Privacy Policy

This policy describes how Koti, Inc.("Koti," "we," "us") collects, uses, and shares information when you use kotisearch.com and related services. It is written to describe what Koti actually does today, not a generic template — if a practice described here ever changes, we'll update this page.

You can browse Koti without an account

Searching for homes, viewing listings, and browsing neighborhood pages never requires creating an account or giving us any personal information. Account creation, saved searches, email alerts, and any form that results in Koti or a Realtor contacting you are the only places we collect personal information, described below.

Age requirement

Koti is intended for adults 18 years of age or older. Creating an account, setting up an email alert, or submitting any contact or inquiry form requires confirming you are 18 or older — we record only that confirmation (a yes/no flag and the date/time you gave it), never your date of birth. Koti is a general-audience real estate search tool; it is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we will delete the account and associated personal information. If you believe a child has used Koti to submit personal information, please contact us using the information below.

Information we collect

• Account information. If you create an account (via Clerk, our authentication provider), we store your name, email address, and profile photo (if provided), along with onboarding preferences like budget and home-type preferences and your 18+ confirmation.
• Favorites and saved searches.Listings you save and searches you bookmark are stored in your browser; if you're signed in, favorites also sync to your account so they're available on other devices.
• Email alerts.If you ask Koti to email you about a search, we store the email address, the search criteria, your 18+ confirmation and its timestamp, and (for signed-in users) your account. Every alert email includes a one-click unsubscribe link that doesn't require signing in.
• Contact and inquiry forms.If you submit the contact form, ask Koti's partner Realtor to reach out about a listing ("schedule a showing"), or apply to partner with Koti as a Realtor, we store what you submitted (name, email or phone, and your message) along with your 18+ confirmation, so we can respond.
• Koti AI conversations.Chat conversations with Koti AI are stored in your browser only, not on Koti's servers. Your messages are sent to our AI provider to generate a response (see "Third-party services" below), but Koti does not keep a server-side transcript of your conversation.
• Usage analytics.We use Vercel Web Analytics, a cookieless analytics tool, to understand aggregate usage (for example, which features are used and how often). It does not collect your name, email, or other personal information, and doesn't use tracking cookies.
• Standard technical data. Like most websites, our hosting and security infrastructure logs technical data such as IP address, browser type, and pages requested, used for reliability, security, and abuse prevention (for example, slowing down automated spam on our contact and alert forms).

Cookies and local storage

Koti uses a session cookie from Clerk (our sign-in provider) to keep you signed in — this is strictly necessary for accounts to work. We also store some data directly in your browser's local storage (favorites, saved searches, and Koti AI chat history) so it's available across visits without needing an account. We don't use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

How we use your information

• To operate your account, favorites, and saved searches.
• To send listing-match emails you've specifically asked for — we never use your alert sign-up as permission to send unrelated marketing, and we never sell or rent your email address.
• To respond to messages you send through a contact, inquiry, or Realtor-partnership form.
• To maintain the security and reliability of the service.

Who we share information with

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only in these specific cases:

• Service providers who help us operate Koti under contract: Clerk (authentication), Neon (database hosting), Resend (sending alert and notification emails), Vercel (hosting), and our AI provider (to generate Koti AI responses and parse search queries). These providers only process data on our behalf.
• Koti's own partner Realtor.If you submit a "schedule a showing" inquiry or the general contact form, that message goes to Koti's team, which today is the same licensed Realtor who operates Koti. We do not currently distribute buyer contact information to other, third-party Realtors — if that ever changes, we will update this policy and ask for your clear, separate permission first.
• The "contact agent" button on a listing opens an email addressed directly from your own email app to that listing's MLS agent — Koti's servers never see or store that message.
• Legal reasons, if required to comply with a law, regulation, or valid legal process.

Your choices

• You can update or delete your account at any time, or contact us to request a copy, correction, or deletion of your personal information.
• Every alert email has a one-click unsubscribe link. You can also pause, reactivate, or delete an alert from the saved searches page while signed in.
• You can clear favorites, saved searches, and chat history at any time by clearing your browser's local storage, or by asking us to delete your account.

How long we keep information

We keep account information for as long as your account is active. Contact, Realtor-application, and buyer-inquiry submissions are kept long enough to respond and for our own business recordkeeping, and are deleted or anonymized when no longer needed. If you unsubscribe from or delete an alert, we keep a minimal record that you unsubscribed (so we don't accidentally re-add you) even after deleting the rest of that alert's data.

Children's privacy

Koti is not directed at children and is not intended for use by anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. A parent or guardian who believes their child has provided us personal information can contact us to have it removed.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, or requests to access, correct, or delete your information, can be sent through our contact page.