Check back throughout the event as we update this live blog with what we’re seeing and hearing in real time from the hallways, the event stage and on social media. Latest dispatches are at the top of the post. Scroll to the bottom and read up for chronological order.
LAS VEGAS, 2:44 p.m. PST — Ask three Las Vegas real estate agents where the local market bottoms out, and you’ll get three different numbers. They land close together, though.
At a panel on the Blueprint conference’s final day, Avi Dan-Goor, a Douglas Elliman agent, put the expected correction at 15 percent. Masheed Parsons, CEO and founder of Masheed Real Estate, estimated 8-13 percent. Geoffrey Lavell, vice president of Las Vegas Realtors, landed at 10-15 percent.
Dan-Goor cautioned that the average hides a lot. “Some segments are going to drop 25 percent, some are going to stay pretty much the same,” he said.
Lavell pointed to elevated mortgage rates as a key market factor. On Thursday, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose above 7 percent for the first time since January 2025, hitting 7.03 percent, according to Freddie Mac.
“The problem is that at every barbecue, every dinner people go to, somebody brings up their 3 percent mortgage rate,” Lavell said. “And so there’s this thought in the back of people’s heads that they’re going to just wait until that comes back. Meanwhile, they’re missing equity, they’re missing opportunity, and they’re missing what I think is a tremendously large market right now.”
The top of the market looks different. Dan-Goor said August Las Vegas home sales between $2 million and $3 million were up about 50 percent year over year. He credited California and Florida buyers, for whom a $2 million Vegas home compares to roughly $3.5 million back home.
All the panelists agreed the luxury market has come a long way. Dan-Goor said when he first started in the business two decades ago, luxury started at roughly $750,000 and needed proof of funds. Inman CEO Tom Bohn, who moderated the panel, pointed out that $750,000 could be considered a starter home in many markets these days.
“Now, the luxury market basically starts at $2 million,” Dan-Goor said. “I would say that ultra-luxury starts at around $5 [million] to $6 million.”
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 24
LAS VEGAS, 11:40 a.m. PST — Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency — which just celebrated its 15-year anniversary over Labor Day — was on the Las Vegas Strip today, but opened his panel with a quick mention of the East Coast, namely his brand’s recent expansion into the tristate area with the acquisition of some former Christie’s International Realty branches.
Umansky has created a brand for both himself and his firm — both of which he said are important for a luxury agent. “A good brand will create a culture of true collaboration and networking to create more leads,” Umansky said. “Today, networking and finding leads is easier with our CRM systems, with systems like Rechat, with websites… you’re able to get out there much more.”
Success in luxury real estate, Umansky said, takes luck, knowledge (“having more knowledge than anyone in the room”), the ability to gain clients’ trust, and a deep understanding of inventory. “That gives people true value and information that they can’t get somewhere else.”
Asked if he could quantify how being on television — he’s starred on general-focused reality TV and real estate reality shows on Bravo and Netflix — has helped his company’s bottom line, Umansky said the biggest benefit of his star turn was the speed at which his company was able to get in front of customers’ eyeballs. (He also plugged his appearance on Special Forces on Fox, premiering tonight.)
Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Speaking of efficiency, the conversation with Inman CEO Tom Bohn quickly turned to technology. “We as real estate agents have to embrace the technologies that are out there, or we’re going to be left behind,” he said. Umansky predicted that up to half of U.S. real estate agents may stop working in the field due to advances in technology.
So will technology replace the buyside agent? “No, it’ll make great buyside agents better and more efficient,” he said — pointing to those who embrace AI and robotics.
Umansky, who said he always likes to think outside the box, encourages agents to negotiate their commissions–upward. “This is 100 percent legal,” Umansky said. “You’re allowed to negotiate commissions. I negotiated an 8 percent commission on a $10 million deal… You can say to a buyer, for every $100,000 I save you, I get a 5 percent higher commission… think about how much I could save you.” Umansky stressed the importance of agents being innovative in how to raise their gross margins. “Hopefully, as salespeople, we’re the best negotiators on the planet. You have value; stop giving yourself away.”
On to a hotly contested topic, Umansky discussed his decision to launch the American Real Estate Association (ARA). The impetus, he said, was trying to create an alternative to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which he feels has “lost its way.”
“I just wanted to make sure they start taking care of us,” he said. He said ARA is poised to hit 100,000 members by the end of the year, is currently putting in chairs and vice chairs for all 50 states, lobbying and more. “We think we can make things a lot less expensive by creating one national service where you don’t have to be a member of all different MLSs,” he said.
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 24
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LAS VEGAS, 10:25 a.m. PST — Howard Hughes Communities is building an 83-acre sports and entertainment district around the National Football League team Houston Texans’ new global headquarters. It isn’t pricing the team into the deal.
