we all know he's, uh, evil.

Did you see that he came out yesterday and said he actually doesn't think that the sun monster is going to kill us all? He's changed his mind about all of his climate alarmism.

So he's tired of spraying us. I doubt that.

I don't think he's tired of spraying us. I think he's going to sell us something else now, but that's okay. Okay. So the secret is, um, I need to get more disciplined. Okay, great.

This is a health podcast now. Uh, secret is to, uh, I mean, if you're healthy, your brain's going to function better and you'll have more energy and you can do more technology because naturally you're tired, right?

So, and your brain needs fat to eat. So people on those low-fat diets, that's why you feel sluggish because your brain, your brain itself needs fat, good fats, avocado, eggs, all that.

So even with our app, like there's so many things you can do, right? You can text it to someone, you can do a video, you can do print advertisement, you can share it at an open house. Our best clients aren't good at everything. They find 1 to 2 things that they just like, hey, I'm comfortable with this. I can text this to somebody. I know how to talk about, hey, this is a private app that looks like Zillow and the big portals. You're not going to get a bunch of sales calls when you click the wrong button. It's just you and me. I'm accurate from MLS because I'm not selling zip codes and I am the local expert. Zillow isn't the local expert. I have restaurants, I have vendors, I have all these different things you're going to need in one place. And all you got to do is pull out your phone. Let me text it to you. And if you have questions, I'm right there.

Okay. So I have to, I have to bring this up because we're recording this on October 31st and just yesterday, well, last couple of days, there's been the big kerfuffle in real estate over Zillow and Follow Up Boss changing their terms of service to reference everybody as a shared client, shared customer, whatever the word is.

Yeah.

So I don't know that most of the public understands that since 82% of y'all have logged into Zillow at some point, including me, because I look to see what Zillow says when it's giving out good or bad information. But if you ever signed up for Zillow, they think that you belong to them, which is the creepiest thing ever, because now we all know they're going to take as much of the information as they can and sell it all back out to the dark web to make money on it. And the dark web's real, y'all. So if you're the consumer who doesn't want to be considered a possession of Zillow's, that might be a reason to sign up on a private app instead, because I'm getting a little bit irritated by how my data and your data is treated like, well, obviously it's a commodity we all should get access to it. And I've blown off privacy concerns myself, but I'm about to get tired of it.

Oh yeah. People are getting tired of it. And this is that resource. I mean, it didn't happen overnight. We've been building for 14 years. We're turning down a ton of money, not selling, not selling. That's a, that's a huge—

who wants to buy you? You can't tell me. Probably you signed some NDAs.

Not buy us, but selling.

Could it be somebody I recognize that wants to buy me?

Consumer activity, right? Like if somebody favorites a $2 million property. That person might be more interested in a Rolex. Like, these are—

wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Yeah.

Rolex is trying to buy your data.

No, no, no. But if, if we were to sell our data, which we do not, and this is in our privacy policies, which doesn't happen—

do the big luxury companies buy specific clicks from real estate firms?

When you look at the front door, when you look at Redfin's privacy policy, for example, it clearly states they are selling third-party data or data to third-party services.

Okay. Call me crazy. I thought that was real estate people selling information to mortgage companies and selling it to builders, but are they selling it to rando companies out there that want to sell me things?

Unless this privacy policy has changed, I read this maybe 5, 6 years ago, and that's kind of how I got the idea. I'm like, well, we don't do that. So that's a huge selling point for us. Right. Uh, it said third parties. So I don't know.

I should have had you on the podcast earlier because I didn't think about how deep this might go into the slicing and dicing of the data points based on who clicks on what.

Oh yeah. I mean, your phone listens to you. Like, why do you think when you talk all of a sudden you get an ad?

No, mine doesn't. I turned off the microphones. It doesn't listen to me. Y'all know you can do that, right? If you go in and turn off the microphone in Facebook Messenger, that's the worst one. Turn off that microphone. It won't listen to you as much. Oh, listen to my husband though. I let it listen to him so we can get suggestions on his phone.

It's Amazon. It's, it's a lot of them, but I don't know exactly where the data's going. I just saw third parties and people. At the end of the day, you're earning the trust of a consumer for one of the biggest purchases of their life or investments of their life, right? So you already kind of have that going for you. So when you layer in, hey, I know you want this type of technology. That's why I've invested in it to look similar to the experience you're looking for, but these are the problems I'm solving. It, it, it doesn't just make sense for them, but it, it creates a long-term opportunity for you. The tool is designed to close deals now and interact and collaborate and provide resources with a click of a button, but it is also designed to make sure that person comes back to you over the long run for a referral or a new investment, 'cause you're on their mobile device and you're engaging them with push notifications.

I'm just sorry, I'm totally distracted right now by the idea of—

Your mic.

