Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Homes.com new AI voice search is legit!

COSTAR GROUP LAUNCHES TRANSFORMATIVE AI EXPERIENCE ON HOMES.COM, REDEFINING THE FUTURE OF HOME SHOPPING

“For the first time on a major real estate portal, consumers can engage in natural, real-time, two-way conversations – by voice or text – to search, refine, and explore homes in an interactive experience that feels less like navigating a website and more like being guided by a deeply knowledgeable, trusted real estate advisor. Homes AI draws from Homes.com’s unmatched depth of property data, Matterport 3D digital twin technology, images, proprietary school data, neighborhood insights, and market intelligence to deliver bespoke guidance that empowers shoppers with the resources and confidence they need to find the perfect home.”

Growing up I remember watching Star Trek. I was always fascinated by the way Captain Kirk and others crew members of the starship Enterprise would talk so effortlessly to computers.

“Computer, activate shields!”
“Computer, make me a sandwich.”

Many AI tools I use have that capability now but I’m still a little too self conscious to use AI that way. I suspect that will change soon enough. When I read about Homes.com new AI search interface that had voice integration I had to try it out. I had previously been impressed by MetroList’s implementation of voice and seen stories about other real estate portals/apps.

After giving the homes.com permission for my location and use of my computer’s microphone I was up and running. A few things stood out. Number one is that it was so seamless. I didn’t have to click any buttons to start or end recording my voice commands. Number two was the quality of the AI voice, it sounded natural…human. Number three was the speed. There was almost no latency in giving my commands and the site responding.

But what really impressed me is the way it understood and could act on my questions/commands.

“Show me homes in the 92646 zip code”
“Can you sort the houses from highest to lowest price?”
“Can I see the one on ‘Vacation Lane’?”
“Can you make the photos bigger?”
“Can you show me the next photo?”
“Next. Next. Next.”
“Can you go back to the search results page?”
“Let me see the home on ‘Pollack Drive”
“How many days has this been on the market?”

All of these commands the site understood perfectly. Don’t believe me? Check out this video I recorded.

I’m sure all of this will be commonplace shortly. And I don’t think I even scratched the surface of what this feature of Homes.com can do.

Big kudos to the engineers and designers at Homes.com. Well done!

Realtor.com Bets on Collaboration in an Industry Addicted to Conflict

Realtor.com® Unveils Realtor.com®+™: A First-of-Its-Kind Collaborative Home Search Experience 

“Realtor.com® was born from the partnership between the National Association of Realtors® and MLSs, and for three decades we’ve championed an open marketplace that delivers transparency and meaningful value to consumers and professionals,” said Damian Eales, CEO of Realtor.com®. “Realtor.com®+™ modernizes that legacy by putting more powerful tools into more agents’ hands than any product in our history, keeping professionals at the center of the transaction, and giving MLSs the valuable AI-driven capabilities and member tools they need to lead the industry forward. ”

I love this move from Realtor.com. While everyone else is fighting and suing each other, Realtor.com’s CEO, Damian Eales chose to build alliances instead. Who would’ve thought a portal, run by an Australian, might be the one to bring collaboration back to the MLS?!

That’s the thread running through this entire announcement: collaboration.

First, the partnerships. Realtor.com+ is launching with more than 15 MLS organizations, representing over 120,000 agents. That speaks to a void in the market.

Then there’s the app — enter the whiz kids from Zenlist. The team at Zenlist already built a world-class agent–client collaboration experience, and now it’s seamlessly tied into the broader Realtor.com ecosystem.

Next, the integrations. Deep connections into MLS systems, plus vendors like Realtors Property Resource, DocuSign, and Hover.

While CoStar leans into bluster, Zillow toys to play big daddy, and Compass pushes seller-centric exclusivity as a wedge, Realtor.com is betting that the open marketplace still matters — and that strengthening it beats fragmenting it.

So Realtor.com is doing the logical thing: reinforcing the network that made it relevant in the first place. The difference is how they’re doing it. We all know Damian isn’t afraid of a picking fight, but instead he’s picking partners.

In a sea of “disruptors,” collaboration might be the most disruptive move of all.

Bravo.

Real estate AI search, “actually useful”

I’m obsessed with Redfin’s AI search

“For all the questionable-at-best ways AI is being bolted onto things these days, AI search on a real estate website strikes me as actually useful. I realized that over my many years of searches — both when I was actively looking to buy a home and as a leisure activity — I’ve gotten really good at navigating the likes of Zillow and Redfin. This, I assure you, is a skill that comes with extremely limited benefits, and I probably could have spent that time doing something more useful, like reading a goddamn book, but here I am. With natural language search, you don’t need to spend hours tinkering with filters and keywords like I have; the AI just does all that administrative stuff for you.”

Interesting perspective on AI and Real Estate. Sadly, the article is being the Verge’s paywall.

Realtracs expands access to 1.9M listings

Realtracs Expands Access to 1.9 Million+ Listings Through Southeast MLS Alliance

“Realtracs, the technology company providing the largest multiple listing service (MLS) in Tennessee, announced today the data from a recent MLS alliance is available for subscribers. The Southeast MLS Alliance was created in 2023 to allow cross-regional data sharing among agents and brokers in Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. “

Realtracs

I’ve been on the road awhile so I’m catching up on some the recent news and his caught my eye. Users of Realtracs, Canopy MLS, Georgia MLS and Charleston Regional MLS now have a full feed of more than 1.9 million additional listings across the southeast.  Boom!

