Fixed never moves. Ranked sets the order of the homes inside your price and location.
Your main results stay within your chosen location and price range. CoverHome ranks those homes by the features you select. You can also explore additional badged matches in More homes to see, without changing your original search.
| Your search results | More homes to see | |
|---|---|---|
| What appears | Homes inside your chosen location and price range, ranked by the features you select, with a Strong, Close or Possible badge where earned. | Badged homes below your price range, outside your location, or both. Each home says which, next to its badge. |
| What never appears | Homes outside your price range or location. | Homes without a badge, and homes above your maximum price. |
| How you reach it | It is your main list. | You open it when you want to. Your original search stays as it was. |
Bedrooms and bathrooms work separately. Homes with different counts are grouped and labeled, and they join More homes to see only when they carry a badge.
CoverHome never removes a listing from your results because of who you are or who’s moving in. Here’s exactly what “personalized” means, what it changes, and what it never touches.
Every listing in CoverHome’s authorized data set that fits your fixed location and price, and meets your required filters, remains available unless you hide it or apply additional filters. Within your location and price range, personalization changes the order those homes appear in; it never decides which ones you’re allowed to see there. Badged homes outside that range are offered separately in More homes to see.
When you first reach the "What matters about the location?" and "Must-haves in the home itself?" steps, every shopper — regardless of household size, ages, or composition — starts with the exact same thing: no property features pre-selected, and a bedroom/bathroom preference set to "Any bedrooms, 1+ bathroom." Nothing about your household ever pre-selects, removes, or suggests a feature on your behalf.
From there, you choose. Want a fenced yard because you have a dog? Click it. Want step-free entry for an aging parent? Click it. Don't want to specify anything? Leave it blank — you’ll still see the same homes that fit your location and price, just in the site's standard order instead of a personalized one.
Whatever minimum you set organizes your results — homes that meet it, exceed it, or come close are grouped and labeled — but a home with fewer bedrooms than you asked for is never hidden. The only thing on this page that can actually exclude a listing is a filter you explicitly turn on yourself, later, on the results page.
Two categories of information can affect where a home lands in your list, and both require your direct, active confirmation:
Everything else — the number of adults, children, or older adults in your household, the presence of a pet, or any information you'd rather not share at all — plays no role in scoring or ordering. It never changes which questions you are asked, and it never answers any question for you. See "How we use your household details" below for the full picture, including optional referrals.
Every results page includes a toggle: "Use my confirmed preferences to rank results." Switching it off returns your list to the site's standard, non-personalized order at any time, for any reason, without losing your saved preferences.
Telling us who's moving in (adults, children, older adults, pets) is always optional, and skipping it never changes your results. If you do share it, here is exactly what it is for.
Separately from your home search, you can ask CoverHome to refer you to third-party services, and your household details can help us point you to the right ones. Referrals happen only when you request them. They are an opt-in layer that never changes your search results, match order, or which agent you are routed to.
You are in control of what is shared. Nothing is sent until you submit a request in a specific category. Only the vendors subscribed to that category see it, and they receive the category you chose, a short note only if you choose to write one, and your contact details only if you explicitly opt in on that request. They do not receive your full household composition, and your agent or brokerage is not told unless you choose to include them. You can say no at any time.
Referred companies are separate from CoverHome and run their own services under their own terms and privacy policies, which apply once you deal with them. Vendors pay CoverHome a flat subscription or listing fee to take part and do not bid for leads; CoverHome does not receive a per-lead payment for these referrals. Paid Featured placement is labeled, and it never changes which homes you see, their order, or which real estate agent you choose.
Real estate search has a real history of being used to steer people away from homes or neighborhoods based on who they are. CoverHome's ranking system is built so that can't happen by construction, not just by policy: the inputs the algorithm is even allowed to read are limited to the property and location facts you yourself confirmed. Household composition, age, and similar details are structurally excluded from the ranking function itself — there's no field for them to occupy.