Real Estate & Why Sunlight Matters in Property Search

In this episode of Sunlight Matters, Dave is joined by product leader Dave Masters, former product executive at Realtor.com, to explore the future of real estate search, consumer behavior, and why sunlight data could become an essential part of buying a home.

From AI-powered property discovery to the overlooked importance of natural light, shade, and home orientation, this conversation dives into how technology is reshaping the way we search for homes — and what’s still missing.

Dave Masters also shares the story behind Tiny Pauses, a mindfulness app he’s building with his son to help children regulate emotions through short moments of reflection.

In this episode, we cover:

☀️ Why sunlight matters in home buying

• How sunlight influences wellbeing, comfort, and the lived experience of a home
• The hidden reality of seasonal light exposure and why many buyers overlook it
• Why “sunny” means different things in different climates — from the UK to Phoenix, Arizona
• How sunlight affects energy bills, cooling costs, and daily living patterns

🏡 The evolution of real estate search

• Dave Masters’ experience leading product teams at Realtor.com
• How property platforms have evolved beyond simple filters
• Why too much choice can overwhelm buyers
• The balance between useful data and decision fatigue in home search experiences

🤖 AI and the future of property platforms

• The shift from traditional search filters to conversational AI
• Why future home search may feel more like speaking to an expert
• How richer property data creates better recommendations
• The growing role of personalization in real estate experiences

📍 The overlooked data buyers really need

• Cell phone coverage, neighborhood amenities, walkability, and sunlight
• Why “lived experience” signals matter more than ever
• Lessons from the success of Walk Score and how simple scoring systems help buyers make decisions
• Why SunScore could become a meaningful signal for serious homebuyers

🌱 Building products that matter

• The story behind Tiny Pauses, Dave Masters’ mindfulness app for children
• Designing technology that supports emotional regulation instead of more screen dependence
• What it means to build products that genuinely improve people’s lives

Key Takeaways

“You live it and you learn it — but can we bring those learn-it experiences earlier into the search process?” — Dave Masters

This episode highlights a powerful idea: the best property technology helps people understand not just the house itself, but what life in that house will actually feel like.

Whether it’s sunlight, walkability, or neighborhood fit, the future of real estate search is becoming more human, more personal, and far more intelligent.

About Dave Masters

Dave Masters is a long-time product leader with deep experience in real estate and consumer technology, including senior product work at Realtor.com. Today, he consults with real estate businesses and builds new products, including Tiny Pauses, a mindfulness app for kids developed alongside his son.

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe. 

Transcript

dave masters (00:00)
I worked in rental search for a large portion of my product career. just because you can give them more things to filter on doesn't mean that you should. you're really limiting the choice. And the fact is is like those features aren't all weighted the same, right?

It's like budget matters. location matters. Those things will never not matter more than any other factor,

But the second that you start adding more of those things, it's like the wish list becomes bigger, your property set becomes more narrow, now you've sort of maybe lost a lot of properties that you might have considered along the way.

even the the position of the house, how the sun hits the house matters a lot. if you think about a place like you know Phoenix, which is where I'm from, like every everywhere that that sun hits inside your house is gonna have cost your air conditioning,

nobody had ever really considered that. even when you tour the house, you actually don't really consider that. then it's like you start to live there and you're like, holy shit, this house is really hot in that in that room today.

But can you take those learned experiences and bring it into the earlier part of the searching process? And I think that becomes really

Dave (01:22)
Dave, welcome to Sunlight Matters. I'm really, really delighted to have another Dave on the podcast. There's not enough of us, I find.

dave masters (01:32)
Well th this podcast

is one hundred percent Dave's. ⁓ so ⁓ you know, 2X the normal Dave capacity for your podcast, so

Dave (01:36)
Absolutely.