“We’re not underwriting a Texans premium,” CEO David O’Reilly said on stage at the Blueprint conference on Thursday. “The numbers have to stand on their own.”
The Toro District, planned inside Howard Hughes’ 11,000-acre Bridgeland community northwest of Houston, calls for 1 million square feet of office, 300,000 square feet of retail and 1,300 apartments. O’Reilly said rents will be underwritten off Bridgeland comps across the street, including $40-plus net rents at a newly built office building.
He argued a practice facility, with year-round practices, graduations and community events, makes a better neighborhood anchor than a game-day stadium ringed by a “sea of parking” that fills for only eight Sundays a year for Texans home games. The district’s first medical office building is already nearly fully pre-leased, he said.
Real estate, O’Reilly said, is a “show me” business. The premium has to be proven, not penciled.
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 24
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LAS VEGAS, 6:05 a.m. PST — Good morning! It’s the final day at Blueprint, and the energy is still going strong after a truly jam-packed Day 2.
Today, the expo hall will continue to be the spot for panels, networking and learning about some of the latest products and technologies for the built and proptech worlds.
There are back-to-back panels once again; among the ones we’re excited to see are Inman CEO Tom Bohn’s interview with The Agency founder Mauricio Umansky (straight off his Noise vs. Signal podcast), where Umansky will discuss his journey creating a modern luxury brand.
Later, there’s a panel on technology in the affordable housing space, a deep dive into the SSO race that peeks inside the playbooks of leading brokerages and another talk moderated by Bohn with a local bent — focusing on the issues facing Las Vegas agents (and why others should care, too). For up-to-date coverage, keep an eye on this space all day long.
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 24
LAS VEGAS, 11:35 a.m. PST — The fully connected smart home or apartment is technically possible. Whether every property needs to be “smart” is a different question.
At a Blueprint panel on Wednesday, vendors said long-range, single-hub Wi-Fi systems can now provide access across an entire multifamily property. That matters because hardware is getting pricier, with smart-access companies “competing with all these data centers for chips,” according to Andrew Sanchez, chief operating officer of Rently.
Operators on stage pushed back on full integration. Nikki Ganier, senior regional manager at Asset Living, said retrofitting older Class B and C assets means new power and infrastructure costs, with little rent lift to cover them.
“I don’t think that every asset should be fully integrated,” Ganier said.
The multifamily property’s demographics matter. Older residents may not appreciate smart home features, Ganier said. “Even if you try to train them, they won’t know. They’re going to get frustrated really easily,” she said on stage.
Smart access like keyless, digitally managed entry control, however, is an expectation, Sanchez said. Charging extra for it requires transparency and pricing residents can compare. “The technology has to really fit the site and the asset class you’re managing,” Sanchez said.
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 23
Martha Stewart onstage at Blueprint | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
LAS VEGAS, 10:50 a.m. PST — Martha Stewart, who recently founded Hint, a “blueprint for your home,” as she called it, took to the Blueprint mainstage with CEO Yih-Han Ma and The Points Guy Brian Kelly, an early investor and advisor in Hint. Stewart said the idea of creating an AI-powered organizer for homeowners came to her decades ago when she started Martha Stewart magazine, but the technology wasn’t quite there yet. “The future is now,” she said.
Kelly explained that the idea for Hint in particular started at Easter brunch at Stewart’s house when he asked her what she was planning to do next in her career. “We need to help people manage their homes better,” she said. “As we started building and talking to people, we realized there was a real need,” Kelly said.
“We like to say Hint is about being an expert in your home,” Ma said. The key audience, he said, is the first-time homeowner, who’s often overwhelmed with how much there is to do.
“Hint can be engaged to help you figure out everything about your home,” Stewart said. “Every day I come up with more and more tasks for [it]… it’s gonna be helping with your landscaping and daily chores … ,” she said.
Kelly said he wanted to invest in Hint because he appreciates companies that work to put money back in people’s pockets — he was an investor in Bilt — and he sees a similar opportunity with Hint, using the example of how Hint can help homeowners find the right insurance coverage for them.
Stewart described herself as a “real estate junkie,” explaining that she likes to learn every facet of homeownership and home maintenance, often working directly with carpenters, plumbers and other craftspeople.
Hint offers real intelligence for anyone working to maintain their home — not to mention exclusive access to content from Stewart’s 100-plus books.
As for the company’s raison d’être, Ma said: “We have an obligation to return homeownership to the joy it should be.”
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 23
Day 1 at Blueprint was a useful gut check for the industry.
Follow Inman’s live coverage from the stages, hallways and Expo Hall:https://t.co/XkhFPyDfZw#BlueprintVegas #PropTech #BuiltWorld #RealEstateTechnology pic.twitter.com/jtvJaVhwwU
— Blueprint (@goblueprint) September 23, 2026
LAS VEGAS, 8:50 a.m. PST — For his company’s first foray into AI, AMH CEO Bryan Smith told Fifth Wall’s Brendan Wallace that the desire was to have a leasing model that was completely scalable and an easier way to provide services for people leasing their homes. “It was a top priority for us and drove a lot of our leasing success in a difficult market this year. It solved an immediate problem, and had a very strong, easy-to-measure ROI,” he said.