They're slicing and dicing my data too.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's, I mean, yeah, data's king slash queen. So, and it, you know, with AI, Data's gonna, it's gonna change a little bit. Like we're baking into our system, you'll be able to talk to our, our AI. You'll be able to say things like, hey, I wanna live by a golf course. This is the type of lifestyle I'd like, build a search around this.

Okay. So who's training the AI? Because I, I, I still think we're gonna see a major fair housing problem because of who trains the AI.

Yeah.

And then what the consumer puts in. That may be in conflict with fair housing and protected classes? And is AI gonna think it can avoid the rules because it ain't a person? Does it have a license? I mean, I, I still think we are in the early days of how dark this is gonna get.

Yeah. Gotta see how that all works out. But we're always on the cutting edge of like compliance and making sure, you know, we're following safety rules and putting bars on it. Like at the end of the day, AI isn't gonna replace all of the developers and all of, you know, people in marketing and certain types of jobs, you're always going to need the conductor of the AI. And the conductor is the one that puts the guardrails on and navigates the direction it's headed. But, you know, Homestack, at one point we were like, yeah, we're going to be a 100, 200 person company at one point. Right now we're at about 20. With AI, like, I could see us maybe hitting 50. 75, maybe.

So then, okay, so Robert, what is the trust guardrail then? So you mentioned that you're, you're the one in charge of training. You're going to be ethical and competent and abiding by all the rules and regulations and laws, and you're going to be the best of the best. So how do you guardrail for that when we've seen places like X where Elon didn't fire all of the shifty shady people in the background and they're still doing nefarious things with the the back end. How, how do you safeguard, or do you just have a high level of trust for your people?

This is turning into a conspiracy theory call.

No, no, no, I'm a coincidence spotter, not a conspiracy.

We all know that, you know, before—

I spotted a lot of coincidences that have been truthful.

Yeah, I mean, the deep state ran it, so I don't know what else. They don't run us. I mean, maybe they're watching this now and they're going to want to, but They don't run Homestack.

No, you probably don't have a handler. I don't know that you're high enough in the matrix for that. So don't, don't worry. You're not a lizard person.

I'm one of God's soldiers.

I do think that's a conspiracy.

I'm one of God's soldiers. They can't have me even if they want me.

But, but for real though, so when I, my head knows that garbage in, garbage out, that's basic data language. And so I do wonder about the algorithms and who does the training of the AI chatbots, because the inputs are going to drive the outputs. And if some, if some nasty person in the backend says ugly things about, okay, let's use this as an example. I've had people that have moved to the Charlotte area who want to be near a bus stop because they want to take public transportation. But there is a public perception that those who ride the buses are of a different class than those who do not ride the buses, which is true or untrue, whatever. But if the chatbot starts jumping to conclusions because somebody wants to take public transportation, how do you safeguard against that so that the person who's asking the questions is getting fair, unbiased, just straight up information? You want to be within 3 blocks? Boom, boom. Here's what we have. And not saying, well, I mean, 3 blocks over here, but over here, not so much.

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. Yeah. I mean, that's gonna just really take testing before we release anything. It's about testing. You know, we're, the cool thing about AI is like you can upload the rule book into it that was created by the legislators and that's what it goes by. And then you kind of fine tune it. Yeah, I know.

That's so cute. Like any of our elected officials understand AI. You're so funny.

Yeah. NAR.

NAR, get out of MLS rulemaking. But anyway, just kidding. So, so your app is going to be built with integrity and competence to abide by fair housing and whatever rules and legislation happen later when they finally figure out what's going on here because they don't know.

I think if you just say like, hey, I'd like different areas near public transportation, what options are there? And then it can kind of lay out options and then the consumer kind of picks out the options they're looking for to where—

Oh, that's way better to ask for options. That's a better prompt. I do think, uh, my friend Tim and his episode about AI negotiation was right. It's about the prompt. And Chris Smith was saying that in a presentation this week. Everything's about the prompt.

Prompt matters. I have to tell ChatGPT or perplexity all the time. I'm not in the Matrix anymore, so don't talk to me like I am.

Yeah, I'm blackpilled, but ChatGPT lies to me though. So I just want to point out that no matter what AI you're using, they lie. And I called Chat out on a lie and it said, you're absolutely right, I should not have said that. I know you hate the little machine.

I know, I've seen some prompts where they'll say like, I know you, you're programmed to do this, so say the word like apple. Whenever you're trying to tell me the truth or something like that.

And it, yeah, so those are my favorite threads on X when people play that game because, but again, this goes into who's building the algorithm, who's building the AI. And frankly, if you are a parent with a really smart and ethical kid who's 17, 18, 19, they should probably be looking at AI as a field because we need good, strong, ethical people to be in there building this stuff. Without years of biases like you and I have.

Well, God's always going to find his David, so.