So I wonder if you could just start by giving us a brief introduction to yourself, ⁓ and what you do and what you've done in your past.

dave masters (01:51)
Yeah. ⁓ okay, so so I'm Dave Masters. I've I've been a product person for a long time. so long I'm not gonna say how long because it makes me feel old when I use those numbers out loud. ⁓ but yeah, I've I've worked for ⁓ you know mostly property and real estate related ⁓ you know ⁓ experiences, primarily at realtor.com, which is one of the you know ⁓ biggest platforms here in the United States.

for real estate. ⁓ now I'm kind of doing my own thing. I've ⁓ I'm consulting and ⁓ have like ⁓ my own sort of ⁓ product practice where I'm going into you know, I'm working with one particular customer right now that's been awesome. It's in ⁓ it's also in real estate, but totally different than ⁓ you know what we were doing at Realtor. So it's it's a nice fun change and with a great team. So ⁓ yeah that's a and building my own stuff, my own products which has been really

Dave (02:49)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I mean and I I'd I'd love you just to mention the the the app that you've developed as well, 'cause I think it's awesome.

dave masters (02:56)
Yeah, so so me and me and my had this idea with with my son about how to help kids regulate their own sort of like, you know, bring it their own mindfulness moments. And it's hard to to sort of sit exp set the expectation that they could spend twenty minutes to do like a full cycle meditation or something. And so had this thing, this idea that we call tiny pauses, which is effectively, you know, a mindfulness app.

aimed for kids. So, you know, like something that he could just quickly take a take a you know a quick moment to reflect. there's a few different categories to, you know, sort of help target specific things that they might want to focus on for for ⁓ calming themselves. So that's been fun. I also just we actually just this weekend we started to think about how we would take that into a classroom setting and so

He gave me some great ideas about that. ⁓ and yeah, so he's I guess he's my co founder now. and ⁓ yeah. So

Dave (03:54)
I love that. I love that. I

look, I think it's a it's such a it's such an interesting idea and I guess you know, I mean we'll talk a bit about the sun and you know, getting people outdoors and the importance of what I think we're trying to do with Shadowmap, but you know, kids are sort of faced with so much in terms of growing up. So anything that can kinda help just

We we're sort of slowing the world down for them, I think, is is an incredible thing to do.

dave masters (04:24)
It yeah. And you know, it's it's actually it's a ⁓ I've never focused on a product for kids. And so so like, you know, there's a lot of thoughts that I've had to really kind of think about like why would I put an another thing in front of their face on a screen? ⁓ right? It's like isn't like parents want their kids to have less screen time and then here's a thing that sort of lives on a screen. So how do you sort of combat that and what is the the ways to to ⁓ you know

move beyond that. So so I've been thinking a lot about those things, just sort of in passing, like, all right, what is the what is the analog version of this? And so we've we've put some thoughts around even that. ⁓ but yeah it's been it's been fun to just kind of think completely abstract from any of my previous experience, but also like put in the fact that I've done consumer facing products for a long time. And you know it's domain is different, but the process is the same. Find the problem, think about the solution. Is it

delivering the the behavior change that you had hoped or not, right? And so that's how I've gone about it.

Dave (05:24)
Fantastic. Well listen, we met because I think it was cold outreach. ⁓ you know, who says cold outreach doesn't work in this day and age? But I think it was I think I got you on a day where you must have been ⁓ looking at your phone just at the right moment and I pinged in with y you know, just mentioning about Shadowmap and what we were trying to do, and I think it was it caught your attention, which ⁓

dave masters (05:33)
Ha ha

Dave (05:51)
And y you know, we we then started chatting and I think, you know, one of the things that's been fantastic for me i is really your help around demystifying what's going on from a real estate perspective in in the US. And I I just wondered if we could kind of start with your thoughts around what's going on from the property platform's perspective in the US. And and you know, then maybe move into where you think

a ⁓ a product like Shadowmap and Sunscore, which we've just launched with Redfin, really d does sort of fit into that.

dave masters (06:28)
Yeah. ⁓ so so let me like the lens I'll probably take here, Dave, is primarily just thinking about the kind of consumer facing side of the experience, right? So like ⁓ I actually think it's a very exciting time in real estate search because you know, things that you couldn't do before tools are now able to do, right? So it's like you're you're thinking about things like ⁓ you know.

