homes

SKILL.md

---
name: homes
description: Look up real-estate listings, property details, price/tax history, market reports, saved homes, and photo galleries on homes.com via MCP. Triggers on phrases like "find homes on homes.com in", "homes.com property details for", "what does homes.com say about", "homes.com price history for", or any request involving homes.com properties, prices, history, or photos. Requires homes-mcp installed and the fetchproxy extension active (see Setup below).
---

# homes-mcp

MCP server for homes.com — natural-language access to listings, property records, price/tax history, market reports, saved homes/searches, and photo galleries. Routes through your signed-in homes.com tab via the fetchproxy browser extension, so AWS WAF sees a real browser session instead of a Node process.

- **npm:** [npmjs.com/package/homes-mcp](https://www.npmjs.com/package/homes-mcp)
- **Source:** [github.com/chrischall/homes-mcp](https://github.com/chrischall/homes-mcp)

> ⚠️ homes.com does not publish a public consumer API. This server reads the Schema.org JSON-LD blob (and some DOM-side sections) embedded in each SSR page, dispatched through your own signed-in browser tab via the fetchproxy extension. Use at your own discretion.

## Setup

### 1. Install homes-mcp

`.mcp.json` (project) or `~/.claude/mcp.json` (global):

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "homes": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "homes-mcp"]
    }
  }
}
```

### 2. Install the fetchproxy extension (one-time, shared across all fetchproxy-based MCPs)

The extension lives in its own repo and is installed separately — it is **not** bundled in this repo. Follow the install instructions at [github.com/chrischall/fetchproxy](https://github.com/chrischall/fetchproxy), then load the built extension in Chrome via `chrome://extensions` → Developer mode → Load unpacked.

### 3. Open homes.com and sign in.

That's it. No API keys, no env vars. (Sign-in isn't strictly required for the public-listing tools, but having a real session active helps the page render the way the extractors expect — and saved-homes / saved-searches require it.)

## Tools

### Search & resolve

- **`homes_search_properties`** — Search by free-text location (city, ZIP, neighborhood). Slugifies the input into homes.com's URL routing. Filters by `property_type`, `listing_type`, `sort`, and a `price_min`/`price_max` band (homes.com's `?price-min=`/`?price-max=` query facet). Returns each listing's address, price, beds/baths, sqft, primary photo, listing agent + brokerage. Caps at the ~40-listing SSR page; sets `truncated`/`total_estimated` when the market has more.
- **`homes_get_by_address`** — Resolve a single US street address to its canonical homes.com property URL + opaque property hash. Walks structured smartsearch typeahead → slug routing → city/zip search-fallback, verifying each candidate with a whole-token street + unit match. Returns `matched_via` and degrades gracefully to `{ resolved: false }`.
- **`homes_resolve_addresses`** — Bulk version of `homes_get_by_address` (up to 100 addresses, input order preserved, per-row outcomes). Prefer for any batch ≥ 3.

### Property details

- **`homes_get_property`** — Full record for a property by URL. Parses JSON-LD + DOM-side sections: address, lat/lng, beds/baths, sqft, year built, price, status, listing agent + brokerage, highlights, schools, HOA (raw + normalized monthly), lot size (sqft + derived acres), parking, heating/cooling, MLS id/source, tax, days-on-market, price drops, and server-derived `extracted_features`. Optional inline `price_history` / `tax_history`.
- **`homes_get_property_photos`** — Full photo gallery scraped from `<img>` tags on the detail page (JSON-LD carries only one image). Returns `{ url, position, alt? }` per photo, filtered to the homes.com CDN.
- **`homes_bulk_get`** — Fetch up to 200 properties' structured records in one call (per-row errors captured, input order preserved). Use instead of looping when you just want the records.
- **`homes_compare_properties`** — Side-by-side comparison of 2–8 properties with an aligned summary table. Concurrent fetches, per-row errors.
- **`homes_get_nearby_listings`** — The "Homes for Sale Near This Property" cross-link cards from a detail page (For Sale, optionally Rentals). URL + address only.

### History & market

- **`homes_get_history`** — Combined price + tax history in one fetch: `listing_events`, `ownership_events`, `lien_events`, cross-MCP-normalized `events_normalized`, and `tax_records`. (Preferred over the two split tools below.)
- **`homes_get_property_history`** — *Deprecated* — price/ownership/lien timelines only. Prefer `homes_get_history`.
- **`homes_get_tax_history`** — *Deprecated* — year-by-year tax records only. Prefer `homes_get_history`.
- **`homes_get_market_report`** — Median / average / $-per-sqft for a market, derived from the `sold` search page's JSON-LD.

### Saved (auth-gated)

- **`homes_get_saved_homes`** — The signed-in user's saved (favorited) homes. Requires an authenticated homes.com tab.
- **`homes_get_saved_searches`** — The signed-in user's saved searches. Requires an authenticated homes.com tab.

### Local calculators (no network)

- **`homes_calculate_mortgage`** — Local PITI calculator (price, rate, down payment, taxes, insurance, HOA, PMI → monthly breakdown).
- **`homes_calculate_affordability`** — Local affordability calculator — max purchase price under standard 28/36 DTI.
- **`homes_estimate_rent_vs_buy`** — Local rent-vs-buy model. **You must supply `monthly_rent`** — homes.com publishes no rental estimate to impute it (see Gotchas).

### Diagnostics & sessions

- **`homes_healthcheck`** — Round-trips `/robots.txt` through the fetchproxy bridge; distinguishes "bridge down" vs "extension not connected" vs "homes.com-side problem."
- **`homes_get_session_context`**, **`homes_register_session`**, **`homes_set_active_session`** — List / register / switch logical homes.com sessions.

## Trigger examples

- "Find me condos for sale in Atlanta under $500k on homes.com" → `homes_search_properties` (with `price_max`)
- "Resolve 3199 Delmar Ln NW, Atlanta GA to a homes.com listing" → `homes_get_by_address`
- "What's the price history for this homes.com listing?" → `homes_get_history` (or `homes_get_property` with `include_price_history`)
- "Show me all photos for this homes.com listing" → `homes_get_property_photos`
- "What's the market report for sold homes in Brooklyn?" → `homes_get_market_report`
- "List my saved homes on homes.com" → `homes_get_saved_homes`
- "Monthly payment on a $500k home, 20% down, 6.5% rate" → `homes_calculate_mortgage`

## Gotchas

- **AWS WAF challenge.** homes.com (CoStar) gates traffic through AWS WAF and occasionally serves a challenge page to fresh sessions. Solving it in the Chrome tab once unblocks subsequent fetches; the client detects the interstitial and throws `SessionNotAuthenticatedError`.
- **No write surface.** All tools are read-only. Saving a home / contact forms are not implemented.
- **Property URL is required for detail tools.** `get_property`, `get_property_photos`, `compare_properties`, history, photos, and nearby all need a full property URL from a search or `get_by_address` result — there's no stable way to construct one from a property id alone.
- **No rental estimate to impute.** homes.com publishes no `rent_zestimate` analogue, so `homes_estimate_rent_vs_buy` requires you to pass `monthly_rent`. For a rent figure to plug in, use a sibling MCP (`zillow_get_property` carries `rent_zestimate`; `redfin_get_comparable_rentals` returns rental comps).