Surf Local

Surf Local Consumer Privacy and Platform Policy

Effective Date: May 28, 2026 Last Updated: May 28, 2026

Overview

Surf Local, Inc. operates Surf Local as a consumer-facing proptech, search, communications, education, and advertising platform designed to help users review housing, property, financing, and home-related information and tools. Surf Local is intended to help users understand data, compare options, and engage with professionals and service providers at their own volition.

Surf Local is not a mortgage lender, mortgage broker, loan originator, real estate brokerage, title company, insurance company, appraiser, inspector, or law firm. Surf Local does not provide legal, tax, accounting, underwriting, title, escrow, insurance, or brokerage advice, and does not make credit or underwriting decisions.

Users should independently verify material information and should consult licensed professionals before making decisions involving real estate, mortgage financing, title, insurance, taxes, legal rights, or other regulated matters.

Scope

This Policy applies to Surf Local’s consumer-facing websites, mobile applications, AI tools, property-search experiences, communication tools, vault features, calculators, marketplace features, and related consumer-facing digital services.

Platform Role

Surf Local is intended to function as a neutral and democratized platform. Surf Local may display agents, lenders, mortgage-related tools, educational content, marketplace providers, sponsored offers, and home-related services, but Surf Local does not require users to select any particular provider.

Consumers may:

Surf Local may label content as sponsored, advertising, partner content, featured content, or embedded content where appropriate.

Consumer Choice

Consumers remain free to choose, remove, or change their preferred real estate agent, lender, title company, homeowners insurance provider, or any other service provider, subject to account or transaction constraints. Use of Surf Local is not conditioned on using any embedded partner, advertiser, marketplace provider, or initially pinned or inviting agent.

Consumers may shop for mortgage, title, insurance, and home-related services from any provider, whether or not that provider appears on Surf Local.

Information and Tool Limitations

Any search results, recommendations, marketplace visibility, rankings, calculators, AI outputs, educational materials, prompts, and suggested next steps are for informational and convenience purposes only. These tools are not guarantees of suitability, approval, eligibility, availability, pricing, underwriting, or transaction outcome.

AI-generated or automated outputs are probabilistic, may contain errors, and should not be treated as a substitute for licensed or professional advice.

Mortgage and Financing Content

Mortgage-related information made available through Surf Local may include educational content, calculators, general AI responses, embedded partner tools, or instant pre-qualification experiences. Surf Local is not the lender and does not make underwriting or credit decisions.

If Surf Local presents an instant pre-qualification experience, the criteria, program information, and any resulting non-binding pre-qualification letter are provided by or on behalf of the participating licensed lender. Any such letter must clearly identify the lender issuing it and must use lender-approved language.

Any pre-qualification result is preliminary and non-binding unless the lender expressly states otherwise. Final decisions remain subject to the lender’s review, verification, compliance, and underwriting processes.

Embedded Partners and Advertising

Surf Local may embed or display content from mortgage companies, insurance providers, title companies, contractors, moving companies, and other third-party service providers. Such placement is intended to constitute advertising, sponsorship, marketplace participation, or educational integration, not a guarantee or endorsement unless expressly stated.

Surf Local seeks to use neutral, pre-defined, and non-compensation-based criteria for visibility, display, rotation, geography, consumer-selected preferences, inventory availability, and similar platform functions. Surf Local may also display clearly labeled sponsored placements.

Surf Local does not require consumers to use any embedded partner and does not represent that any partner is the only or best available option unless expressly supported by objective and substantiated criteria.

Vault and Personalized Opportunities

If users provide information in a vault, profile, calculator, questionnaire, or related tool, Surf Local may use that information to identify optional savings opportunities, reminders, refinance prompts, renovation-loan prompts, insurance reminders, and household or property-related offers.

Where required by law, Surf Local will obtain appropriate notice or consent before using such information for personalized promotional purposes. Any such offer should be treated as optional. Consumers remain free to ignore the offer, opt out of future promotional offers, or shop with any provider.

Communications

Surf Local may send operational, service, account, security, verification, and transactional communications by email, text message, push notification, in-app message, or phone where permitted by law. Marketing communications may be sent only subject to applicable notice, consent, and opt-out requirements.

Where required by applicable law, Surf Local will obtain affirmative consent before sending marketing text messages, autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls, or enabling non-essential push notifications or similar marketing features. Users may revoke consent or opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link, replying STOP, changing device or app settings, using available preference tools, or contacting Surf Local through the designated privacy or legal contact method.

Operational and transactional communications may continue as permitted by law even if a user opts out of marketing communications.

Messages Between Users

Messages sent through Surf Local — including messages between consumers, real estate professionals, transaction participants, and lending partners — are not private between the sender and recipient alone.

Surf Local retains these messages and may review them. Review takes place to operate and support the service, to investigate reports of misuse, to enforce Surf Local's terms and policies, and to meet legal, regulatory, and licensing obligations that apply to real estate and lending activity.

Messages are screened by automated means for a limited set of categories: unlawful discrimination or steering in housing, prohibited referral arrangements, fraudulent payment or wiring instructions, harassment, and attempts to move a transaction off the platform to evade these terms. Automated screening is not used to profile users or to target advertising, and it does not generate message content. A person reviews an individual message only where it has been reported, has been flagged by that screening, or must be produced for a legal or regulatory request.

Messages are retained for as long as necessary to operate the service and to meet the obligations described above. A message that has been reported is retained until the report is resolved, and may be preserved even if the sender deletes it.

Where a licensed professional's conduct on the platform may violate fair housing law, settlement-services law, or the terms of their real estate licence, Surf Local may report that conduct to their sponsoring brokerage and, where appropriate, to the applicable multiple listing service or regulator, and may provide the relevant messages.

Surf Local will never send wiring or payment instructions by message. Payment instructions received through any channel should be verified by telephone with the relevant escrow, title, or closing agent using a number obtained independently.

Cookies and Tracking

Surf Local may use cookies, SDKs, pixels, and similar technologies for security, authentication, analytics, performance, personalization, and advertising purposes. Where required by law, Surf Local will seek consent before placing or activating non-essential cookies or similar technologies.

Users may disable or withdraw consent through Surf Local’s consent tools, browser settings, mobile operating system settings, or other available controls, although some features may no longer function fully.

Data and Accuracy

Surf Local may use data obtained from users, public records, licensed sources, MLS-related sources, partners, and service providers. Some information may be incomplete, outdated, or subject to contractual or legal restrictions.

Public display of information does not grant users or third parties the right to scrape, copy, export, or repurpose it outside the uses authorized by Surf Local or the original data source.

Third-Party Providers

Any interaction with a third-party provider, including a lender, title company, insurer, contractor, or agent, may be subject to that provider’s own terms, disclosures, privacy policy, licensing obligations, and service standards. Surf Local is not responsible for independent acts, omissions, advice, pricing, underwriting, or representations of third-party providers.

User Responsibility

Users are responsible for their own decisions and for reviewing platform disclosures, lender disclosures, agent disclosures, title and insurance disclosures, and any other documents applicable to a transaction or service.

Users should verify licensing, pricing, eligibility, program details, and legal or financial consequences directly with the applicable provider and, when appropriate, with independent licensed professionals.

Contact

Questions regarding this Policy, Surf Local’s platform role, or privacy and communication preferences may be directed to Surf Local’s legal or privacy contact identified on the platform.