Dave (06:38)
Okay.

dave masters (06:56)
How would you you wouldn't necessarily ask a realtor to you know search by this zip code and give me these bed and baths? It's like you just want to talk like a normal human. Now there's AI interface chat to be able to search for that stuff. And so it's like little things like that that start to really get into ⁓ you know rethinking and reshaping the way that this had been done for so long, you know, right or wrong, but like the the the the the digital version of what was ⁓

you know, sort of a very simple and mechanical way to sort of find properties that got better and better. It's like, I can draw around the map, or I can filter by more filters now because we have more data sets. It's like those are all useful things and like I I don't think there's ⁓ you know, that's been the model that's been used for quite some time. But now it's like the capabilities have expanded and the the imagination is gonna get even greater and more wild and

and so so I think that it's gonna continue to evolve and get even just more sophisticated. Like we you know, we had done ⁓ at Realtor we had done a partnership on the homeowner side with a ⁓ with a company where it's like you you know, you could take a photo of the property and you could kind of see what a renovation might look like. So it's company called Hover. And they you know, it's like they do that for home builders. So we're when the home didn't exist, it's like you can kind of imagine what these rooms would look like, but

There's no reason why you can't do that in in today's world with dimensions awareness through an iPhone and being able to sort of say, here's what this would look like if you did X, Y, and Z. It's like those things weren't as possible five years ago, right? And now it's like, okay, now we're just starting to unlock a lot of this. So I think it's gonna be a really fun and ⁓ in a in a really cool time for property search.

Dave (08:44)
I don't I mean I it is interesting to sort of see as as sort of new features are rolled out. I mean I guess that the the the the the platforms are having to be really considered about not o overwhelming users as well. So I mean I guess there's a balance to be had in terms of value. And you know, I I can just imagine a situation where you end up with something which just confuses the hell out of the customer and actually

You you know, trying to find a house to buy or rent is or trying to sell a house is a very sort of task driven thing, isn't it?

dave masters (09:21)
Yeah, you know, so I worked in I worked in rental search for for a large portion of my like ⁓ product career. And you know, one of the things that was was fascinating, right? It's like just because you can give them more things to filter on doesn't mean that you should. and the reason why is because you start to to notice that, you know, you're really limiting the choice. And the fact is is like those features aren't all weighted the same, right? It's like will I

If if a pr if a apartment community doesn't have a gym, does that mean I'm not gonna move in there? ⁓ right? Or is it like but it's like you start to filter out those results, right? Like thinking it's truly one-to-one. It's like budget matters. location matters. Those things will never not matter more than any other f ⁓ factor, right? but then the other things that you start to do start to like all have different weights and they all f here's a whole slew of nice-to-haves. It'd be great if my apartment had

This, this, this, and this. But the second that you start adding more of those things, it's like the wish list becomes bigger, your property set becomes more narrow, and now all of a sudden it's like the the the hit list starts to take on a different meaning because now you've sort of maybe lost a lot of properties that you might have considered along the way. Right. And so ⁓ so we would do things like, okay, well what are what are the things that people are actually make or break? Well, it's it's in Phoenix, you your place better have air conditioning.

Air conditioner, number one. I don't want to have to go to a laundromat to d to do laundry. So like laundry was the other big one, right? So it's like, all right, look, we could have all these other filters and the ability to do it, but let's let's make those really not the centerpiece and say we understand that if you have a pet, you can't move into a non friendly, ⁓ not pet friendly place. So it's a make or break decision for you. That has to be a filter that's included.

