Chris Rediger: How a Google real estate pilot went from a softball field chat to nationwide

Last month, Google made some waves announcing that it was taking its real estate listing pilot program nationwide. While the nationwide expansion of the program, which is powered by a partnership with HouseCanary, is a new endeavor, the idea for listing advertisements to appear in Google search results began on a softball field roughly three years ago. 

“One of our engineers in San Francisco was playing in an after-work softball league and there were a few people from Google in the league. They started chatting and that is literally how this all got started,” Chris Rediger, the CEO of HouseCanary, said. “So, what started as a fun conversation at an intramural sports thing, manifested itself into something much bigger.” 

From the field to the boardroom 

Initially, Rediger said the conversation was focused on helping Google better understand the real estate space. For years, the technology behemoth sold local services advertisement slots to real estate agents, allowing them to set up a business profile and gain reviews, but they realized that no one was searching for “real estate agents near me.”

“They had all of these agents with profiles and an appetite to buy advertisements, but no consumer demand and that is where we stepped in,” Rediger said. “We asked them what would happen if we switched things around and provided some real content that related to what the user was searching for and take advantage of the created geographic proximity.” 

What resulted is a search experience that allows for users to search for homes for sale in a geographic area, that also allows them to see both the listing agents and other agents that serve the local area.

In order to fuel this search experience, Google needed listings to populate the search results, which is where HouseCanary realized it could come in. 

While HouseCanary had access to listing feeds via IDX and VOW agreements with roughly 300 MLSs nationwide, according to Rediger, HouseCanary was unsure if the Google partnership fell within the scope of its IDX agreements. An initial verbal “ok” from some MLSs prompted Google and HouseCanary to launch the initial pilot program in December 2025, but after a few weeks, some of the MLSs began expressing concerns, prompting Google to remove the listings from search results for a time.

“We made sure on the second initial pilot that we signed agreements with MLSs regarding the feeds and how we were using them,” Rediger said.

Taking on the nation

HouseCanary and Google currently have agreements with California Regional MLS, San Diego MLS and national MLS MyState MLS, but Rediger said listings from REcolorado would be making their into search results in the coming weeks as they have just finished organizing an agreement with the Denver-based MLS. 

“Doing it this way does mean we have a long road ahead, but we are open and would like to talk with every MLS because we want to have every listing in the U.S.,” Rediger said. 

However, with the number of legal agreements and contracts needed, Rediger said he has no idea of what the timeline to achieving this goal will look like. For national or even large regional brokerages that span multiple MLSs that want all of their listings available for potential display on Google, Rediger said they can join MyState MLS, but he noted that HouseCanary really does want to engage with all MLSs.

“Our position is that we want to stay out of any battles in the MLS space. We are happy to work with any MLS that wants to talk with us,” Rediger said. 

Still a pilot program

Although the program is now national, Rediger stressed that it is still a pilot program and that they are continuing to test and change things based on user feedback and behavior. While he acknowledged that Google is known for killing off pilot programs that are unsuccessful and is aware that is a potential outcome for this program, he is still hopeful.

“It is going really well, and I think it is going to be here to stay,” Rediger said. “We will see if I am proven right, but I’m hopeful.” 

It is no secret that Google previously attempted to enter into the real estate space only to back out, but Rediger noted that the environment and technology of today are very different from what existed the last time Google made a real estate play. 

“I find this industry [has] a really long memory, but if you compare things that are happening today from a digital perspective to the last time Google tried something like this, a lot has changed. So, it’s like this fun trope to just assume that this won’t work,” Rediger said. “Just because it hasn’t worked in the past doesn’t mean this new experiment will fail.” 

Embracing the moment

For right now, Rediger is focused on trying to make the pilot successful and also soak up as much of the experience of working with a firm as large as Google as he can.

“They are pretty fun to work with, and they are, of course, very good at what they do. They have some of the trappings of a big company where different divisions have to talk to each other for something to happen, but it has been really cool to watch them step into this space with different ideas and perspectives,” Rediger said.  

Even if this pilot program doesn’t progress further, Rediger said he hopes to continue to find ways to eliminate friction in the homebuying and selling process for both agents and consumers. 

“The real bigger picture thing is doing things that are good for the consumers and good for the agent,” Rediger said,