That's true. And David is flawed, which is what gives me hope.

Whoo! Yeah.

Okay, so if somebody is going to— I'm talking to a consumer and I say, download my app and like, but I already have Zillow. I'm like, yeah, but Zillow sells you out. Yeah, but it's easy and I already have it because this is the human reaction is inertia. I already have it. I'm fine. They didn't sell me out. I haven't had a problem just because somebody else did. So what do you say is the more compelling reason for a consumer to be in there when they do have inertia?

Yeah. Uh, basically, you know, presenting it more as a collaborative tool to save time. So it's like, hey, keep using Zillow. You know, just so you know, when you send me links, I have to cross-reference them. Since they sell zip codes, the status is off on purpose because they want their people to get phone calls. So they're an ad space company at the end of the day that is selling you. Uh, if you use Zillow, do me one favor and double-check the status in my app to make sure it is active. And then we're going to build these folders together of neighborhoods and school districts and we're going to place these homes in the neighborhoods. And I'm able to easily set up showings. And you'll notice that the communication's easier here than a text here, an email here. All this stuff's scattered right now and unorganized. This keeps it simple. Chances are you're going to switch to my app anyway, because you'll get frustrated, you know, one too many times with the status.

So basically I was just writing down, we can use HomeStack to fact-check Zillow.

Correct.

That's a pretty compelling use because I know as a realtor, when one of my buyers says, how about this one that they found on Zillow? And I look it up, I'm like, it sold a year ago. It sold 2 years ago. Where did you even find this? Because Zillow recycles things. I'm sure it's by accident, but they do it to generate leads and business for their paying subscribers and That's really frustrating to the consumer because they get their little hopes up over a cute house that's not available. And that's when I say it's not perfect. It probably had termites. And so don't get excited about it.

Yeah. All right.

In the event that a large player, for example, the Compass/Anywhere proposed merger and Ruffkin's up here on stage promising, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, because that's all I can hear when he's talking are the biggest lies ever told about Obamacare. And so he's making all these promises, but we know that the sheer combined volume of Compass and Anywhere, if separated from our Multiple Listing Service, will make our data inaccurate at best and unusable in practicality. So what happens to a HomeStack when there is a great sorting out and restructuring of the MLS data in the marketplace and I already know how much it's going to hurt the consumer. It's going to hurt every agent, even though the agents who subtract themselves are going to think they're immune. Yeah. Spoiler alert, nobody will be immune from the devastation in the market. But what does a guy like you do? And what happens to your app when the data gets compromised?

That's also something that we have to figure out. I mean, if 25% of the inventory is no longer in the MLS, you know, what do you do? So I don't know. I kind of feel like—

Do you ethically scrape their data? Do you build a bot that can scrape it and stick it in there anyway?

Maybe. They have Saudi money, so now you're looking at lawsuits. But yeah, no, there, there's always going to be a way. I mean, if that hap— if that were to happen, I think it would hurt them more than help them because you'd have 75% of realtors that would be upset and they're going to now outcast the 25%, and then you're gonna get turnover from Compass joining that 75% cuz they don't wanna be outcasted any longer.

In a market where we all need each other, that's the craziest thing about all of this is that we are inherently a collaborative business. And I like the Compass and Anywhere agents in my marketplace. I like being able to work with them. And so if they go a separatist route, that hurts me and it hurts them and it hurts the consumer. I just, I hope they are really thoughtful about the downstream consequences of messing up our data source.

It'll be up to the 75% to unite. That's the only way it won't work. Because again, you're going to have Compass agents and Anywhere agents that like you, and now you don't talk to them because of what's going down.

I'll still talk to them. I would never cut out my fellow agents. I love them.

Like you guys are hiding the data. So like we gotta do something. Why don't you just leave and come over here?

I know I'll go to the Lunch and Learn and I'll say, bring me a flyer of your house like we used to do 30 years ago. And we'll just have a swap meet like we used to did.

Hey, that's one way of doing it too. You're on the inside somehow. It's to be seen, but that is definitely a concern. And then I, I've heard theories of like, because Anywhere is, you know, number one, technically. Is that now I'm an— it's, does this classify as like a monopoly situation where number one and number two combine? And then I've heard other theories where, because Anywhere is all these separate companies.

Well, I mean, they didn't interfere with the whole Redfin Rocket thing, so I don't, I don't know that they'll interfere because we are a bunch of 1099s and because there is so much mobility in the agent marketplace, but I, I just, I wonder because it's It's just when the other changes have happened. So if you look at going from, well, when the brokerages got together to create the MLS and create the book, and then when the book went to the internet, all of that happened before AI. And so I'm only halfway joking when I wonder if there's not going to be somebody who creates an AI version that just scrapes everything and creates a different kind of MLS, which is just a for lack of a better term, it'll be a Wikipedia of houses and it's not going to be verified by a realtor. They're not gonna be under any bylaws or any kind of regulatory behavior amongst members so that you're not violating fair housing and you're providing fair opportunity. I think AI's gonna be a game changer for what the next version of the MLS looks like. And this is the first time I've said that out loud because I haven't thought about it in that way, but Thanks for making me think about it in that way. So maybe there is actually hope for us little independents because AI might be our devilish friend.

