AI can find you a house — but can it guide you home? 

A conversation with Anand Srinivasan and Maiclaire Bolton Smith

In a world of one-click purchases and instant confirmations, buying a home is one of the few milestones that still demands stacks of forms, signatures, and patience. 

For many buyers, the gap between expectations and reality is jarring. They’re used to seamless transactions — from groceries to getaways — yet the homebuying process can feel like navigating a maze with no map. That gap is reshaping not just the buying experience, but also who, and what, people trust along the way. 

Technology has rushed in to fill the space. Platforms promise a smoother path. Algorithms learn your likes before you’ve even voiced them. The process moves faster, but the picture isn’t always clearer. 

Because speed, without direction, can feel like chaos. And that’s where human expertise makes all the difference. 

In this episode of Beyond the Buildings, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith sits down with Cotality’s Head of Research and Development Anand Srinivasan, to unpack the modern buyer’s paradox: how to combine the speed and personalization of technology with the transparency and confidence that come from experienced professionals. They dig into where digital tools deliver, where they miss the mark, and why human insight remains the key to guiding buyers across the finish line. 

‍In this episode:  

2:30 - How has the process of buying a home evolved for both buyers and people in the industry?  

7:20 - What does speed mean when it comes to buying a home?

14:00 - How does technology play a role in homebuying, and how do different generations use it?

21:00 - Erika Stanley breaks down the numbers on housing affordability in The Sip. 

22:07 - How is AI playing a role in gaining or losing confidence in the homebuyer?

25:27 - Will AI and technology completely replace people as the main source of guidance in homebuying?  

Transcript

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Welcome to Beyond the Buildings By Cotality. I am your host, Maiclaire Bolton Smith, and I'm just as curious as you are about everything that happens in the property industry. On this podcast, we satisfy our collective curiosity, explore questions from every angle and look beyond the obvious. With every conversation we illuminate what is possible buying a home, it's one of those life goals that requires a lot of paperwork. In a world dominated by one click purchases, the complexity of home buying process, oops. The complexity of the home buying process can come as a shock for buyers who expect clarity and convenience across transactions, big and small. This is leading to shifts in who and what they trust when buying a home. Tech platforms have stepped into the space and force interfaces, promises. Algorithms anticipate preferences before they're made explicit. But transparency remains elusive even as the process speeds up. However, however, speed without direction has led, however, speed without direction has led to many buyers to say they feel overwhelmed. And that's where expert guidance from industry professionals comes in handy. So to make sense of these converging forces, we have Cotality's Head of Research and Development, Anand Srinivasan, to talk about how these forces are reshaping how people buy, borrow, and move on. Anand welcome to Beyond the Buildings.

Anand Srinivasan:  

Thanks, Maiclaire. Great to see you again. Thank you for having me.

Erika Stanley:  

Before we get too far into this episode, here’s a friendly reminder about how to see what’s coming up next in the property market. To make it easy, we curate the latest insight and analysis for you online. Find us using the handle @Cotality on all our social media channels.  Now, let’s get back to Maiclaire and Anand.  

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Well, I'm excited about this one because it's such an interesting conversation and I've been wanting to have you on the podcast for a long time. So let's just start by, can you just give us the lay of the land? How has the home buying process changed over the years, both for the home buyer as well as for industry professionals?

Anand Srinivasan:

That's a great segue into the discussion. Maiclaire. Look, I mean, I think that the industry is built for speed, right? We are set on instant gratification. We want our listings immediately. We want to be approved for our loans immediately, and we want to have viewings immediately, and we want the closings to close in a couple of weeks or less. If you please, thank you. But the industry's demands and needs and processes appear to be a tad out of sync with what the buyers want. And there is this mismatch between the speed, the rails on which the industry is built, and timing, which is what the buyers appear to be seeking. This mismatch is creating friction survey data that Cotality conducted on over a thousand recent buyers, as well as prospective buyers, showed that the system that we have currently only works for about a quarter of the people.

