When you’re thinking about potential leads, it’s easy to divide them into siloes:
- A buyer is a buyer.
- A renter is a renter.
- An Airbnb guest is a traveler.
- A dorm dweller is a student.
- A senior living prospect is a patient.
However, beyond those labels, these are all people trying to answer a similar question: Is this place the right one for me?
Real estate technology has been built around transactions and property types, with MLS and portal search for residential properties, leasing platforms for multifamily, booking platforms for hospitality and institutional onboarding for senior communities and student housing.
For Lisa Nickerson, CEO of Infinityy, and Audrey Whittington, executive vice president of strategic partnerships and industry relations at Local Logic, there’s a compelling opportunity emerging in technology that exists between the consumer and the place, no matter what type of transaction is involved.
“When they’re buying or renting, it really becomes an analysis paralysis for them of like, how do I make this decision?” Nickerson said.
Home is only one piece of the decision
Earlier this summer, the two companies announced a partnership designed to bring together Local Logic’s neighborhood intelligence with Infinityy’s AI-powered platform to give buyers more insight into properties and lifestyle and to give agents more insight into buyer preferences and intent.
In practice, this allows consumers to explore listings, ask questions and connect with agents in real time while learning about the property’s community features and amenities, including walkability, transportation, schools, demographics, lifestyle characteristics and market context.
“We don’t just give tons of information; we help answer people’s questions, and we help people get to a decision about property,” Nickerson said.
The outcome isn’t just about making search more comprehensive. It’s about helping consumers and their agents evaluate a place, a process that involves exploration, questioning, context, comparison, engagement and decision-making.
In most cases, Whittington said, agents are “just pushing information to the consumer. You’re not actually having a dialogue with them and encouraging them to engage with you.”
The decision layer doesn’t have to stop at residential real estate
Infinityy already operates across residential and multifamily, including:
- multifamily
- student housing
- senior living
- hospitality
- short-term rentals
- office/commercial
“We’re not picking one vertical,” Nickerson said. That’s because the underlying consumer problem of decision-making travels across all of them.
Whittington agreed, viewing the potential for consumer interaction as “really unlimited” because consumers in different property categories are still looking for information, context and answers before committing to a place.
The ability to go into a site, walk the unit and get questions about the property and neighborhood answered in real time is at the heart of assisting consumers, she said.
For example, a renter choosing an apartment needs to understand commute, neighborhood, amenities, lifestyle and price. So does a homebuyer.
A person choosing senior living needs to understand the surrounding community, accessibility and lifestyle. So does a traveler looking to book an extended stay in an Airbnb.
Although the transactions are different, the decision-making is remarkably similar.
“The for rent side still remains largely transactional versus educational,” Nickerson said. “Whereas we all know on the for-sale side, it’s an educational process.”
Consumers increasingly expect the same level of information and personalization regardless of what they’re buying or renting. That changes what a “listing” actually is.
We think of a listing as a list of property facts: bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, photos, description, price, features. But a next-gen listing experience could become an interactive environment where the consumer can investigate the property and the surrounding place in a two-way conversation.
Shifting from transactions to experiences
In this model of residential search, the winners won’t necessarily be the companies with the most listings or even the most data. They’ll be the companies that can help consumers understand a place well enough to act with confidence.
That creates an interesting future for agents, too, one where AI doesn’t replace the human expert. Instead, it handles questions and information gathering while surfacing what the consumer actually cares about, giving the agent a more informed conversation.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
1. Ask what ‘right’ means before showing what’s available.
Instead of starting with bedrooms, bathrooms and price, learn what the client is actually trying to optimize. Is it a shorter commute? Walkability? Access to restaurants? A particular lifestyle? Space for aging parents? Proximity to friends or family?
2. Bring neighborhood context into the showing process.
Don’t wait for a client to ask, “What’s around here?” Make the surrounding area part of the property story. While the house itself may be perfect on paper, the decision is about whether the buyer can picture their life there.
3. Use technology to surface questions, not replace the conversation.
Integrate technology to answer routine questions and help consumers explore independently. Get involved when the conversation calls for expertise, judgment or a human perspective.
The future of proptech may be defined less by who owns the transaction than by how effectively technology helps people evaluate a place, whether they’re buying, renting, staying or living. For practitioners, it’s less about owning the transaction and more about facilitating the decision-making experience that leads to it.
“Real estate must advance listing experience and create access to context,” Nickerson said. “Anything that Local Logic and Infinity can do to help people get over that line is a service to the entire industry as a whole.”
Troy Palmquist is the founder and principal at HomeCode Advisors. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