Move sues CoStar over trade secrets

CoStar hit with trade secrets lawsuit over dueling real-estate websites

“According to the complaint, Kaminsky headed Realtor.com’s “News and Insights” platform until he was laid off in January. The lawsuit said that Kaminsky took a similar role at Homes.com in March.

Move said it discovered last month that Kaminsky had stolen documents related to business strategy, industry contacts and “a vast array of other competitively sensitive and valuable information” for CoStar.”

Blake Brittain, Reuters

Shades of 2014 when Move sued Zillow over the departure of Errol Samuelson and Curt Beardsley. That was pretty messy and Zillow finally settled (without admitting any wrong doing) for $130 Million. Someone once told me that you are never really successful until you start getting sued. So I guess it’s official that Homes.com is getting traction.

Funny that it’s usually CoStar doing the suing. It will be interesting what tidbits come up in discovery if things get that far.

A new home search portal swoops in to the mix

Flyhomes Launches World’s First AI-Powered Home Search Portal

“Developed over the last two years, ‘Flyhomes AI,’ is a proprietary technology which brings the first conversational real estate search and research to the market, dramatically expanding the amount of information home shoppers can find online.”

Flyhomes

The company has some legit pedigree too.

“The technology integration was overseen by ZeroDown co-founders, Laks Srini and Abhijeet Dwivedi, who joined Flyhomes as chief technology officer (CTO) and chief growth officer (CGO), respectively. Srini and Dwivedi previously served as Co-founder/CTO and as COO at SaaS HR platform, Zenefits.”

Flyhomes

One of ZeroDown’s major investors is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

The new portal will be live in 28 states and Washington D.C., which they claim covers 75% of the listings (I think that sounds right). I got an early sneak peak at the site and it’s pretty rad. Along with the typical portal things you can also ask it questions like

“Show me homes in Los Angeles that have recently dropped in price”
“Provide me an overview of recent t sales in 90210”
“Show me homes in 92648 that are having an open house this weekend.”

To me this could be what a future MLS system interface could look like.

I’m hoping to have someone from Flyhomes on my podcast, I’ve got a ton of questions about their business model, and how they plan to expand coverage.

But my biggest take away is just when we thought that there was no innovation left in the listing portal space, a new competitor enters the ring. Congrats flyhomes! Can’t wait to see more!

Microsoft agrees to take down Bing Homes Portal

via GIPHY

More info on FCC’s new robocalls rules

Victor talks about some of the details to the FCC new rules as it apples to real estate lead aggregators.

“Real estate leads are among the most expensive leads generated across all American business, often leading to real estate professionals paying as high as 40% of their commission for a sale generated from a lead. Many leads generated at online shopping websites are sold over and over again, causing consumers to be inundated with spam-y text messages and robo-calls that seem to have no end. Now, there must be a clear opt-in by consumers to this form of communication. The FCC wants the consumer to opt in on a 1-to-1 basis to each company that will receive their contact information. “

Victor Lund, WAV Group

As Rob and I discussed on a recent Industry Relations podcast we think this is going to have a bigger impact than any one realizes.

Adam Wiener leaving Redfin

Redfin’s president of real estate operations to depart

“We know with Adam’s departure what Redfin will lose. He’s one of the smartest, kindest, most hard-working and creative folks you’ll ever meet,” Kelman said in the email. “And Redfin will keep changing. We couldn’t keep doing things the way we’ve done with Adam, and we shouldn’t try. Change is necessary and good.”

A Redfin spokesperson didn’t say where Wiener is heading after Redfin. In his email, Kelman said in a year Wiener “will probably be running his own show, at another company also poised to conquer the world.”

Rick Morgan – Inno Senior Reporter

Huge loss, but happy for Adam. As our industry enters a “hunker down” mode I think you’ll see more of these departures. It’s a great time to build.

Clareity MLS Executive Workshop highlights 2015

A few things I wanted to highlight about last week’s Clareity MLS Executive Workshop in Scottsdale, AZ last week. First off Gregg and his entire team did an amazing job. The content was fantastic and they managed to keep the conversation above the salacious syndication war between MOVE and Zillow Group narrative that has been floating around.

But, one of my takeaways about the Zillow Vs MOVE thing was how it effects other players, notably Homes.com. Seems like an opportunity for these guys. When I asked Andy Woolley, now Industry Relations at Homes.com. Andy was quick to point out that while they don’t, and won’t possibly ever have as much traffic as ZTR, they were focusing a lot on “quality”. Meaning the “quality” of leads coming through Homes.com. I was sent a screen shot of a ListHub report (from the Houston market) that seemed to prove that out.

Homes.com lead ratio

Yes, I know their total detail views is much smaller, but their lead ratio is crazy good.

HAR .08%
Zillow .06%
realtor.com .03%
Trulia .019%
Homes.com .97%

The other thing was the direct feed count. Check out this slide.

Direct Feed Count

Homes.com has 400 direct feeds from MLS providers. 400 freaking hundred. Zillow Group isn’t even close. Great lead ratio, huge direct feed count, you gotta wonder what that is worth to someone.

On another topic, was the release of the MLS Satisfaction survey. Here’s the results of the “End User Satisfaction.”

MLS Satisfaction Survey

Looking at MLS Vendors with more than 2 customers it appears that Black Knight and FBS still dominate the top two spots above their competition. Kudos to both of them.

Thanks again to Gregg, Matt and the rest of the Clareity team. We are always thrilled to participate. And I hope you enjoyed the Cloud Streams t-shirts. They look great!

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