I wrote an article recently about helping buyers find the perfect home more efficiently. Though I still don’t think finding “the absolute perfect home” is something buyers are clamoring for in an online search experience, I do believe there to be immense value in helping buyers discover the properties relevant to them (without wading through crap that’s not).

There’s a few approaches to narrowing a search:

  • Standard filters — almost every real estate search website has basic search parameters such as price, beds, baths, square footage, and home type.
  • Advanced filters – full text keyword search, Max HOA, price reduced, waterfront, days on market, WalkScore, etc
  • AI — Do you think we’re going to get to a point where AI can pick the best house for a specific buyer? If I’m spending 500k+, I’m not sure I’d be okay with “this algorithm thought house X is the house that fits me best based on y and z assumptions” (I wouldn’t trust it). I know many brokerages and vendors are working with this technology. I’d love to hear about a few specific approaches (and learnings) in the comments.
  • Lifestyle based curation — Modern homes, lake front, pent houses, mountain cabins, golf course properties, historic, etc
  • Manual curation — this is what AgentFolio/Buyfolio was doing, and most agents/brokers do manually today with a combination of the MLS, email, and text. I still believe there is a future where agents are the center of the search experience.

How are you helping your buyers avoid the crap they don’t care about?