What’s one of the biggest problems that always seems to be an afterthought when it comes to building then releasing machine-learning (ML) models? From my perspective, it’s ensuring “validated” models continue to work as they should for an indeterminate amount of time after being deployed into production.  ML teams spend months validating data queries, building and evaluating modeling options, determining the optimal model to use in production, and building dashboards to monitor key metrics. Unfortunately, this same effort is usually not given to data and model monitoring. Shifts in data a ..read more

Photos are critical to the home-buying experience. Imagine doing a home search without them! How would you know if a home met your expectations if you couldn’t actually see what it looked like?  At the same time, descriptions contextualize what you see in a photo. It’s helpful to know whether a small room with shelves is a pantry or a walk-in closet or if the ceilings are as high as they appear in the photos. Is that gray countertop granite or quartz? Is the bathroom tile from Home Depot or Italy? These details matter. In the interest of making it as easy as possible for home buyers to fi ..read more

You may be familiar with Flutter, an open-source UI software development kit from Google that’s useful for developing cross-platform mobile apps from a single codebase for any web browser. It was released in May 2017, and we use it to develop many of the screens on our mobile app. While this solution worked well back then, today’s users expect more—more accessibility, more performance, more features, more animation, and more innovation.  To that end, about two years ago, we decided to invest heavily in a mobile-first approach to increase the growth and adoption of our mobile app. As we s ..read more

Searching for a home is often not a solo endeavor. Many people, including family, friends, and real estate agents, can be involved. Keeping everyone informed involves a lot of communication, and it’s common to share links to listings of homes and properties with others who are on the journey with you. At Realtor.com, we use a third-party SDK called AppsFlyer to generate deep links—hyperlinks that lead to specific content within our app, such as a home listing or saved search. AppsFlyer provides a convenient way to create short deep links that can be easily shared via messaging apps, email, an ..read more

For Marisa Parsons, developing her team is at the heart of her work at Realtor.com. “I’m passionate about helping our designers grow in their careers, and I’m excited to coach them and create opportunities for them to further their skills,” she says. “It’s our job to solve complex problems and deliver work with the highest level of craft. The best way for us to do that is to keep learning and growing.” Since joining Realtor.com, Marisa’s had the chance to grow in her own career. She started out as a Principal Service Designer, helping to evolve our lead forms experience into a service to conn ..read more

I am going to tell you a story. Yes, this is a technical blog post, but the origin story is often the most important thing to know when deciding whether or not to use technology. What drove the team to use a given piece of tech? What problem does it solve? Don’t worry; plenty of technical details will come, so lean back, get comfortable, and let the story begin! Once upon a time… The year was 2021, and the pandemic was in full swing. Many of us hadn’t left our homes in months, and heck…we might still have been washing our groceries down with Windex. It was against this backdrop that we starte ..read more

Imagine an image-based supplement to the traditional Realtor.com home search. Perhaps it’s bring-your-own-image to find a dream home. Or, maybe it’s an ability to find listings with similar images to the one you’re currently browsing. Either way, we would be leveraging one of our greatest resources in a way that no one else does while providing a new way for users to interact with our listings – one that makes finding that perfect home just a bit easier. Traditionally, to do this, we would leverage some computationally intensive deep-learning algorithm to compare image files, making assumption ..read more

Senior Director of Product Design, Joie Chung, is passionate about using design and technology to impact people’s lives. “I’m excited about the work we do to improve the home buying and selling process, increase home ownership, and help our customers grow their business and better support their clients,” she says.  While in college, Joie realized she was drawn to design work more than coding, so she switched her major from Web Development to Graphic Design. This change set the stage for the rest of her career. “Learning visual communication was a great foundation for me in UX and Product ..read more

Lead Product Manager Sara Brinton was a graduate student at Brown University studying some of the biggest challenges facing the real estate industry when she joined Realtor.com. “I was excited to leverage my expertise in fair housing and climate change to make real estate more equitable and sustainable,” says Sara.  Sara adds that she’s “passionate about the intersection of impact and innovation,” and it’s at this nexus where she makes a difference through her work. Starting as the Product Leader for Maps and Neighborhoods, Sara’s responsibility recently expanded to include our Search Ex ..read more

Lorena Villa Parkman, Lead Content Designer and Strategist, has spent her entire career hunting for just the right words to help a user understand an idea. She’s passionate about designing inclusive digital experiences and helping guide writers to grow and bring their words to life. Over her 14-year career working with print and digital products, Lorena has written everything from error messages to magazine cover stories, coordinated the publication of content for websites, performed site audits, launched a chatbot, and taught Language Studies at a university level. We recently sat down with ..read more