The rest hit confusion, delays and are pretty stressed out about the whole process. So it turns out when people want speed, what they're asking for is timing and guidance and confidence, and eventually leading to the superpower we call comfort. The more confident they feel, the more likely that they're able to digest the information that is given to them at this high speed and convert that into insight. And they're able to use all the digital tools that are being thrown at them, all the listings that are coming at them fast and furious. And when that confidence drops, then the need for human guidance, unsurprisingly, spikes. They want a Sherpa along the way, they want a trainer along the way. And all of these, this confidence, trust, microdosing of information to the right people at the right time creates the superpower we've called comfort. Comfort is what keeps the buyer coming back to the agent, to the insurance agent, to the loan broker again and again and again, comfort is what turns houses to homes.

But here's the interesting catch in all of this as well, and I know you and I have a bone to pick on this one for sure, is that comfort means different things for different generations. For boomers, it means clarity and consistency of information being provided by the right person at the right time. For millennials and Gen Xers who are the skittish generation, it's about being seen, getting that guidance and their hands being held. So for different groups, we have to have comfort delivered a different way. And it's not loyalty, it's not speed, it's not convenience. We have to aim for comfort.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Anand, there's so many things I wanted to dive into with what you just said, but I mean, obviously speed is the number one thing I expected you to say. And I remember when we bought our first home a number of years ago, I actually said, "I wish I could buy this home on Amazon," because I was so used to these one-click purchases. But the difference is you don't make one click purchases on million-dollar investments. Those are everything else that we buy is generally a lot less. So that's where it comes down to the comfort level. And I laugh to myself when you brought up how different generations approach these things differently. I actually read something recently that said millennials, Gen Z, the younger generations will do everything on their phone.

It doesn't matter what it is. Gen X in particular, which you and I are both a part of, needs to for big purchases, needs to sit down in front of a computer and have a big screen and see what they're doing. And that's a thousand percent true with myself. And I think that that leads to the comfort part of this. And that's why, yes, people want speed and to be able to do things quickly, but if you're making a massive purchase like you are with a home, you need that level of comfort because you can't just say, oops, changed my mind, free return on this. And that's where the difference really comes into effect.

Anand Srinivasan:  

And I think it seems like you're almost quoting the survey. 43% of homebuyers say that finding a home requires faster decisions. 40+%, getting the loan on the home requires faster decision. After that, the necessity for speed falls off a cliff. It's in the twenties for finding insurance. It's in the twenties for finding the right lawyer.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Now, I wonder if some of that speed is not related to the demand in making offers. So how, I know you and I both live in bigger city, bigger metropolitan areas. When we bought this home that we were currently in, it was a whole debacle, which I've talked about on this podcast many times before. But the competitiveness in buying a home is part of the reason. When we bought our first home, I remember one of the homes, we were one of 24 offers. We bid over a hundred thousand dollars over offer and over asking price, and we were outbid by over $150,000. That was the case. I'm like, I want to be the first person that sees this house. I want to click buy now and I want to buy it. I don't want anybody else to see it. But I wonder if that comes into a consideration with people and why they want speed is to kind of like, oh, I want to see this first so I can not be competing with 30 people on offers for this home.

Anand Srinivasan:

The interesting part about what you just said in your experience is that there's an incredible amount of uncertainty, and what people are looking for is confidence and certainty.

And usually speed doesn't come first there. Confidence does not lead speed. Confidence comes after it, and we have to turn the process a little bit on its head to demonstrate how we as an industry can fulfill the needs of the buyer. They're looking for speed, but we have to provide it at the right time. For 20% of buyers, speed is not important at all. 20%, that's a big number. That's a huge chunk. Yeah. Yeah, that's a huge chunk. So timing, I think we're all trying to figure out what the right word that we want to use is. And it feels like sometimes we want to go super fast, but we don't want to go fast for the sake of going fast. What we want to get to is confidence and comfort. And sometimes speed helps, but sometimes it doesn't. So the magic word we're looking for is timing, right information, right time, in right chunks.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Now, Anand, have we, in the surveys that we've done, I know that the House to Home survey, did we dive into where timing and where speed is more important in which part of the process?