So you know I mean? It's like you just you start to you start to to recognize all these patterns about like just because you can do more doesn't mean that you would actually want to to to do more because it does exactly what you said. It's starts to become create confusion and it starts to become a little overwhelming and giving too much choice into ⁓ to ⁓ all of the options and ⁓ you know, that's not how you would talk with a real estate agent about it, right? Your real estate agent would like, Hey look, here's the things I would love. Has to be roughly within these dollar figures and

I'd love it to be in this general area so that it could be part of the school district for my soon-to-be elementary student. But damn near everything else is like, you know, like you would just talk about like, hey, I got this place, it's great. It doesn't have this, but like, you know, it's got matches everything else, right? So you're having this kind of two way dialogue with someone. It's not a binary black or white. There's a lot of gray in in things. And I think that that has been sort of even further exasperated with like, you know, limited inventory and other things, right? So it's like,

really gotta be thoughtful about ⁓ what your options are because you're you're gonna have to be a little bit more open than what you ⁓ than than your dream place is always being like the thing, right? So

Dave (12:23)
No, it's I I th I think it's really interesting. I mean it but on the on the other side then, you know, you talk about moving into a conversational world where we're now able to instead of interrogating data, where the data is brought to us based on the prompt. So it's basically, you know, what's in your head you can ask for and in theory what you get back is is is that. And does that mean

actually more granularity on data is is a necessity. So y you know, this this whole move away from kind of I don't know, scroll based interfaces to conversational interfaces kind of changes the dial a bit around some of these things, doesn't

dave masters (13:05)
It does. Yeah, like you know, in ⁓

So and like look, I would say that ⁓ while I did it a long time, you know, thinking about real estate property, there's ⁓ there's a lot of considerations that sort of like, you know, the of things that you have to weigh off or way way way on. ⁓ and I probably had always had specific things that when looking at the consumer side of it, like what what they really care about, etc. But there's the whole dynamic about like, look, you're a real estate professional.

You haven't like you have access to a lot of the data, but that doesn't mean you've viewed every house that's existed, right? So it's like so if so if my step is my first step is, ⁓ you know, hey, I like these three houses. What can you tell me about it when I can connect with you as a real estate agent? It's like I can't tell you anything maybe more than what you already see because it's like that data is now available to you. And so ⁓ so so the data richness side of this, right? Now all of a sudden has this like ⁓ the conversation

can't be any sharper than what a real estate agent could give you because it's like they have the same information that they're working with. ⁓ so yeah, so I don't like you know, I think the ⁓ the the richness of the data and the sort of like how we start to ⁓ fill it with even more insights and more needs like I don't know there's many different ways that I could imagine sort of like aggregating new and interesting insights

Dave (14:12)
Right.

dave masters (14:38)
that ⁓ could power both make the agent ⁓ even more aware and have the real world conversations continue to get sharper. But then also on the digital way, sort of like really being able to kind of help filter out the things that matter most in a kind of a digital version of the analog I think would be ⁓ will continue to get richer too as that data sets ⁓ continue to to improve. Does that answer your question? Is that kind of sort

Dave (15:03)
Yeah, no, it

does it really does. It really does. I think is it's ⁓ you know, there's a balance. I think that balance is is there's a change which is happening. So how information gets presented will change, but the fundamentals are still the same. You know, you still want the same things out of the house. And ⁓ y you know, one of the things I want is a sunny house. So you can just about see my house in the background.

dave masters (15:23)
Yeah.

Dave (15:33)
you know, it it was really interesting. So when when I the reason I got involved with Shadowmap was actually 'cause I was a bit frustrated with my house being a bit dark in in winter and ⁓ you know it just was a problem that I had sort of bouncing around my head and I was wondering if I would have brought this house, if I'd been able to see the house in winter, and that's that sort of like was a problem. ⁓

And you know, then I found Shadowmap and then I was able to map it. And long story short is I've now realized that my house is brilliant because it gets full on morning light. And actually that's the most important thing for me. so you know, I've re reconnected with my house through through Shadowmap. but it was interesting to me that there wasn't you know, beyond the estate agent and what the estate agent tells you, and I would always ask about like

