Real estate is entrepreneurial at its core. The people building in the space aren’t just waiting for change—they’re creating it. They are building a new generation of tools, from AI systems that function as digital teammates inside brokerages; consumer-facing platforms that help first-time buyers overcome down payment savings barriers; to infrastructure technology that gives MLSs greater control and visibility over their listing data like never before. These creators are launching companies, developing platforms, closing deals in new ways, and rethinking how the industry operates.
Each year, through the Innovator of the Year Awards, the National Association of REALTORS® Tech & Innovation team recognizes the people behind the progress that’s shaping the future of the industry. The 2026 Innovators of the Year are: Jerimiah Taylor, co-founder and chief executive officer of BrokerBot; Landy Liu, founder and chief executive officer of Foyer; and Andrew Coca, chief executive officer of SourceRE.
“This is the fourth year we’ve honored three innovators driving the future of real estate, and the caliber keeps getting more impressive,” says Dan Weisman, director of Innovation Strategy at NAR. “It’s about building what the industry actually needs and doing it with intention.”
This year’s recipients were announced at a reception on June 16 during the 2026 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C., which also featured a fireside chat with Damian Eales, CEO of Realtor.com®, and Colleen Doyle, NAR’s vice president of REALTORS® Information Network and Strategic Initiatives.
Meet the 2026 NAR Tech & Innovation Innovator of the Year Award Recipients
Jerimiah Taylor: Building AI-Powered Support for Brokerages
Taylor built BrokerBot, the first AI teammate purpose-built for brokerages. BrokerBot functions as an intelligent digital workforce, understanding and synthesizing the collective knowledge across an organization.
“For decades, brokerages have been constrained by a simple reality: Growth required adding more people and more operational complexity,” Taylor says. “Knowledge lived in people’s heads and disconnected systems, and scale was limited by how effectively that knowledge could be shared.”
BrokerBot reimagines that model, giving brokerages a platform that captures institutional knowledge and puts it to work across teams and workflows.
Landy Liu: Making Down Payment Savings Easier
Liu built Foyer to solve one of the most persistent barriers to homeownership: saving for a down payment. Foyer gives first-time home buyers a dedicated savings account with tax advantages, modeled after the 401K, designed specifically to help people get to the closing table.
“We are on a mission to save the American dream of homeownership by making it easier for first-time home buyers to save and prepare for their down payments,” Liu says.
Andrew Coca: Tracking Where MLS Data Travels
Historically, MLSs have had limited visibility into where their data actually goes once it leaves their systems. Coca built Data Dye by SourceRE to fix that. This technology embeds invisible, vendor-specific identifiers directly into listing data, so if that data surfaces outside its authorized distribution, the MLS knows exactly where it came from and who accessed it.
“We built Data Dye to solve the root cause,” Coca says. “Not just a better product, but a different relationship, one where the MLS has sovereignty over its data and holds the leverage in every vendor negotiation. It is the first system of its kind to give MLSs a verifiable trail, turning data protection from an assumption into something enforceable.”
Moving the Industry Forward Through Innovation
The 2026 Innovator of the Year recipients are bringing forward ideas that address real industry challenges while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in housing, brokerage, transactions, and data infrastructure. As they’re demonstrating, innovation in real estate doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens because entrepreneurs, technologists, and industry leaders are willing to challenge assumptions, rethink systems, and build solutions for the future.
At its core, that spirit of innovation is about helping people see new possibilities.
“There’s a look people get when they realize what’s possible,” Taylor says. “For a brief moment, they’re not thinking about AI or technology. They’re simply experiencing something that feels impossible.”
In that moment, possibilities suddenly click into focus. And as he notes, “watching people rethink what’s possible for their business never gets old.”
