- 3 months ago
In a conversation with HousingWire’s Allison LaForgia, Homes.com’s Livia Sponseller and Andy Ventura discussed how Homes AI is reshaping the online home search experience through conversational technology that benefits both consumers and real estate agents.
Livia Sponseller, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Homes.com, began by framing the feature as a way to rethink the home search process, which has remained largely unchanged for years. “What excited me most about this feature is that we were looking for a way to just completely change the way that people searched for homes online,” she said. “You’ve had the same basic map placards and standard filter methodology on these home search portals for decades.”
Livia Sponseller, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Homes.com, began by framing the feature as a way to rethink the home search process, which has remained largely unchanged for years. “What excited me most about this feature is that we were looking for a way to just completely change the way that people searched for homes online,” she said. “You’ve had the same basic map placards and standard filter methodology on these home search portals for decades.”
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Allison LaForgia, Managing Editor of HousingWire's Content Studio, and today I'm sitting
00:04with Andy Ventura, the Vice President and Enterprise Software Architect at CoStar Group,
00:11and Livia Spenceller, the Senior Vice President of Product Management at Homes.com.
00:19Livia, Andy, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:23Thank you for having us.
00:24Yeah, thanks for having us.
00:26And let's start with your roles at Homes.com and what excited you both about the launch
00:32of Homes.ai?
00:36So I am the head of product at Homes.com, and what really excited me and my team and everyone
00:47that's worked on this feature, we were looking for a way to just completely change the way
00:55that people search for homes online.
00:57And we feel that the industry was like prime for this type of disruption.
01:02Like you've had the same like basic map, placards, standard filter methodology on these home search
01:09portals for decades.
01:11So it's really exciting that we were able to put this new AI technology to use in a really
01:17just intuitive way for consumers.
01:20And it created this conversationalized interactive home search, which we're really excited about.
01:26Yeah.
01:27And I think for me, my name is Andy.
01:29I've been at CoStar for about 22 years.
01:31I work with all of our verticals across CoStar, but for the last year and a half, we've been focused
01:36with Livia and her group on Homes.com and Homes.ai.
01:39I think what really excites me about Homes.ai and the launch of it is just, it's a different
01:45way with interacting with a already very powerful web application and really breaks down a lot
01:51of the siloed data and really just gets it to you just naturally by just asking questions.
01:57And it breaks away from a linear flow of, hey, first I'm searching, then I'm browsing,
02:02then I'm getting detailed where it's just like, I do the search, I'm jumping in, I'm
02:07looking at a kitchen and I can ask questions about grocery stores or mortgage rates or what's
02:12the neighborhood like without kind of just losing where I'm at in the application and in
02:16that moment.
02:18On that note, I've also seen positioning where Homes.com describes this launch as a generational
02:24shift in how consumers search for homes.
02:28Why did Homes.com look to change the, maybe we'll call it traditional process?
02:35We realized that the home search experience could be so much better online, like manually
02:41adding the fill.
02:42And by the way, I don't think this is only specific to home searching.
02:45I think it's searching on any marketplace type site.
02:48Like if there's now a technology that allows a company or a brand to take the onus off of
02:56the consumer from having to like manually filter and open all these tabs and, you know, do all
03:02this manual work.
03:03If there's a technology that allows you to like cut through that and just make it like the
03:08most intuitive, natural language search experience.
03:13And in our case, the equivalent of like having like the most knowledgeable agent as your home
03:20guide in the home search process, like that's really exciting.
03:23And that's, that's where we kind of wanted to land and we want to keep iterating on this
03:28feature to get there.
03:29Yeah.
03:30And I think, you know, why do we feel like it's, you know, just a generational shift?
03:35I think one, if you look across all the marketplaces, as Olivia was talking about, whether it's
03:40homes, whether it's consumer shopping on Amazon, you don't have this experience, you know, where
03:45people have in websites have integrated AI.
03:48It's like a chatbot, almost like add on afterthought where we felt like, no, it wants to be as part
03:55and ingrained in the application.
03:57So it's like you're using your mouse and keyboard or your touchscreen, you're talking to it.
04:00And what came out of that was, you know, AI and UI are both knowledgeable of each other, right?
04:07So you do something with the AI agent by talking to it, you know, the UI response, and all of
04:12a
04:12sudden you click something or you change the filter, you move the map, the AI knows, hey,
04:16the user did something.
04:18So just keeping all that stuff in sync really brings in like a supernatural, powerful experience.
04:24You just mentioned a little bit about the AI powered experience.
04:28How does that conversational AI driven experience fundamentally change the way that buyers discover
04:35homes online?
04:37Whereas traditionally you might land on, well, before we were Reese's teacher, you would land
04:44on homes.com, you have your search bar, you type in your geo or maybe a little more nuanced
04:50of a search because we've already had some semblance of AI driving a more flexible search.
