{"id":614558,"date":"2026-04-19T14:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/614558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T14:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:03:20","slug":"is-ai-the-next-big-short-for-real-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/614558\/","title":{"rendered":"Is AI the next big short for real estate?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Australian real estate developer Emil Juresic is selling his Brisbane mansion due to fears AI will crash the global market. (Source: NGU Real Estate)
\u201cThis is going to sound stupid,\u201d Australian property mogul Emil Juresic announced publicly not long ago.<\/p>\n

The Queensland-based developer went on to reveal that he\u2019s selling off all of his personal property holdings, including his $25-million mansion, due to fears that artificial intelligence could crash the global real estate market in the short term. Juresic, founder of NGU Real Estate, is worried that high unemployment will result from AI replacing jobs, followed by a recession, a reduction in buying and borrowing power and plunging property values.<\/p>\n

He believes he\u2019ll be able to buy everything back \u201cfor half the price in two years time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juresic has also said that AI \u201csuper agents\u201d will be much cheaper and more efficient than traditional salespeople. This hasn\u2019t gone over well in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI cannot replace the human element,\u201d argues Kim Fairley, president of the Ontario Real Estate Association.<\/p>\n

Juresic is aware that many people think he\u2019s unhinged. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of dinosaurs\u201d out there sleeping, in his view. He acknowledges being excited by AI\u2019s capabilities but also frightened.<\/p>\n

We are heading into uncharted waters.<\/p>\n

Early warning envoy? <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is it possible Juresic might be the Laura Secord of the artificial intelligence revolution, an early warning envoy? Could he be onto something?<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t alone in his views around AI being a significant market disruptor, replacing labour to a degree that, at least initially, compromises our consumer-driven economy. There are some powerful voices with similar opinions. Among these is rebel American investor Michael Burry, the legendary financier famous for predicting and profiting from the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown, immortalized in the movie The Big Short.<\/p>\n

Burry is betting on AI being an epic speculative bubble that will tank the market, a belief that\u2019s intensely debated among investors. In his assessment, AI-related investments are currently vastly overvalued and have led to unsustainable investment and artificial profit inflation. He anticipates a severe correction. Earlier this year he warned that the financial situation created by AI speculation would be \u201ctoo big to save,\u201d even with government intervention.<\/p>\n

Burry, a brilliant contrarian analyst, has been dubbed the \u201cCassandra of Wall Street,\u201d known for making accurate and often ignored predictions about upcoming market disasters. Some of his forecasts have been off the mark, or at least premature. One theory holds that in this particular case, his projection regarding AI may be early, rather than wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Too new to know\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Time will tell. This is all so new that it \u201cmay have repercussions we haven\u2019t yet thought of,\u201d observes Faith Wilson, a broker with Christie\u2019s International Real Estate in Vancouver. \u201cPotential job losses may be absorbed in other ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadian Real Estate Association says it is unaware of any data at this time that supports or rejects the conclusion that massive job losses due to AI could result in crashing real estate values.<\/p>\n

AI real estate experts are thin on the ground at this early stage. Among those here in Canada is Carrie Soave, an eXp agent and AI coach based in Hamilton, Ont.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s not buying what Burry and Juresic have to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurry made his name calling one crash. I have respect for that, but making one right call doesn\u2019t make every call right,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat AI actually does is redistribute wealth. The people who build with it will have more buying power, not less. The people who ignore it are screwed. That\u2019s not a housing crash \u2014 that\u2019s economic natural selection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, some markets will soften and jobs will be lost, she concurs. But the idea that the property market will plunge within a couple of years due to AI-driven unemployment \u201cignores the fact that the housing supply is still constrained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Betting against the people who refuse to adapt\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Friction in the job market is inevitable. \u201cBut AI also creates entirely new categories of income for people who actually learn how to use it,\u201d Soave notes. \u201cBurry is betting against the asset. I\u2019m betting against the people who refuse to adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes real estate agents. Soave is adamant that agents who aren\u2019t afraid of AI and \u201care using it to become irreplaceable\u201d will dominate the market.<\/p>\n

Like many, she envisions AI reshaping the industry rather than sending it into a nosedive.<\/p>\n

While not writing off the prospect of turbulence, Remax Canada president Don Kottick is guardedly hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs with most economic shifts, the impact is likely to be uneven across regions and industries,\u201d he says. \u201cReal estate is fundamentally tied to employment confidence and income stability, so any widespread disruption to the labour market could have downstream effects on buyer activity. At the same time, innovation-driven growth in AI and related sectors may create new pockets of demand and opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a> \"\" <\/a> \"Susan<\/p>\n

Susan Doran is a Toronto-based freelance writer who has been contributing to REM since its very first issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian real estate developer Emil Juresic is selling his Brisbane mansion due to fears AI will crash the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-614558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}