How sunny is this? And you get an answer. There wasn't anything that you could turn to in order to ⁓ in order to kind of look at sunlight. And that that really seemed like a gap to me. And I spoke to quite a few friends and people, and lots of people said, Yeah, no, sun sunlight, daylight, these are really important considerations for buying a house. I and you you know, a friend of mine said, Well, look, you know, I guess if you wanted to really

understand what's going on for a a house before you buy it. You could buy a caravan and sit in someone's garden and watch it over twelve months. And I was like, well that's a bit extreme. But if you want to really understand it, that's was until sort of I found Shadowmap the the the best possible solution. So I just wondered sort of based on the experience you've had, what you you kind of think about sort of sunlight and its importance to the home buying

dave masters (17:24)
Yeah, like

you know, and it's it's it's funny because ⁓ there before I started thinking about s son and before this conversation, like when when you and I first started talking ⁓ about you know this there's other anal there's other sort of like ⁓

similar things that you don't consider maybe because it's like, I'm just, you know, again, I'm looking at price and location and the core things and like c will this layout work for me? It's like those are all those are all very important things, but also little things like, I don't know, will your cell phone work in in the house? The you know, I only know that now that it the coverage in my house absolutely sucks because

Dave (18:01)
Yeah.

dave masters (18:08)
I use my cell phone here and I'm like, okay, well only this two pockets in my entire house actually work for for for cell phone service here. So it's like even that, like how how do you bring that to the masses? How do you sh tell people that like your Verizon coverage is pretty good, your AT&T coverage is not that good here? ⁓

Those are those are useful things that are very practical to what people would need. Or what are the food delivery options here? if I lived two blocks over, I'd get the great Indian food. But like this place, you don't get the Indian spot. You you only get, you know, the the Burger King delivery, right? And so So it's like those even just knowing those things, those are like the those are the real world, like you are living in the place. very practical and re realistic ⁓ things that you are gonna deal with.

On a daily, weekly basis. And the sun is the same way, right? Like the sun is every morning when you know, thinking about the where the windows face in our house, like we have we have windows that face the north and the south, and the sun comes from the, you know. So there's never a point in the day where it's like the sun is beaming in directly into our windows, which is great, right? Because like I just get like a sort of a natural ⁓

you know, sort of view all day, every day. But there are other people who maybe want different things. And so it's like even the the position of the house, how the sun hits the house matters a lot. Like you can imagine a place in, you know, again, if you think about a place like ⁓ you know Phoenix, which is where I'm from, like every everywhere that that sun hits inside your house is gonna have cost and it's gonna have right your air conditioning, you that this room is gonna be the hottest in the afternoon because the sun directly s sits over that.

So so it's like it matters a lot in those places. I can just you know, but it's like nobody had ever really ⁓ considered that. You only in in fact even when you tour the house, you actually don't really consider that. You just like you're going, yep, lay out the whatever, then it's like you start to live there and you're like, holy shit, this house is really hot in that in that room today. So how do you how do you think through ⁓ you know those those particular things? And I I think that's the type of stuff that you know you you you live it.

And you learn it. But can you take those learned experiences and bring it into the earlier part of the searching process? And I think that becomes really compelling. And I think that happens for ⁓ for a variety of things, Sun being one of them, as well as cell service and the other things that are just part of your kind of like day to day life.

David James Vaughan Wallace (20:44)


Dave (21:06)
No, fascinating. that what you say about mobile phone, there's a business idea for somebody straight straight there. So maybe you and your son should think about that, you know. Mobile phone score. So no, it's it's really I mean, just you you talk about Phoenix. I mean, one of the things that's fascinating to me is we can look at data in terms of usage. When it gets hotter in Spain

dave masters (21:12)
Yeah.

Dave (21:33)
Our usage goes up. I mean Spain's one of our biggest markets, for instance. And I'm pretty sure it's to do with people trying to find shade, not sun, you know. And and it it's fascinating to me how like y what it it it's almost like ⁓ an unknown it's an unknown known sunlight. Like we all conceptually understand that it's well

dave masters (21:42)
Yeah.