04:54But let's just say you typed in a four bedroom home with a pool and are okay, you still don't
05:01have to like manually like flip through the photos on the placards, apply like layers on
05:06the map, maybe add in another filter manually.
05:10And you're just kind of, it's a one way experience.
05:12Now the site has come officially to life in my opinion, in our opinion.
05:16Like, and what we mean by that is when you're in this mode, like you are essentially, you
05:22are talking to our website and it is talking back and it is helping drive insights.
05:28Like you, you could immediately, for example, say, uh, like, Hey homes, can you tell me why
05:33the first listing is more expensive than the second?
05:36And it will start laying out the differentiators between the two listings.
05:40It might be more square footage, might be recently renovated, might be slightly larger
05:44lot size, like it is taking the onus off of the consumer.
05:49And it's a, it is the equivalent of like interacting with the most knowledgeable buyer agent, not
05:56replacing the buyer agents, but helping the consumer, like get to what they're looking
06:02for faster.
06:03Cause I think the dream home, like what we've said in the past is likened to this to like,
06:08you're, you're trying to find your needle in a haystack.
06:10Your home is like a needle in a haystack that you're trying to find and you only find that
06:14between the rigid filters, like the nuances that matter most to you or what get you to
06:20find your dream home.
06:21And this new search experience like allows for that, if that makes sense.
06:27Yeah.
06:27We've seen like a, I think a more uptake for people using, you know, conversational AI,
06:32the ability is to unlock all the filters we already had on the website.
06:35It's just much more natural and even be able to change simple things.
06:39If you did a search between 300 and say $400,000 and you really wouldn't like, you weren't liking
06:44what you saw, you could just bump it up and say, Hey homes, bump it up by 50 K.
06:48And all of a sudden the search changes from three to 400 to three 50 to four 50.
06:52And then you can back that off.
06:54You can add more stuff and say, Oh, I really need a pool.
06:56Oh, forget the pool.
06:57I want an elevator, you know, whatever it is, you know, you just kind of just have that
07:01back and forth conversation and imagine being that, that, that buyer's agent trying to keep
07:08up with your, your stream of consciousness and take the pool away, put it back.
07:12No, no, I want this.
07:13No.
07:13And then you're fighting with your spouse.
07:14You know, like what we're trying to do is deliver a more educated buyer to our member
07:21buyer agents because they've gone through that back and forth and done that nitpicking
07:25already.
07:26And then, you know, we're really trying to get to the point where when they reach out to
07:29our member agents, it's like, Hey, I'm ready to go tour this home.
07:32Right.
07:33Opposed to, Hey, can you tell me about the school?
07:36Can you tell me about the lot size?
07:37Hey, what's the HOA?
07:38What does it include?
07:39All those, all those questions that just, you know, come to your mind.
07:42You can just ask homes and we can tell you, you know, facts certain on that.
07:46And to piggyback on what you just said, uh, to you on the ages, like, uh, from an agent
07:52perspective, like, first of all, member agents benefit the most from this, uh, feature
07:57because, um, they are the ones that get a matter port along with their memberships.
08:02And this AI mode is only integrated with the matter port virtual tour type.
08:08So, um, they essentially have like the equivalent of a 24 seven open house on their listings already
08:14with this feature today.
08:15And it's qualifying buyers for them.
08:18And, uh, to piggyback on what he was just saying, like, they also like agents are able
08:24to, um, ask that just like a consumer is like asking all these questions about neighborhood
08:29insights, home trends, recent sale comps.
08:31The agent can also do that on behalf of their clients to prepare for listing presentations
08:37or in-person tours.
08:39Um, so it, it benefits both sides like tremendously.
08:44Yeah.
08:44Imagine if you're driving to meet a client and you just want to lay to sales or any new listings
08:49coming on in the neighborhood, et cetera, you can literally be in your car, activate homes.com
08:53in a safe manner, right?
08:55Not trying to look at it at a stoplight and just, and just talk, right?
08:58Just let's say like you're having a conversation and you're getting all the latest and greatest,
09:02you know, about that neighborhood, about recent sales comps, you know, new listings coming
09:06on and maybe even a refresher on the home that you're going to.
09:09You both have mentioned the role of real estate agents and how AI is not replacing them.
09:17There's an ongoing debate about AI potentially disintermediating agents.
09:22Homes.com has emphasized that this technology is designed to enhance and not replace the
09:28role of real estate professionals.
09:30Could you give me a little bit more information about homes.com's approach to this and how homes.
09:36SAI enhances the role of real estate professionals?
09:40Yeah.
09:41I mean, well, our company name is CoStar, right?
09:43So, you know, we've been in real estate for almost 40 years serving commercial, you know,
09:49agents.
09:50We've always viewed the agent as the star and hence why we are CoStar.
