Business Insider, May 21, 2022, A 36-year-old chess prodigy built a software to speedily buy homes from afar for big investors, beating out everyday buyers. Now he’s Atlanta’s top broker.
A.J. Steigman sold more houses in Atlanta last year than any other broker — despite the fact that he lives in Florida and has no full-time staff.
He’s able to sell residential properties from thousands of miles away thanks to a $20,000 computer and a proprietary software system called “Steignet” that he launched at the University of Pennsylvania in 2018.
The system’s algorithms scan large data sets to identify undervalued single-family homes before the human competition. Its name is a reference to the Terminator’s villainous artificial intelligence network “Skynet,” as The Wall Street Journal first reported.
“While record-high home prices are problematic for individual homebuyers, they’re one reason why investor demand is stronger than ever,” Redfin economist Sheharyar Bokhari said in response to the growing trend. “Investors buying up a record share of for-sale homes is one factor making this market difficult for regular homebuyers.”