Dave (21:59)
Many of us conceptually understand it's important to us, but we haven't been able to there hasn't been a language, a way of articulating it. And it's sort of giving voice to that unmet need, I think, has be i you know, it's one of the things I actually love. You know, and then really think about well, how do you kind of simplify that down into something that y you know, people can kind of get a snapshot and then if they want, they can go into more detail. I mean that whole process

For me has been is been just incredible, to be honest with you.

dave masters (22:32)
Yeah, you know, and like, you know, it's it's it's ⁓ it's interesting because it is like a you know, if I were to if I were to think about how that kind of translates into a housing experience, it's like there there's a score about how sunny this place is. And that matters a lot for you know, like I'm in the northeast, it's like you know, in the wintertime, the there's only so much sunlight in the wintertime, right? But but like you know, in in in those days those are

those moments are a little bit more meaningful. But it's like if you live in Los Angeles or if you live in Phoenix where it's like, you know, maybe the the the difference is you're looking for a place with less sun. Right. And so so so so it's like it's it's the needs, you know, again, it's like if if if you were to talk if you were to talk with your real estate agent about this. And I think that this is, you know, ⁓ I still think r real estate professionals, you know, have have really hard jobs 'cause they're trying to sort of balance all the needs of people. And I think anything that we you could do to sort of, you know,

Dave (23:11)
Yeah.

dave masters (23:30)
help them be even more effective at finding the right places for people, ⁓ I think is is really is really pretty powerful. But ⁓ but that's a conversation you might have, right? Like so so if you were to think about ⁓ I live in Phoenix, I want a place that's shady. I I know that that's gonna mean my air conditioning bills are a little lower. I know it's gonna be this. So this so like you know if I think about what sun means to me, it's less about how sunny it is and more about how shady it is.

But that's what I care about, right? And and so like versus like a place like you know, where you are in the UK, it's like I no, I want more sun because I feel like I'll take every every ounce of the little bit that we get and maximize it for me. So I care a lot about that. So it's like, where's the place that I can get that is the most sunny house on the block? and you know, and it's like if you can arm that but that would be the conversation that you would have potentially with a real estate professional or

Dave (24:09)
Shit.

dave masters (24:27)
Like if it's not getting brought up, it's like that would be the conversation that a real estate agent could have with somebody if they knew that sort of thing. House, super shady, quiet, great for great for for Phoenix for people who want to get away from the sun. Or the people who are like, no, I'm a maniac. I want to live in the pool all the time. I don't want it to be shady. So don't give me any shade. Right. Like those are that's a that's an alternative, but it's like

In the same market you could see how people would value things differently just based off of lifestyle. And so, you know, you could you could just imagine how you could kinda toggle that between a a variety of of of ways based on again what the person is looking for and what what matters to them.

Dave (25:08)
I l I think it's sort of really interesting that notion of arming the real estate agents with this knowledge as well. So, you know, they're able to talk ⁓ in a very articulate way about what's going on.

Rather than just making it up, which I think, you know, when I've talked to people before about it, you've kind of yeah, I think the sun comes up over there type thing. But y you know, I know from my I I know from watching the sun move across the sky throughout the year that the sun's movements are very, very, very dramatically different, you know, so where we are in the i i in the UK. It sort of swings around quite a lot.

dave masters (25:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dave (25:49)
So, you know, it's it that's really, really interesting. ⁓ I mean one of the things that I mean you kind of allude to it, which I think is fascinating as well, is you can almost imagine home builders starting to think about well how how how would I target a a y ⁓ a a a kind of a home bar with

the knowledge that A this could be a sunny house or that you know if you're in Phoenix a shady house. We know through sort of positioning and, you know, clever use of windows and that you can have a dramatic impact on energy bills and things like energy bills are something that we'll all be I think the world is worrying about, isn't it? So y you you you know, you can almost see that from the architectural drawing drawings forward this becomes quite an important metric as well.

dave masters (26:33)
Mm.