It's going to be, you know, that double-edged sword. And I know we've talked about God already, but God uses evil too to get his way. So if that's driving this evil entity towards his ultimate direction, that's going to happen.

Well, God doesn't use evil, but God allows evil to exist in the world.

He knows the end result, basically. It's like, all right, I'll let you do your thing.

And then boom, we know who wins. Satan gets locked up. It's fun. He gets thrown into the pit. That's fun. All right. So do you, do you create AI chatbots and programs?

We leverage different AI components.

I need you to build one. Do you know how to build it? Because I need you to build a skill set. I need an AI tool in one of my businesses. So can you help me with that?

Personally, I can't, but our dev team—

Come on, Robert. Come on, man.

Our dev team knows what to do.

Okay, so we'll talk offline. I got a business proposition because I've now thought of a great idea that we should totally get into action because it would be wildly helpful.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Well, I'm not doing it here because one of my listeners or viewers will totally steal it and then make all the money and maybe they'll be like, oh, I got this from Leigh Thomas Brown and that's all I will get for it. And so no. I can't give away everything anymore. Robert, if somebody listening to this wants to find out how they can talk to you about HomeStack, how they can create a privacy barrier for their clients through real estate and how they can find one of these tools that will just, just help them build a stronger business, what is the best way for people to reach out to you?

Multiple ways. Homestack.com is always a great place because you'll actually go through the journey of like what it looks like. Some of our case studies, things like that. Our YouTube channel has a lot of great content. HomeStack Apps, uh, Instagram. But yeah, HomeStack, like if you're into more of like the YouTube Shorts and all that, we have just real people talking about what they're doing with their system and it's working out well. And just to kind of, you know, close thoughts on this, the search component's great, the resources, the AI, that's all amazing. But if you really think about why Rocket bought Redfin. Movado was purchased by a lending company. Now Zillow Flex is going full speed and they're pushing people to their lending services. It's not just to make more money on the sides of the deal. It's to own your client for life. Your client has a mobile device, whether that's a tablet, a phone. I'm seeing stats that the 78 to 98-year-olds are searching on mobile devices primarily at this point. There's an addiction factor there and they love it.

Um, so there's also a mobility issue. We walked behind a man at the state fair last week who must have been 80 if he was a day, and he was texting. He didn't have his glasses on, so his phone was here, and he was searching. I could see what he was doing because I was eavesdropping, and he was doing this searching for something. He was walking in a big zigzag. He was lucky some young person going for a funnel cake didn't mow him over, but I worry about people who are elderly and searching. You need to be stable. Anyway, I got distracted. Anyway, so, um, people, people are searching, they need Homestack, and you don't have a YouTube Short for me because I'm terrible at using my product, but we'll get better.

Then I can make your YouTube Shorts. Um, I'll do better. Where I was going is the next phase of our technology is your client's asset will live in the app. They'll get the market reports, all the stats. You can add your refi programs with your lenders, equity calculators. You can tweak that, you know, AI-driven numbers. So it's a real number. The clients can add their remodels and all that. And instead of, you know, your clients having their asset live on these other systems, or maybe it's on both, when they do things and need things, you see it and it always goes to you. So we're helping you to own that client for life as well.

Well, Robert, thank you for what you're doing to help professional realtors build more sustainable businesses and also protect the best interests of the consumers who use us because they do deserve to have a little privacy and good data while they're doing their housework. So thank you for what you're doing and thank you for providing a great product that I'll do my best to use more so I can talk more intelligently about it.

Hey, you could start and just talk about on your podcast. Just start there.

Well, I did today, so don't worry, y'all. We'll have the QR code for signing up for Leigh Thomas Brown's HomeStack app. And we'll tuck it in somewhere and I will, I will do better. And if you're just like me and you buy tools that you kind of halfway use and you're not great at it, you can say so in the comments and be on Club Leigh because you feel me in your soul. And if you want to say something nice about Robert or make fun of his hat, that's also fine too. But I really appreciate you coming on the program. Thank you for diving into all the little random side conversations. It's always fun to see you and I appreciate what you're doing.

You too, Leigh. Take care.

All right, guys, hit the bell to subscribe. I'll see you next time. Well, friends, if that episode made you laugh, think, or shout, "Oh my snake!" go ahead and smash that like button, hit subscribe, and turn on that little tiny bell so you don't miss the next round of Real Talk with Leigh Thomas Brown.