Realtor.com+ has launched RealAssist AI, an artificial intelligence tool designed to automate routine tasks for estate agents. The platform, which debuted in January 2026, has achieved up to 10% agent adoption in live markets. RealAssist AI offers three main features: AI-driven client setup that automatically generates tailored home searches, a daily digest summarising client activity with suggested actions, and agentic actions that recommend and help execute tasks whilst keeping agents in control. The launch accompanies additional platform updates, including integration with Realtors Property Resource, public invite links for group client onboarding, and listing notes functionality. Realtor.com+ is now live in 21 markets, serving more than 192,000 agents nationwide and spanning nearly 252,000 listings, with four additional markets launching soon.

Why real estate groups are driving a glass house around Boston. If you saw a glass house driving around Boston, it was not advertising the latest trend in architectural design. Instead, it's here because a coalition of real estate trade groups, housing groups and big corporate names kicked off their "Let America Build" campaign in the Back Bay Wednesday morning. The aim is to get people talking about ways to build more homes in Massachusetts and across the country in advance of this fall's elections. The national public awareness campaign is focused on the need to increase housing supply for Americans. Along with listings portals Realtor.com and Zillow, the National Association of Realtors, brokerage consultancy T3 Sixty, the National Association of Home Builders, Habitat for Humanity and the National Zoning Atlas are working together as part of the campaign. "I think we've put together a wide coalition of partners here, and even some that we're in direct competition with," Realtor.com Senior Economist Joel Berner said in a media briefing in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood Wednesday. "We've got Zillow on board with Realtor.com here to really draw this issue into the limelight. It's not about who's winning and who's losing or who's making money and who's not. It's really an industry-wide effort, a rising tide to lift all boats, because housing is important not only for people who are in the housing industry. It's important for people to have places to live. It's important for industries that are adjacent to housing. Your home improvement stores and your furniture stores would certainly benefit from more people being able to move into their own homes." Realtor.com research has shown that there is a 4.03 million-unit housing supply gap in the United States. In Massachusetts, Healey administration housing officials estimate the state needs to build 220,000 units between 2025 and 2035 just to keep pace with demand. In the current market, even when new homes are being put on the market, they are largely unaffordable. The median price of a single-family home in the Boston metro is currently $795,000, according to Realtor.com. "Even when new homes are being delivered, they're often not being delivered at a competitive price point," Berner said. "So that's really what we're talking about here: doing everything we can to empower local governments to facilitate more home building, helping them to kind of get out of their own way in terms of long permitting timelines and really restrictive zoning laws. We want to make housing a central piece of what people are thinking about as they go to the polls this November, and we want to hold local leaders accountable to deliver more housing because if we're going to be able to house the people of this country, we need more homes to be able to do it. The only long-term solution to the housing shortage is to build more homes." Massachusetts' highest-profile effort to spur housing production to date - the MBTA Communities Act that requires towns to set up modest transit-oriented zoning districts - created such a furor that Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue has made opposition to it a central part of his platform, although the law was passed and implementation began under Democratic Gov. Maura Healey's Republican predecessor, Charlie Baker. Minogue's campaign website includes a pledge to "eliminate the enforcement of the MBTA Communities Act and provide legal support to cities and towns that do not accept the terms because of their limitations with water, sewer, infrastructure, and school resources. Doing this will empower towns to have the ultimate responsibility and decision-making to maintain the function and culture of their communities." Meanwhile, Healey's campaign is putting her housing production efforts in the spotlight, from highlighting the number of homes produced by her proposal to legalize accessory dwelling units statewide to endorsing a ballot question that would legalize small-lot single-family houses everywhere in the state with municipal water and sewer service. Fixing America's housing problems needs bipartisan support and a collaborative approach, according to Berner. "I think it is a bipartisan issue," he said. "It's really about being able to house the people of this country, and preventing and retroactively fixing the decades of underbuilding that have happened throughout this country. So I think elected leaders of both parties need to be held to account about this. It's really not so much a red versus blue thing. It's a yes, we can build these homes versus not in my backyard, people kind of thing. I think there are people of both parties who fall into that NIMBY category. The tide seems to be turning in favor of those who want to build in terms of pro-housing policy versus the kind of protective policies that the NIMBY movement has held onto for a really long time."