Anand Srinivasan:

Yes. So we went into quite a bit of detail of across generations, across different elements of the buying process. Where does speed come in? The problem that we heard from the buyers is we heard, kept hearing these words, I feel like I'm missing something. While things are going super-fast, speed without direction isn't necessarily progress. And what happens is when they get to that point where they move super-fast, but they suddenly become different, they tap the brakes. And it's not like they give the product a bad review like we do on Amazon, but what they do is they simply disappear. So they've requested for a loan, they've been approved for a loan, the loan was approved really quickly, and they've made an offer in the house. Suddenly they've been refused because there's 25 other buyers with $150,000 better offer. And suddenly they said, "Hey, do I have this all wrong?" And that's when they become skittish. They become different. So the trick is how do we deliver these micro doses of information so they get confident at every stage of the buying process, whether it's finding the home and you're going to 15 showings and you've made offers, and everybody expects to have lots of showings, make lots of offers go through stress. But what we want is when you find the home, you want to deliver confidence. And that's what I think we have to do a better job to align our rails to that of the buyer

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

To help with that, gaining that confidence in the purchase they're making. Exactly. Because it is an investment. It's not just buying a new TV, it's buying something that is a major investment, that is the biggest purchase, the most amount of money you'll likely spend on something.

Anand Srinivasan:  

And the interesting part of that is once you have this skepticism early in the process and you have this doubt and this hesitation early in the process, it spreads.

It spreads to all parts of the process. And the lack of information makes the buyer less confident and less comfortable through the whole process. And there's a lot we can do. Not all of these fixes are huge, just making, we heard things like all these made up fees came in at the last moment and surprised me, that's not a fee problem. That's a transparency. Transparency, problem.

That's exactly right. So if you make them fully aware of the process and you give them a roadmap and you jump in too early, you're a little bit of noise, you jump in too late, you too irrelevant. So you have to jump in with the right information at the right time. So something that we have very cleverly called microdosing, and that's why their timing matters because Gen Z particularly, they consume this information rapidly. They're digitally native, they're super savvy with tech, and they want these small bite chunks of information at the right time.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

So, I want to dive into more of the different generations and how they approach these things differently Anand, because I think Gen Z newest youngest generation, newest ones buying homes right now compared to boomers, they're technology native. They've grown up with not knowing technology didn't exist, whereas boomers have been a little different. Also though, boomers, if they're buying a home, they're not necessarily buying their first home, whereas Gen Z is buying their first home. Exactly. So they know what to expect. I know when we bought our second home, this home, I knew what to expect in the process because I'd been through it before and I refined on my first home as well too. So I knew what to expect. So you learn by doing. So, I want to dive into a little bit on how technology plays a role and what that technology may be, and is it Gen Z or millennials that are really driven to technology because they are technology native, potentially first time home buyers versus some of the elder, am I calling us an elder generation? The elder generations? I didn't hear that. The boomers. The boomers, and then the very young and hip generation of the Gen X group that everybody forgets to talk about.

Anand Srinivasan:  

The interesting part is technology doesn't necessarily drive confidence. So there's an interesting aspect of that. It certainly helps. But if you look below the surface of Gen Z, only about half feel financially ready. Only 63% are informed about the market, but they all expect to make multiple offers and they all expect high stress and they don't want surprises. So high expectations, I think there's a mismatch of expectations relative to reality, and it is the job of the real estate broker and the loan officer to guide them through the process. They are looking for a guide, and believe it or not, Gen Z and boomers are far more alike than they would either of them would care to admit.

They have the same sort of statistical responses on how they trust technology, particularly AI and how they respond to the process. But there are a lot of disconnects. Only 3/4 of recent buyers thought closing would take forever, and turns out it didn't. So they were actually positively surprised about the speed of closing. Right. Interesting. I bought a home in New Jersey, took at least six and a half months. I bought a home in California. It took four weeks, very different processes, and I was super surprised with my closing in California.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Mine took eight days.