AMH, which runs 60,000 rental homes while developing thousands more a year, also uses AI to manage HOA documentation, he said, and for field management, scheduling for internal technicians and more. With GPS tracking and other technology, they’re able to keep track of things in a way they never have done before. “It’s all getting a lot more sophisticated because of the capabilities provided by AI,” Smith said.
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 23
LAS VEGAS, 8:35 a.m. PST — Ryan Serhant presented his S.MPLE AI tool, describing it as “truly a game-changer for that salesperson level for how they’re gonna sell.”
Asked why he’s doubling down on AI now, Serhant said, “What’s always frustrated me is … you know what it means to get the ick? When people strap new technologies onto old workstreams to try and go a little faster or to say they’re doing something, kind of gives me the ick. I never wanted to do it. I wanted to wait.”
Serhant has set his sights high. “We’re gonna reinvent how people buy and sell homes, for sure,” he said. “The mission is so large, the opportunity is so great … Today, almost anything is possible.”
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 23
Ryan Serhant | Photo credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
LAS VEGAS, 8:26 a.m. PST — Inman CEO Tom Bohn kicked off Day 2 by stressing the importance of real estate and built companies being at the top of their tech game, AI and otherwise. “People are making decisions now that would have been unfathomable a few years ago … That’s why we’re here,” Bohn said to a crowd on the main stage.
“Technology used to be a line item,” Bohn said. “Not anymore.”
Of course, Inman is not immune to the major tech changes happening across all industries. That’s why Bohn is rebuilding the company from top to bottom, pointing specifically to the soon-to-be-launched Inman 2.0, which will offer AI-powered market intelligence and personalized daily briefings to all users. “Inman 2.0 is built around personas. If you build for this industry, you’ll have your own dashboard built for you,” he said.
Partnerships are a critical part of the next generation of Inman, Bohn said, adding that Zillow, Lofty, Breezy and Side are partners of Inman 2.0.
During his presentation, Bohn also announced Inman’s newest partnership with James Harris’ Breezy, which will bring Inman’s newsfeed directly in the Breezy app.
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 23
LAS VEGAS, 6:26 a.m. PST — A startup founded by a former Lennar executive wants artificial intelligence to take the drafting grind out of architecture, starting with production homebuilders.
Geom, which emerged from stealth last week after five months of development, automates the detailing work that turns schematic design into construction-ready documents. Shanna Tellerman, Geom’s founder and CEO, said the company has already worked with homebuilders like Pulte, True Homes, Meritage, Century and a “few others who aren’t ready to be disclosed yet.”
Large homebuilders maintain hundreds or thousands of plans that need local adaptations. The in-house architecture teams who keep them current are always a bottleneck, Tellerman told Inman at the Blueprint conference on Tuesday.
“Keeping all of those plans updated for regional use is an enormous amount of work. Those teams are always underwater,” Tellerman said. “They’re always a bottleneck, always slower than what’s needed to bring product to market, and all of that delays homes actually getting started.”
With a nationwide housing shortage of an estimated 3.7 million to 7.2 million homes depending on the source, Tellerman said those delays add up.
“That deficit has built up, and it’s one reason we’re facing a pricing crunch,” Tellerman said. “The supply shortage is driving higher prices. Many bottlenecks exist along the way, but one starts with the plan. If the plan takes a long time to develop and bring to market, nothing else can start until it’s done and permitted.”
Tellerman’s first company, Wild Pockets (Sim Ops Studios), was a Carnegie Mellon University spinout that Autodesk acquired in 2010. She stayed on as a product line manager, launching Autodesk’s cloud platform and its Autodesk 360 applications.
She then spent two years as a partner at GV, Google’s venture arm. While there, she led investments in design and technology platforms, including early bets on Jet.com and Le Tote, and worked with founders to scale early-stage companies.
In 2015, Tellerman founded Modsy, an e-design and 3D visualization platform backed by TCV, Norwest and GV. After Lennar acquired Modsy in 2022, she became the homebuilder’s chief product officer.
Tellerman said that role gave her a ground-level view of what it takes to design and build homes at scale, and it shapes how she approaches Geom.
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 23
LAS VEGAS, 6:25 a.m. PST — Good morning! Blueprint’s attendees are just waking up for a busy second day after an action-packed first day of events and networking here at the Venetian Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
On the docket for Wednesday: Opening remarks from Inman’s CEO, Tom Bohn, an announcement from SERHANT.’s Ryan Serhant about the future of AI infrastructure, and a lively conversation with Martha Stewart about her new role — as co-founder of AI-powered home management app Hint.