Realtor.com assembles all-star crew to fix US housing crisis. Realtor.com is partnering with Zillow and eXp to launch a consumer education website Today, September 15, 2026 A little more than a year after debuting Let America Build at South by Southwest, Realtor.com has launched its first major public awareness campaign around the initiative. Realtor.com and 13 real estate, homebuilding and housing advocacy groups - including Zillow, the National Association of Home Builders, Habitat for Humanity, Veterans United and eXp Realty - have unveiled LetAmericaBuild.org, a website that educates consumers about zoning and permitting, housing policies, housing types and construction trends. Realtor.com said the recent passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has put housing in the spotlight, and that now is the time to draw the throughline between federal policy, state and local action, and housing affordability. "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together, and with a problem as big as America's home shortage, it is time we go together," Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales said in a public statement on Tuesday. "Earlier this year, I challenged the industry to come together and unify. Let America Build is a result of that call." "Now, after the 21st Century ROAD to Housing bill has become law, elected officials have the opportunity to make housing supply a visible community priority," he added. "This campaign aims to help Americans engage in real conversations about how their communities can create more housing opportunities." Eales began zeroing in on housing affordability last year, with the leader sidestepping the battle over the National Association of Realtors Clear Cooperation Policy - Realtor.com defended CCP but declined to ban non-compliant listings like Zillow and Redfin - in favor of focusing on Let America Build. "If this industry can get behind one issue, it's housing supply," Eales said at Inman Connect San Diego 2025. "Let's turn off this conversation about Clear Cooperation. It can be refined. But [housing inventory] is a bipartisan issue where even my staunchest competitors in the industry would agree that we should have more homes built in this country. And I think that genuinely, we can make a difference in our local communities if we start talking more about it." Although estimates run as high as 10 million, Realtor.com said its data puts the housing supply gap at 4.03 million homes. The shortage, the portal said, has been exacerbated by outdated zoning and permitting laws, with the National Association of Home Builders estimating that government regulation, taxes, fees and other miscellaneous related costs boost the cost of the an average new single-family home by 26 percent. "Let America Build brings industry stakeholders together with officials at every level of government to address the nation's housing affordability crisis by removing inefficient zoning rules, unnecessary regulations, permitting delays and other barriers that keep builders from delivering more affordable, attainable homes," NAHB CEO Jim Tobin said in the announcement. "The campaign builds on the momentum of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act and advances practical solutions to help builders expand the nation's housing supply." The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed in July, modernizes affordability programs like the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, expands environmental review exclusions and includes a $200 million annual grant program to reward cities that streamline permitting. The Act also puts guardrails on institutional buyers, forcing them to sell their stock after a set time period. Housing experts say it will likely take years for homebuyers to reap the benefits of the Act; however, Let America Build's partners say it provides the perfect foundation for the housing industry at large to take action. "America's housing shortage is pricing renters and buyers out of the communities they love," Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman said. "We know what's driving it and we know what will fix it: streamlining permitting, modernizing zoning and unlocking land that's already there..." Added eXp Realty and NextHome CEO Leo Pareja, "We didn't build eXp and NextHome around a one-size-fits-all model, because we know entrepreneurs and consumers alike do better when they have choice. America's housing shortage demands that same thinking at the local level: more options, fewer barriers, faster paths from plan to reality. That's why we're proud to join Let America Build." T3 Sixty, ICON, Land Use Labs, Home Services of America, RISMedia, the Asian Real Estate Association of America, LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance and the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals are also founding participants, with LGBTQ+ Alliance Executive Director Alex Cruz saying it's important to "open the door to homeownership for more people and more families in every community." Realtor.com isn't the only company to roll out a housing initiative. JPMorgan Chase put $750 billion toward its American Dream Initiative in August, and on Monday, Airbnb announced a $250 million Housing Accelerator Fund that's projected to generate $5 billion in capital by 2036.