Anand Srinivasan:

Wow. Congratulations. See, doesn't, not all parts of the process are bureaucratic, but that expectation divide is what we need to reduce three quarters expected to find their home fast. And we both know that's very hard in this day and age, and three quarters ended giving up items on their wish list. So, these are, I think it's an expectation mismatch that we can work through with a lot of information and guidance of that generation particularly.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Yeah, I think that's the key is the expectation and the transparency of the education more on what is the process I'm going to go through? What am I going to experience by going through this? What is available? I think the first time we bought our first home too, you don't know what you don't know. I didn't even know what questions to ask our mortgage broker or our real estate agent, because he advised us on if we wanted to get this home, it was going to be very competitive and we needed to bid a hundred thousand dollars over asking price, and we do that and we're outbid. And I'm like, well, shouldn't you have known we needed to bid that there was exactly that I would've needed to bid $250,000 over asking price, then I wouldn't have put an offer in. It was a huge more of a heart and investment of our heart than anything else. Like yes, there was the time and the commitment, but we were young, we were buying our first home, we were excited, and it just crushes your spirit when you think you have something and then you don't. So a little bit of transparency would've helped with that confidence in an offer that we're making.

Anand Srinivasan:  

And I think that the loss of confidence also translates into loss of the trust with the person you're working with. So it comes full circle. They have to instill the confidence in you both about the property market then as well as the property buying process, so that you are kept up to speed at every step of the way. And delivering that trust means that perhaps you might take longer to find your home, but you know that you're working with the right individual who's going to get you there. The interesting point you made earlier about this notion of technology, if you look at the data from people versus technology use across the board, there is high trust in different parts of the process in people, particularly in insurance, and particularly in the legal process, for example. But here's the catch. If you start looking at recent buyers versus future buyers, the use of AI jumps up 15 points, right? So they trust AI and their trust is increasing.

I don't know at what point it'll settle, but still they want either a person or a person using AI to help them with the process. And this survey will have to be next year, we'll be able to tell, okay, how did this change versus the prior year and so on. But this trust isn't a one size fits all for Gen Z. They want to be acknowledged. They want their fears known, exactly like you said when you were a first time buyer. And for boomers, they want clarity, consistency, somebody trustworthy that they can call again and again. And for the in-between generations, which is Gen X and the millennials, they just want the bureaucracy to disappear. All that drama paperwork that we go through when buying a property, they want it to disappear. So you have to tailor, we as an industry have to tailor our message slightly to these different generations. And again, this microdosing of information.

Erika Stanley:  

It’s that time again! Cotality just dropped new numbers about what’s happening in the housing market. Here’s what you need to know. The housing market is showing early signs of shifting to a buyer’s market, but the transition is far from smooth. Inventory is climbing, prices are softening, and for the first time in years, buyers have more negotiating power - but high mortgage rates, rising insurance, and income hurdles are keeping many on the sidelines. Cotality data shows de-listings hit their highest level since May 2011, and overall listings are down 3% from last year. Even with big inventory jumps in Florida, Texas, and Ohio, sales are still slow. Closed sales are down 15% year-over-year, showing the market has hit a stalemate.  To learn more about how the market is shifting toward buyers, visit Cotality.com/insights. There’s also a link in the show notes.  And that’s the Sip. See you next time!

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Yeah. Anand, I want to dive into more of this AI concept specifically because we kind of just elusively talked about technology being part of the process. I recorded a podcast with Amy Gromoski, our head of data science, specifically looking at AI. And one of the things that she and I got into is the trust of AI. And when we talk about having trust in the home buying process and AI being this technology or a big part of AI is all around us in this day and age, how is AI playing a role in gaining or losing confidence in the homebuyer?

Anand Srinivasan:

Look as with other technologies, and hopefully this dramatically enhances not only for the industry, but also for Cotality, which has been using AI for a long time, enhances our capabilities. We want to be faster, but more importantly, better. We want to be better at delivering this information and building the notion of comfort for the consumer so that we can all end up at a satisfied place.