Panels will also cover the latest news in robotics, data centers, rentals, multi-family homes and more. Plus, the expo hall is open all day to see some of the coolest new products on the market.
Whether you’re catching up on what you’ve missed from Vegas or are watching from home, keep an eye on this space for news as it breaks.
— Lucy Cohen Blatter, Sept. 23
Tuesday’s “No! Technology is not a sweater” session with (l to r) Troy Palmquist, Jackie Soto, David Voorhees and Stacie Staub | Photo by AJ Canaria Creative Services
LAS VEGAS — Proptech founders hoping to land an enterprise deal with a brokerage should expect a long courtship, brokerage leaders said Tuesday at the Blueprint conference.
Many of the tools a brokerage adopts start with agents who find a product in their region and bring it to leadership, said David Voorhees, executive director of labs at Keller Williams Realty. A pilot group and a simple integration usually come first.
“Very rarely do we go from no relationship to an enterprise-level deal overnight,” Voorhees said. “Let’s date before we get married.”
Choosing the wrong vendor carries more risk now, Voorhees added, because agents can be as loyal to their tech stack as they are to their brokerage. A proptech vendor that stops innovating can leave a brokerage stuck mid-contract while rivals recruit its agents with better tools.
Not every brokerage wants a standardized tech stack, either. Stacie Staub, CEO of West + Main Homes, said her firm shopped every CRM and still couldn’t find one they trusted to win broad adoption; instead, her agents pick their own.
“Safe and smooth is kind of the game when it comes to technology for me,” Staub told the audience at Blueprint.
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 22
LAS VEGAS — On-site multifamily teams at some of the largest operators juggle 17 or 18 logins, and they’d rather build workarounds than complain about any of them, operations and technology leaders said Tuesday at the Blueprint conference.
Two months into the job, Devang Patel, SVP, Head of Technology at Morgan Properties, shadowed maintenance staff and found an inspection app that logged them out daily. A newer version that fixed those problems already existed. Within two weeks of pushing it to all service staff, adoption hit 90 percent.
“I share this story because sometimes we’re disconnected from how people actually use the systems and what their processes are,” Patel said. “You feel like you’re making the right decision, like ‘this is the best tool’ or ‘this is the best capability,’ but you’re not tracking adoption, and you’re not tracking the real-life issues.”
Cutting tools can carry its own risk, too. VP of Business Relations at Unified Residential Management, Dalia Kalgreen, said she worked at a firm that got rid of its chatbots while she was on leave, with no one available to handle resident or prospect inquiries around the clock.
“If you don’t have that, you don’t exist to anybody,” Kalgreen quipped.
— Nick Pipitone, Sept. 22
For those of you on the ground in Las Vegas this week, these deep dives are the perfect way to begin your Blueprint experience. Explore the workshop topics, times, and locations below.
- SFR & BTR Kick-Off Summit in Partnership with EverResi Media: 12 p.m. – 2 p.m., Track 1 (Palazzo Ballroom D)
- Apartment Strategy Symposium Presented in Partnership with Multifamily Insiders: 12 p.m. – 1:20 p.m., Track 2 (Palazzo Ballroom C)
- RET Multifamily and Single Family Rental Kick-Off Summit: 3 p.m. – 5 p.m., Track 2 (Palazzo Ballroom C)
- Data Centers Kick-Off Summit: 12 p.m. – 1:10 p.m., Track 3 (Palazzo Ballroom B)
- Retail Kick-Off Summit: 1:10 p.m. – 2:05 p.m., Track 3 (Palazzo Ballroom B)
- Construction Technology Summit: 3 p.m. – 5 p.m., Track 3 (Palazzo Ballroom B)
- Hospitality Summit: 12:40 p.m. – 2 p.m., Track 4 (Palazzo Ballroom A)
- Homebuilding Kick-Off Summit: 12 p.m. – 1:40 p.m., Innovation Stage
- Blueprint Bracket Madness in Partnership with Second Century Ventures/REACH: 2:20 p.m. – 4:20 p.m., Innovation Stage
- Blueprint Vegas Official Kickoff Party: 5 p.m. – 7 p.m., Main Stage (Marcello Ballroom) on the 4th Floor of The Venetian Convention Center
It looks like yesterday was a tough travel day for Blueprint attendees coming from the East Coast. Check out the BBC’s coverage of flight delays at major U.S. airports, caused by an outage in the air traffic control system and the backup that didn’t work. Read more
This week, developers, construction tech founders, proptech investors and real estate operators are all converging on The Venetian in Las Vegas for three days of sessions, demos and hallway deal-making. Inman is on the ground at Blueprint with live dispatches from the announcements, the debates and the bright ideas that are moving the needle instead of just making noise.
Blueprint is owned by Inman.
