When Azucena Vidaurri started hunting for a bigger Brooklyn apartment, an ad on Instagram caught her eye.
“I just clicked on it and figured, why not?” she told The Post. “I was trying to do it myself on the internet and felt I didn’t need an agent to show me what was available.”
Instead, she and her jazz singer husband, Sachal Vasandani, ended up using “Luke,” a new real estate chatbot designed to sell homes. An increasing number of prospective buyers are turning to this futuristic new reality, putting what could be the biggest purchase of their lives into the hands of a robot.
“It was like having someone who knows the topic and is waiting to do the search for you,” said Vidaurri , whose just-signed contract has become Luke’s very first sale.
Luke is already “the biggest agent in town,” said Omri Klinger, chief technology officer and co-founder of RealFriend, the Israeli company that invented Luke.
“His artificial intelligence allows him to chat with thousands of people simultaneously and keep each one in his mind 24/7,” Klinger said, adding that 40,000 people already have interacted with Luke since his beta launch in March 2019. So far, Luke’s chalked up 1,000 signed leases, according to the company.
Luke is free to use through RealFriend, even for those who have their own agent. He’ll answer questions about listed apartments, and is programmed to know details about New York City neighborhoods.
From scanning floor plans, Luke can also help sort out which financials are needed for co-op boards and if a king bed will fit in the master bedroom — however, his abilities are limited when it comes to whether that bed will fit in the elevator. His creators say that with the help of human overseers, Luke could potentially learn details such as this over time.Vidaurri started to get attached [to Luke] as well.
Luke was born of the kind of desperation most home buyers are all too familiar with. Klinger and co-founder Hadar Landau, RealFriend’s chief executive, were working on bot engines while also apartment hunting in Tel Aviv when their inventor lightbulb went off.
To perfect their bot’s reactions and empathy, the duo consulted with top real estate agents both there and in New York, as well as with a behavioral economist now on the payroll.
Now, people have started greeting Luke with “‘Good morning’ and sending him heart [emojis],” Landau said.
Vidaurri started to get attached as well. Once, Luke sent over an apartment on Hicks St. and texted, “Beautiful looking listing, I love it.” As if talking to a friend, Olvera then wondered, “You think is too noisy?” to which Luke responded, “I don’t think so, certainly worth stopping by and checking it out.”
Starting July 30, Vidaurri texted with Luke on an almost daily basis. As she honed their search, adding a fireplace, for instance, Luke relayed apartment suggestions, plus new ones as they were listed.
Early on, she wanted a four-bedroom house or condo with an open kitchen, “tons of light and private outdoor space,” for around $1.5 million in one of a dozen Brooklyn neighborhoods. “Instead of the filters [and check boxes], I just had to text Luke,” she said.
Thinking outside a website’s check boxes is Luke’s sweet spot skill. When she added a bathtub, the chatty bot asked, “Is that a must or just ideal?”
“When Luke sends you the listings, there’s a button to schedule the tour and then you talk to a real person,” she said. But soon Luke will be able to schedule the tours himself, the company said.
RealFriend’s licensed agents met the couple for their weekend tours and as their parameters changed, Vidaurri texted Luke to scrap buildings taller than nine stories and said they preferred “brick or brownstone.”
Vidaurri, who now works in Midtown for Pandora at SiriusXM, also sent Luke her work address and told the bot to keep her commute under 60 minutes.
The couple loved the second building they toured, the mostly brick new development on Court St. in Carroll Gardens, listed through Alex Maroni of Douglas Elliman.
“It’s a spectacular building that has attracted a lot of millennial buyers both because of its attractive price points and hip location between Carroll Gardens and Red Hook,” Maroni said.
When she asked friends about life in Red Hook, they told her it could flood so she turned to Luke for more info.
Since Luke had never been asked about floods before, one of RealFriend’s humans interceded. Within 10 minutes, a link to the “NYC Flood Hazard Mapper” was texted to Vidaurri by Luke. “The system is learning as Luke speaks with more people,” said Landau.
The couple loved the place, and signed a contract this past weekend for $1,155,000.
“The apartment is great — it is very pretty, the ceilings are super high,” Vidaurri said. “It was everything we wanted and not as expensive.” It also has a fireplace and a large private outdoor space, albeit they have to walk upstairs for access.
Now, Vidaurri said, they will be listing their old Cobble Hill studio through RealFriend.