Well friends, here's a fun paradox to chew on this Friday morning: 75% of homebuyers now assume AI is baked into the buying process — but the percentage who actually trust it to help find a home just fell off a cliff. Cotality dropped a massive international survey yesterday that paints a picture of a consumer who expects AI everywhere but wants a human standing behind it. Meanwhile, Houston's MLS just opened its proprietary data to an AI-ready platform, and foreclosures are climbing at the fastest pace in years. Plenty to unpack. Let's dig in.
1. 75% of Buyers Expect AI in the Process — But Trust Just Fell 14 Points
Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) released its 2026 "From House to Home" survey yesterday, and the numbers tell a story the industry needs to hear. Three-quarters of homebuyers now assume AI is already embedded in the housing ecosystem — in property search, mortgage prequalification, insurance quotes, and valuations. That's not surprising. What is surprising: trust in AI to help find a home dropped from 30% in 2025 to just 16% in 2026. That's a 14-point decline in one year.
The survey found that 55% of U.S. buyers prefer working with a human to secure a mortgage, up nine points from last year. Two-thirds would rely on a human over AI for legal assistance. And 44% said they'd pay an additional fee to have a human verify AI-generated housing decisions. Buyers aren't rejecting AI — they're demanding guardrails. 68% say clear AI labeling for listings and mortgage recommendations is important or essential, with 37% saying it should be mandatory (rising to 61% among Baby Boomers). The generational split is notable: 50% of Gen Z say AI would increase their confidence in buying a home, compared to just 21% of Boomers. But even younger buyers want verification — they're just less likely to demand it through legislation.
Why It Matters: This is the most important consumer sentiment data on AI in real estate so far this year. The headline isn't "buyers hate AI" — it's "buyers have passed the novelty phase and are now demanding accountability." That's a crucial distinction. For agents and lenders, this data is basically a roadmap for how to position yourself: lead with AI-powered efficiency (speed, data, precision), but wrap it in human accountability (your license, your judgment, your skin in the game). The agents who say "I use AI to work smarter and I stand behind every recommendation" are going to crush it. The ones who hide behind AI outputs without adding judgment will lose to the growing trust deficit. Also worth noting: buyer confidence in the homebuying process dropped from 83% to 72%, and the share actively saving for a home fell from 75% to 69%. The economic anxiety backdrop makes the trust question even more loaded.
2. Houston's MLS Opens Its Data to an AI-Ready Platform — and Other MLSs Should Watch
HAR.com, the Houston Association of Realtors' MLS, just announced that real estate data company Repliers is now its exclusive platform for on-demand delivery of MLS and proprietary data. The deal means HAR subscribers and vendors will get real-time MLS data through Repliers' API — but what makes this interesting is that HAR is also opening three proprietary datasets: page view and lead stats, consumer experience ratings on agent performance, and showing activity data from its ShowingSmart consumer portal.
Repliers CEO Rhett Damon framed the move in explicitly AI-forward terms, saying that shared infrastructure combined with AI "will empower a new generation of brokers, agents and vendors to innovate in ways we've never seen before." The practical implication: developers and proptech companies can now build AI-powered tools on top of HAR's data — from predictive analytics to lead scoring to consumer-facing search tools — using real-time, verified MLS data instead of scraped or delayed information.
Why It Matters: This is a quiet but significant infrastructure play. The AI tools agents use are only as good as the data feeding them — and right now, a lot of AI in real estate runs on data that's stale, incomplete, or scraped without permission. HAR is taking a different approach by making high-quality, real-time MLS data available through a purpose-built API, essentially laying the plumbing for whatever AI tools come next. If other major MLSs follow Houston's lead, the quality of AI-powered tools across the industry gets a massive upgrade. For agents in HAR's market, this means better tools, faster insights, and a competitive edge that comes from data quality, not just data quantity. For MLSs elsewhere: this is the model to watch.
3. Foreclosure Activity Jumps 26% Year-Over-Year — a Signal Worth Watching
ATTOM released its Q1 2026 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report yesterday, showing 118,727 properties with a foreclosure filing in the first quarter — up 6% from Q4 2025 and up 26% from a year ago. Bank repossessions (REOs) posted a 45% annual gain. March alone saw 30,334 foreclosure starts, up 21% year-over-year, and 5,229 completed foreclosures, up 42% from December.
The numbers are still well below historical peaks, but the trajectory is unmistakable. Florida leads the way, with Lakeland (1 in 409 housing units), Punta Gorda, Jacksonville, and Orlando all landing in the top 20 worst metro foreclosure rates. Colorado posted the steepest jump in REOs, rising from 99 in Q1 2025 to 321 in Q1 2026. ATTOM CEO Rob Barber noted that the sustained rise in starts and bank repossessions "suggests financial pressure may be building for some homeowners and could signal shifting housing market dynamics."
Why It Matters: This isn't an AI story on the surface — but connect it to the Cotality survey at the top of this issue and the picture gets clearer. Buyer confidence is dropping. The share of people actively saving to buy is shrinking. And now foreclosure activity is climbing at the fastest pace in years. When you layer in the AI-driven job cut data from a couple weeks ago (25% of March layoffs attributed to AI), you start to see a macro environment where economic anxiety — some of it AI-driven — is rippling into housing. For agents, this means two things: first, more distressed inventory could be coming to market in specific metros, especially Florida. Second, the buyers who are still in the market are more cautious, more skeptical, and more likely to want a human professional they can trust. Sound familiar?
That's a wrap for this week, folks. The theme is trust — who has it, who's losing it, and how to earn it in a world where AI is everywhere but accountability isn't. Buyers expect AI. They don't trust it yet. And the agents and lenders who figure out how to bridge that gap are going to own the next cycle. Have a great weekend, and I'll see y'all Tuesday.