Yeah. I I mean, you know, and and again I I think it's it's

And the more I think you arm the people who are actually like on the the field servicing this stuff, the more that those conversations become more in tune to to having thoughtful discussion. Like like I ⁓ you know, and and probably it it is it is funny that I probably default to the Phoenix example because it's the sunniest place I ever lived. ⁓ and ⁓ you know, and sort of probably has an interesting dynamic in the sense that it's like some people in the new home

community really want a shady place. Some people want this. So you arm the the builders with the the tools to be able to tell them which lot might be best for them or which you know what what fixtures we might add in order to kind of make this place more shady to to match their needs. Like ultimately gives them better fit, you know, solving the problems that I want and and hoping to make this like

a house for me and and I think with a a new build, for example, you really kinda get a little bit of flexibility. You maybe not get a flexibility for which direction the house is facing. plots are that but but like you might know like which one which plot would be the one that gets the most direct access for sun versus ones that are not. And I don't know that I think that's I think that's kinda ⁓ you know, again pretty compelling that that

Dave (27:51)
No, no, no.

dave masters (28:07)
you could arm people with the the ability to have that conversation. ⁓ and even home buyers and sh shoppers that just say, Yeah, this is something that I care about or ⁓ or not. And if I don't, it doesn't matter, right? So I so then I don't have to think about Sunscore just the same way. I don't need to think about schools if I'm not if I don't have school age child children, right? It's like a useful and helpful data point for for a s a large swath of people. And then there will be some people that it just Yeah.

Dave (28:36)
I I mean w one thing that that I mean the property portals are some of the most used digital assets on the planet, aren't they? I mean I I it's extraordinary to me how many people are on these platforms. Even people I mean, I think the majority of people are people not looking to buy houses as well. So

dave masters (28:48)
Yeah.

That's right.

Dave (29:03)
But you know, I guess what's interesting is then sort of ⁓ as time's gone on, you've got these features which have been added, like walk school, ⁓ you know, you can have a look at your local schools. Th there's that sort of sense of actually that buying a house now, you it's an entry point into understanding more about kind of what's going on in your potential n new community as well. And it it's sort of really interesting to me how important

the these platforms are to us. ⁓ you know, so I mean you you're a realtor.com, which I think is isn't that the second largest platform in in the US? I mean you must have had millions of millions of people looking at your site on a regular basis.

dave masters (29:51)
Every month, yeah. ⁓ you know, really like a a massive audience, right? And and so yeah, there's there's the people who are sort of, you know, ⁓ looking at their next house. There's the existing owners looking at and watching the market, also dreaming about what their next home might be. and you know, and there's just ⁓ yeah, there's there's a lot of different

user types that are all interested in different things, right? And so so it's like you you have to you have to really think about the needs of of each of them. And and something like a you know like a walk score, which was ⁓ I remember when that product first came out. I am old enough to remember when that product launched. ⁓ and it was, you know, it was it was really a a clever way to sort of say like

You know, how walkable is this area? How close is it to all the things that you might want to, you know, do for an area? And it was just, you know, in those early days of like

insights, it was really helping people who maybe didn't live in that exactly that area, right? It's like if you move 10 miles away in the city like or like New York, right? Ten miles is massive, a massive distance. and or if you were to move, you know, ten miles in Los Angeles, it's like, all right, well now I'm in a totally different neighborhood. I don't know all of the things that I don't know. ⁓ so how how dense is this for me to be able to walk to dinners or bars or to transit? That wasn't as available back then.

And ⁓ and so to be able to to put that into a simple score that people could sort of like go, how walkable is this place? Pretty walkable. ⁓ you know, that was easy to sort of grasp for people. ⁓ at least it was for me and on the surface, and it seemed like that was really landing with a lot of people. so yeah, I don't know. It's it's like I I I do think anything you could do to kind of like ⁓ help synthesize some of those stats to make it dead simple for people.

what does this mean? It's like I don't have to think about what it means. It's like I I get it. Suns like you know, like the the the thing with like Sun Score when we when we first started to talk about that, it was like Sun score. I know what that means instantly. It means, you know, Sun Score. Hi. All right, this place gets a lot of sun, I think. You know, it's like it's it's like it's very it's very intuitive and simple. And so so those types of things I think make the the ⁓ you're you're

