Realtor.com has debuted a new AI-powered assistant that streamlines property searches and answers homebuyers’ common real estate questions.
Mickey Neuberger, chief marketing officer at Realtor.com, said in October that the future of home searches will be conversational, with natural language search powered by artificial intelligence opening the door to a more intuitive and robust home buying experience.
“It’s about making it easier for people to find homes and meeting new consumer expectations for conversational search, not just for real estate, but for e-commerce, travel, research and more,” Inman said in an exclusive interview. “And this is followed by many, many iterations.”
The next step Neuberger talked about is here, with the launch of RealAssist AI on the portal on Tuesday.
RealAssist guides homebuyers throughout the search process and uses AI-powered features to answer other common real estate questions such as listing information, nearby amenities and attractions, commute times, school ratings, affordability, and mortgage options.
The feature also allows homebuyers to compare properties and neighborhoods side-by-side and visualize how a potential property looks during the day, night, or in different seasons, thanks to Google Gemini and Google Cloud integration.
Damien Eales |Credit: Realtor.com
“Realtor.com is positioned to lead the AI era in real estate, and the data is already pointing us in that direction,” Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales said in a prepared statement. “We lead our competitors in AI brand favorability. We are the most trusted brand among real estate professionals and the #1 real estate news publisher in the country.”
“Our collaboration with News Corp and deep industry roots gives us authority in this space that others cannot match,” he added. “We’re leveraging that foundation to build the best AI tools in the industry. That means more informed buyers and sellers, and agents who can have better conversations with every customer. RealAssist AI is what it is today, and there’s much more to come.”
Homebuyers can access RealAssist AI through several special banners that are prominently displayed on Realtor.com. The banner invites homebuyers to test some suggested prompts. This opens the RealAssist AI chat box. When a homebuyer communicates with RealAssist, RealAssist learns their needs and desires and provides a rotating list of recommended questions to gently guide them through the search process.
At a demo Tuesday afternoon, Realtor.com Principal Product Manager Matt Holihan tested the feature and profiled a homebuyer who values a timely commute to get the kids to school, get coffee, and get to work within 45 minutes. RealAssist AI focused on a few listings that met the buyer’s needs and leveraged information from Google Gemini and the cloud to create several routes.
“You can plan your commute, and over time you can see what the streets are like after dark, whether there are street lights on your way home, and what’s going on in your neighborhood,” he said. “And to be honest, all of these things really help users become better educated when they connect with agents. As a result, users can gain more confidence and knowledge about their particular field or things they’re interested in.”
Dave Herman, the portal’s SVP of consumer products, said RealAssist AI will work alongside Realtor.com’s natural language search capabilities, but will eventually be integrated into RealAssist AI.
“RealAssist was born out of an evolution of what we started seeing in conversational search last year,” Herman said. “Conversational search, which we talked about with Mickey in October, was in the search box. Through that, we’ve seen a big shift to long-form questions and answers. But you still type something and you get a set of results.”
“RealAssist is built on continuous interaction, allowing us to guide what’s most meaningful to the people using our site. What we’re really seeing with RealAssist is evolution,” he added. “Over time, they’ll merge. But right now, we’re very focused on continuing the conversation and coming up with answers to questions in a conversational way.”
Herman said his team is excited to see how RealAssist will impact homebuyer engagement, as chat tracks user preferences to provide personalized answers and support. However, buyers can delete their chat history and start another search with a clean slate.
RealAssist AI is the latest in AI-powered home search capabilities from Realtor.com and its competitors Zillow, Homes.com, and Redfin. While some of these competitors have expressed a goal of eliminating filters entirely, Herman said that is not a priority for Realtor.com and believes there is still great value in offering that type of experience, especially given the demand for Realtor.com’s dynamic map overlays.
“For example, look at Google. There’s Gemini and Google search. Some users use one, some users use another,” he said. “I think what we really want to do is provide flexibility and choice. We don’t want to take away something that is still used so heavily across our audience today.”
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