Realty AI study says Canadian homebuyers search with more urgency than expected

Realty AI says a national review of more than 5 million real estate interactions shows Canadian buyers are farther along in the purchase process than many brokerages assume. The report also found that conversational search behavior can signal market shifts weeks before sales data shows up.

Why it matters: - Realty AI’s findings suggest real estate websites may be misreading buyer intent, which can delay lead capture and miss high-intent shoppers. - The report points to conversational AI as both a conversion tool and an early market signal for brokerages, agents and teams across Canada.

What happened: - Realty AI released The State of Real Estate Conversations, a national study built from more than 5 million interactions and 31,000 structured conversations across 1,000+ Canadian cities. - The report says its data challenges common assumptions about how online buyers behave. - Realty AI says the full report is available at More information.

The details: - 36.6% of website users were just browsing, 40.5% were actively searching and 22.9% were ready to act. - Nearly two-thirds of visitors were already mid- to late-funnel when they began a conversation. - More than 72% of conversations referenced a specific location before any contact information was shared. - 38.8% cited an exact property address, 33.4% named a specific neighborhood and only 3.1% searched at a broad city or regional level. - Conversational AI led to a contact capture or meeting request in 74.2% of conversations. - 17.7% paused at the contact step but did not abandon the conversation. - 8.0% stayed in browse mode. - Only 0.1% abandoned the conversation entirely. - Among buyers already in the ready-to-act stage, the conversion rate was 85.3%. - Buyers with no near-term urgency still converted at 57.1%. - Inquiry behavior stayed nearly identical across budget segments from under $500,000 to $1.5 million and above. - Every segment led with property search, which accounted for 31% to 36% of conversations. - Pricing questions, property details and agent contact followed in roughly the same proportions. - Luxury buyers spent slightly more time on specific property details, at 22%, versus 18.6% for entry-level buyers.

Between the lines: - The report suggests consumers want detail-first search experiences before they are willing to share their name or fill out a form. - That pattern could weaken traditional lead-capture funnels built around early contact collection. - Realty AI compared urgency signals from its conversations with national transaction records from WOWA.ca and says the conversation data moved first. - Spikes in buyer urgency preceded increases in sale prices and transaction volumes by several weeks. - The spring Q2 urgency jump was up 10 percentage points from Q1 and lined up with a later rise in prices and deals. - Q4 immediate urgency peaked at 43.1%, before the year-end transaction rebound appeared in official records. - The national averages also hide clear regional differences in buyer behavior. - Saskatoon recorded the highest immediate-urgency rate at 52.6%. - Regina followed at 51.0%. - Toronto had more than 76% of inquiries in short- or near-term timelines, with only 18% in long-range planning. - Nova Scotia was the only market where land ranked as the second most searched property type, at 17.5%. - British Columbia was the only province where single-family homes and condos were nearly tied, at 34.5% and 32.1%.

What's next: - Realty AI says the annual report is based on anonymized conversations tagged through an AI framework covering buyer stage, urgency, inquiry topic, geography, budget, property type and outcome. - The company’s platform will likely keep feeding brokerages and agents with intent signals as buyers continue researching online before they reach out. - The report’s core implication is that firms tracking conversation data may spot demand shifts earlier than they can from sales reporting alone.