09:55You know, what we're trying to do, again, is deliver that well-educated, well-informed consumer
10:02and client to that agent so they can get more deals done faster.
10:06You know, I think most agents will come back and say the easy part is finding the house,
10:13right?
10:13And a lot of times the customer finds the house on their own.
10:15And the hard part is navigating through the emotional highs and lows of, you know, doing
10:21the deal, right?
10:22And, you know, as great as AI is, I'm not, I'm personally not using it as my emotional
10:28coach.
10:28And I think most people still appreciate that human touch and human interaction.
10:31We're just trying to optimize that for them.
10:35Correct.
10:36I would just, yeah, I echo what you said.
10:39And it really just improves and simplifies the experience from both sides of the equation.
10:47Like agent is very much so still relevant.
10:49It's helping them work better, more efficiently for their clients, probably helps them manage
10:55more clients at once because you're able to, you know, search more effectively for each
10:59client.
11:00And on the consumer side, you're just finding what you're looking for more at your, to your
11:05point, like probably most importantly, you're getting to a listing tour and a live tour with
11:10much more context about the home and likely as a much more qualified buyer.
11:17Because if you've already asked it a ton of questions, when you're looking at the listing
11:20in the Matterport, by the time you're there in person, like hopefully it's just reaffirming
11:25what you experienced online.
11:29Yeah, I mean, if, you know, if, if a consumer is thinking, hey, maybe these five houses are
11:35for me and you got to take them to each of the five homes.
11:38But, you know, if you were, if that consumer was on homes.com and they had a Matterport and
11:44they've kind of gone through that home top and bottom and spent 30 minutes in the kitchen
11:48asking it questions about the supermarkets around, et cetera, you know, about the appliances,
11:53you know, instead of having to take them to five, maybe you're only taking them to two.
11:57Right. And so last time I checked getting to two listings, right.
12:00That they, you know, that they're not going to have immediate objections to is a much better
12:04experience than schlepping to go to five, you know, and then three of them are just automatically
12:09just out once they step in that door.
12:11Right. So we're really trying to make that more efficient, you know, and, you know, we started
12:15building a lot of tools, you know, for homes, AI for the consumers, but we have a whole
12:20lineup of tools that we're building for member agents to, again, enhance that whole experience
12:25for them.
12:26Now, if you both looked into your crystal balls, as we look to the future and AI becomes increasingly
12:33embedded into the home buying journey, what are you most excited about when it comes to
12:38the future?
12:38I think the thing that excites me the most about it, at least to that initial release
12:45too, is that it makes all this data readily that consumers were previously kind of not
12:53really in control of getting really, or they had to look in various places to get school
12:59ratings, neighborhood insights, home trends, sales comps.
13:01Like, what I'm excited about is that it's equipping consumers with all this data in one place in
13:08a very easy manner that's helping them make more informed decisions for potentially the
13:14biggest financial investment in their lifetime.
13:17And I think future facing, it's just cool to see how, like, speaking to roadmap, like how
13:24much we're really, I think, uniquely positioned at CoStar, like having Matterport in the mix,
13:29that technology, starting to really dive more into, like, 3D exterior Matterports as well,
13:37being able to read all that data, all that property intelligence data, eventually improve our
13:43valuation models, like really creating the most realistic digital, like, virtual tour experience.
13:52I mean, I guess that goes hand in hand with the company's value proposition, digitizing the
13:56world's real estate.
13:57I think we're right, like, uniquely positioned in the heart of that.
14:01And now with the AI mode, it, like, just turbocharges that.
14:06Yeah, I think there's a lot that goes into buying and owning a home.
14:10I think it's going to be great when we can take, you know, all proprietary data from Matterports,
14:15right, plus both interior and exterior, and maybe help figure out, hey, what are your projected
14:19long-term maintenance costs here, right?
14:21You know, or, you know, if you're going to redo this kitchen, based on all the dimensional
14:26data that we have, you know, what do we feel like if you do X, Y, and Z, what's that
14:31going
14:31to do to the value of your home?
14:32They really give you some good concrete, you know, answers.
14:35It's like, hey, yes, I like this home.
14:37I want to upgrade the kitchen.
14:38Is it worth it?
14:39Hey, I like this home.
14:40What's my expenses going to be?
14:41Oh, well, that roof's going to go, right?
14:43Maybe in the next three years.
14:44And we can detect all that type of information, you know, based on our scans that we have.
14:50You know, it's just, you know, I think it's all about, you know, unlocking, you know, the
14:55proprietary data that we have and feeding it to these models to help get some really
15:00good answers.
15:01Andy, Livia, thank you so much for walking me through Holmes AI and what's going on over
15:08at Holmes.com.
15:10I can't wait to see what's next.
15:13Great.
15:13Thank you so much for the time.
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