Positioning a lot of different data to people, right? And so so it's like how much it costs, what the pictures look like, what this is, what that is, and so so all of the other kind of like feature sets, all super useful for the serious buyer. Cause they're gonna look they're gonna comb through all the details. ⁓ but the majority of people aren't, right? And so so it's like they're they're gonna look for photos, they're gonna look at price, they're gonna maybe see what the neighborhood has has some some details about it and

So things like a a walk score, which is kind of summarize, this place is super walkable. ⁓ or you're looking at your existing home and you just say, All right, well, here my home value says this, this house house is for sale, and that that house is more walkable than mine, it's closer to the train station than mine, it has a better sun score than mine. So so my mine being a little lower starts to tell a picture about, you know, that sort of thing. ⁓ so yeah, I think you know, it's like any way to kind of help distill the the

dense and rich information that exists for properties into ways that are kind of dead simple for people, I think is ⁓ you know, ⁓ has very positive effects. ⁓

Dave (33:21)
No,

it's i interest what I mean one question I had which is it's based on some ⁓ some information we had from one of our customers shows that for for for ⁓ it's sun profiling, they don't actually have sun score, but for sun profiling the more they're the closer they are to choosing a home, you know, the further they are down the consideration funnel.

the more they're likely to use the functionality or the more they use the functionality. So we see a lot of repeat visits on the functionality. And I just wondered if there's sort of lo like when you when you were sort of thinking about that kind of consideration funnel, whether you sort of had a picture of, if they're gonna if they start y clicking on walk score or sun score, then we know that that's quite a good buying signal or anything.

dave masters (34:15)
Yeah, like you ⁓ so so the thing that we, you know, that that we would always look at, ⁓ you know, really sharp team, right? Then they would always be looking at like what what is so you know, if you have an audience of, you know, tens of millions of people every month looking at it and there's you know, I mean there's four and a half million home homes bought and sold each year. Like it's not a it's not right. So so it's like what are the majority of people

Dave (34:38)
Yeah, yeah.

dave masters (34:42)
look at and then what is the serious people look at? And so so you have to have paths kind of for both of them. And it needs to be easy enough to be able to kind of jump through it. But yeah, like, you know, is you start to see like people who who view a place more, peop people who dig through more of the details, people who spend more time on the page, like those start to become signals. I mean there's a there's probably quite a few th that are like, yep, this is a this is a sign that this person is probably more in you know, ⁓

than not now on like on the the renter side there's a lot more of those transactions and so so things like walk score at you know ⁓ on a renter's level I think is like very powerful because those are you know people don't look for rentals if they're not gonna rent whereas it's different for the home shopper side right it's like on the home shopper side the the ⁓ or people looking at real est property for sale they ⁓ you know the the the 20 30

40 million people who are sort of on the platform, it's like they all have different needs. They're all have different goals in mind. And versus a renter one where it's like, I I care a lot about this because I'm only gonna I'm gonna be in this place and I'm moving in two months and I want some place that's super walkable. ⁓ whereas those so the signals are a little ⁓ are a little less important, I think, on the renter side because it's like the fact that you're even there is pretty high intent as a renter. Whereas on the home, you know, if you're if you're looking at a a

Dave (36:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

dave masters (36:11)
property for sale, the majority of people aren't going to transact in the next twelve months who are looking. ⁓ but the people who do will look at more details.

Dave (36:22)
No, very, very interesting. Well, look, I I I I really appreciate you chatting to me. I think that's it's fascinating. I mean it's like the way the the real estate market works in the UK is very different from the US. So y you know, it's it's fascinating to kind of understand the dynamics, but the the principles are exactly the same. Like people just want somewhere great to a very sunny home normally, I should say, to live. and

But it y you know, we sort of feel like we've got what I think is an important little cog in the whole process. ⁓ and there's many more things that we want to kind of do with with Sunscore and

you know, more granularity that we want to be able to provide. But I think, you know, what we don't want to do is to end up in a position where we overwhelm people with too much data as well. So, you know, it's it it it's really, really interesting. So listen, I I do appreciate you joining me. ⁓ so thank you very much.

dave masters (37:25)
Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me on. Nice to nice to to see you again, Dave.

David James Vaughan Wallace (37:30)
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