So, we want to have better models in all of our catastrophe predictions. We want to have better models in predicting costs. We want to have better models in propensity for properties that are going to be rented or pricing specific properties. All of this will enable a higher quality of information being delivered and maybe AI being used in the process will allow us to make our process a little bit more efficient in delivery of that information too. A little nudge to check up on my customers who have been hesitant off late, what could be eating at them from a confidence perspective. Is there some information that I can deliver to make them more comfortable for a different generation? It could be a simple reminder as make sure you send Mr. Boomer and Ms. Boomer this packet of information so that they have everything calendarized, step-by-step, neatly articulated, so that they know that they can rely on you for the process and for the middle. Maybe AI can help us make these clunky administrative steps. Unfortunately, we still have to go through them in many a case, reduce that paperwork burden, reduce the administrative process burden so that it seems easier, not as much of a hassle. So AI is here to stay, and AI is at least just the way we're looking at it within our company is pervading all aspects of it, whether it's deep science, whether it's improvement, whether it's better predictability. And I think that we're going to try different things, and I am certain that it'll make the end process and product so much better for the consumers and for the industry. But any new technology, it's going to take a little bit of time, but one of the things that I find refreshing is the speed on gen AI is pretty darn fast.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

It's evolving.

Anand Srinivasan:

Yeah, it's so impressive.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

It really is. Yeah,

Anand Srinivasan:

A little scary at times, but the only constant has changed. So I'm looking forward to being a part of that change.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Yeah, no, absolutely. And really leading that change too from an industry technology perspective as well. So I guess Anand, this is so interesting, and just to wrap there today, I like to finish these podcasts with, if you could look into your crystal ball, so pull out your crystal ball. Do you think when we look at this homebuyer process, there is this desire for people to have this guidance. Do you see it ever changing where people are no longer the guidance and technology AI takes over completely as that guidance comes from AI and technology versus I need to go talk to this person over there. Do you ever see that happening in the future?

Anand Srinivasan:  

No. It's too big of a purchase. It's too emotional of a purchase. And I think people will remain front and center as guides to the home buying process. That said, will the influence of AI and all technologies dramatically increase from current levels? Absolutely. I think it can be used to improve velocity, not speed, velocity. It can be used to alleviate doubt. It can be used to micro segment my generation so that I can microdose the right information at the right time. It can help me with timing that we've talked about. And we believe that all of this combined with a human being as a Sherpa in the process, as a guide in the process, can deliver comfort. And that's the nirvana point, isn't it?

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

It really is. It is. I think the word that you said that resonates the deepest with me is emotion, is that we're making emotional purchases and being able to tie that comfort to something tangible. And that tangible is something you trust and you trust people. And we may get to the stage where we live in this total AI world and we trust technology, but that is really science fiction in many ways too, that we really do need the human intervention just for the confidence.

Anand Srinivasan:  

Indeed.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

Yeah. Anand, this has been so interesting, so exciting. Thank you so much for joining me today on Beyond the Buildings by Cotality.

Anand Srinivasan:  

Thank you for having me, Maiclaire.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:  

All right. And thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed our latest episode. Please remember to leave us a review and let us know your thoughts and subscribe wherever you get your podcast to be notified when new episodes are released. And thanks to the team for helping bring this podcast to life producer Jesse Devenyns, editor and sound engineer, Romie Aromin are facts guru Erica Stanley and social media duo, Sarah Buck and Makaila Brooks. Tune in next time for another conversation that illuminates the ideas that will define the future.

Erika Stanley:  

You still there? Well thanks for sticking around! Are you curious to know a little bit more about our guest today?  Anand Srinivasan currently serves as Cotality’s Head of Research and Development. With over 20 years of experience in investing in, and fostering technology companies, Anand currently champions internal innovation at Cotality, shepherding new projects and revenue for the real estate analytics and data leader. Prior to joining Cotality in 2021, Anand was a global research coordinator, semiconductor sector head and senior technology analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, a unique research platform that provides context on industries, companies, and government policy. Anand’s research coordinated the work of the global Tech-Media-Telecom team of nearly 40 analysts and associates.