Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this Policy covers

Ivy Realty Group (“Ivy,” “we,” “us” or “our”) is a real estate brokerage based in Somerville, Massachusetts. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal information when you visit our website, use its forms and tools, the Ask Ivy assistant or an open house sign-in page, use the client portal, or communicate with us by email, text or phone (together, the “Services”).

This Policy does not cover websites or services operated by others, even when we link to them, or information about Ivy’s own agents and staff, which is handled under our internal policies.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Contact details, such as your name, email address, phone number and how you prefer to be contacted.
• Your real estate needs, such as the homes or areas you are interested in, your budget, bedrooms, move-in or sale timing, and the messages you write to us.
• Property information, such as the address and details of a home you own when you ask about selling, renting it out or its value.
• Showing and open house information, such as the days and times you could tour a home, and, when you sign in at an open house, whether you are working with an agent and that agent’s name and office.
• Account information, such as your name, email address and password when you create a client account, or the name, email address and profile information Google shares with us if you choose to sign in with Google. Your saved homes and saved searches are kept with your account.
• Transaction information, such as offers, agreements, disclosures, deposit records, lender pre-approvals and other documents and details that you, your agent or the other parties provide during a purchase, sale or lease.
• Career inquiries, such as your licensing status, current office, market area and timing when you ask about joining Ivy.

When you ask for a town’s monthly market report, we keep your email address, your first name if you give it, the town and kind of home, and the page you asked from, and an Ivy agent may follow up with you about it. Each report email has a link to stop it, and to stop all of our marketing email.

When you send a lead form on one of our Facebook or Instagram ads, you give us what the form asks, such as your name, contact details and your answers to its questions, and it goes to an Ivy agent who follows up with you.

When you apply for a rental on our website, we collect what the application asks: your contact details, where you live now and your current landlord, your work and income (including a housing voucher or other assistance), who will live with you, your references and the documents you upload, such as proof of income or identification. We never ask for your Social Security number or date of birth. Your application and documents are kept privately with that rental’s records, seen by the agent for the rental, our broker and the agent working for the landlord, and shared with the landlord so they can decide. A credit or background check, when there is one, is requested by a screening company directly from you.

Phone calls

Calls to our office are recorded, and you are told so at the start of the call. Your call may be answered by an automated assistant that can take a message or route your call. We transcribe calls and keep a written summary so that the right agent can follow up.

When an Ivy agent calls you through our phone system, the call comes from our number and may be recorded; if it is, you hear that before the call connects, and we keep a transcript and summary with your record. Phone numbers printed on our signs, ads and mailers are ours: when you call one, we note your number and which piece you called from, and pass the call to an agent. We leave prerecorded voicemail messages only for people who agreed to receive them, and we keep a list of numbers that asked not to be called.

Information collected automatically

• Technical information, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested, which our hosting provider processes to deliver and secure the website. To protect our forms from abuse, we keep a scrambled (hashed) version of the IP address that sends a form, not the address itself.
• How you found us. When you arrive from an advertisement, a listing website, a search engine, social media, or the QR code or short link on one of our signs, flyers or mailers, we note the source, the campaign and the first page you visited, as described in Cookies and similar technologies. We count how many times each of our QR codes and short links is used, without recording anything about the person who used it.
• What you do on the website. The website records the listings you view, the searches you run (the places, prices and other criteria you choose, and how many homes they found), the homes you save or share, when you use the payment calculator on a listing, and each visit (the page you arrive on and the website that sent you). It keeps this under a random visitor ID stored in a cookie. It does not record the figures you enter in the payment calculator.
• Whether you open and click our emails. Emails we send you contain a small image and links that pass through our website, so we can see when an email is opened and which of its links are clicked, and show this to the Ivy agent helping you. When you click a link to our website, we also connect that browser’s visitor ID to you, as described below; we do not do this when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal. Some email apps load images by themselves (such as Apple Mail’s privacy protection) and some security filters open links before you do; we keep those records but do not count them as something you did.

This record is anonymous at first. When you create or sign in to a client account, or send us a request through the website (a showing request, a question, a home value request, a guide download, a town’s market report, a sign-up on one of our event or campaign pages, or the Ask Ivy assistant), we connect it to you, including what you did earlier on the same browser, so that the Ivy agent helping you can see which homes and areas interest you. Signing in at an open house does not connect it. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, the website does not record any of this.

We do not use third-party advertising or analytics trackers on the website.

Information from other sources

• Listing services. Property listings and sales history come from MLS Property Information Network, Inc. (MLS PIN), and include information about listing agents and brokerages.
• Public records. Our agents use public property records, such as ownership, assessed value and sale history, when preparing market analyses and serving clients.
• Other parties to a transaction, such as cooperating agents, attorneys, lenders, inspectors and closing professionals.
• Referral sources, such as a person who refers you to us or a website that sends you to us.
• Our previous website. If you registered on Ivy’s previous website, we kept the records of that account, including homes you viewed or saved, searches you saved, and emails and texts you received, so that your agent can continue to help you.

3. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• respond to your inquiries and requests, and connect you with the right Ivy agent;
• provide real estate brokerage services, including arranging showings, preparing market analyses, preparing and negotiating offers, and managing transactions through closing;
• operate your account, saved homes and saved searches, and the client portal;
• show the Ivy agent helping you the homes and searches you have looked at on the website, so they can suggest homes and follow up when it is useful to you;
• send you information you ask for, such as listing materials after an open house, and appointment reminders;
• send you marketing emails, where permitted, which you can stop at any time;
• understand which advertising and websites bring people to us, and improve our Services;
• protect the Services, prevent fraud and spam, and keep our systems secure; and
• keep the records a real estate brokerage is required to keep, and comply with law, regulation and legal process.

Automated tools

We use service providers, including artificial intelligence services, to help our agents work faster, for example to summarize a client’s needs and recent conversations, draft messages and marketing materials, and organize documents. Home value estimates on the website are produced automatically by a statistical model from comparable sales. These tools support our agents; they do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

We use recorded interest, such as saved homes and property feedback, to suggest follow-up work to your agent. We record the agent’s review decisions and link relevant existing tasks, communications and observed responses so future suggestions can reflect that feedback. These reviews do not change your stated search preferences or permission to contact you.

When an agent works on a transaction, the text of its documents (for example condominium documents, financial statements, an inspection report or the agreement) is sent to our artificial intelligence provider to summarize them and answer the agent’s questions about them. To answer an agent’s question about a transaction, that transaction’s own records may be sent as well: its property, dates, offers and their terms, tasks, showings, notes and document checklist, with the names and roles of the people on it (for example the buyer, the seller and their attorneys), but not their contact details. Records of other transactions are not sent. Social Security, card and account numbers are removed first, and so are email addresses, phone numbers and people’s mailing addresses in our records. The files themselves and the contact details in our records are not sent, and the summaries and answers are seen only by your agent and the broker who supervises them. When a scanned page can’t be read clearly by our own text recognition, an image of that one page may be sent to the same provider so it can read the page’s text; we don’t keep those images, and typed documents are never sent as images. When an agent uploads an offer to purchase, its text, or for a scanned or photographed offer an image of each page, is sent to the same provider to read the offer’s terms into the agent’s form; the agent checks them before saving, and the images aren’t kept. To confirm a transaction document was signed and dated, images of its signature pages (the pages with signature, initial or date lines, usually one to three) may be sent to the same provider, which reports which lines are signed, initialed, dated or blank; those images aren’t kept either.

4. How we share information

We share personal information only as described here:

• Within Ivy. With the Ivy agents and staff who need it to serve you, including the agent you work with and the broker who supervises them.
• With the other parties to your transaction, at your direction or as needed to complete it, such as the other side’s agent, attorneys, lenders, inspectors, appraisers and closing professionals.
• With our service providers, who process information for us under contract, including website hosting and databases, email and text message delivery, phone answering, electronic signature and transaction management, deposit handling, accounting, maps and artificial intelligence services.
• With C Property Management, a property management company affiliated with Ivy, if you ask us about ongoing management of a property you own.
• For legal reasons, when we believe in good faith that the law, a court order or a regulator requires it, or to protect the rights, safety and property of you, Ivy or others.
• In a business transfer, such as a merger, acquisition or sale of all or part of our business, subject to this Policy.
• With your consent, or at your direction.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. We do not share mobile phone numbers or text messaging consent with third parties for their marketing.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

The website uses a small number of cookies, all its own:

• Visit source (ivy_visit). When you arrive from an ad, a listing website, a search engine, social media or one of our QR codes or short links, this cookie records the source and campaign, the referring website and the first page you visited, for up to 90 days. It holds no contact details, and advertising networks’ click identifiers are not kept. If you later send us a form, the note is saved with your request.
• Visitor ID (ivy_vid). A random identifier, with no contact details, that lets the website record the listings you view, the searches you run and the homes you save, as described in Information we collect. It lasts one year from your last visit and is removed when you sign out. It is not set when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal.
• Ask Ivy choices. If you choose “Remember my search choices”, this device keeps your search criteria, recognized towns and areas, and type of request for up to seven days from that choice. You choose whether to resume them. Messages, contact details and typed property addresses are not remembered. Start over and forget, turning the choice off, signing out or changing accounts clears them. This option is unavailable for staff and when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal. Choices are limited to this device and browser; they do not restore an unsent conversation on another device. Requests you send are kept separately with the inquiry and person they belong to.
• Sign-in. If you sign in, cookies keep you signed in, for up to one year unless you sign out.
• Security. Short-lived cookies protect account sign-up and sign-in with Google.

Maps on the website are provided by Google. When you view a map, your browser loads it from Google, which receives your IP address and may set its own cookies under the Google Privacy Policy.

A property’s own website may show a video from YouTube, in its privacy-enhanced mode, or from Vimeo. When the video loads, your browser contacts that service, which receives your IP address and may set its own cookies if you play the video, under its own privacy policy.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some features, such as staying signed in, will not work without them. The website honors Global Privacy Control and “Do Not Track” signals: when your browser sends either one, the website does not record what you do on it. The website does not track you across other websites.

6. Emails and text messages

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time with the link in the email. If you give us your mobile number and agree to receive text messages, we may text you about your inquiry and your appointments, home search and listing updates. On email signup, voluntarily providing the optional mobile number and clicking Create client account gives text consent to Ivy Realty Group and its agents under the disclosure beside the button. Accepting the Terms or Privacy Policy alone does not give text consent or permission for marketing calls. Leave the number blank to create an account without texts. Text consent is not a condition of purchasing any property or service. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop or HELP for help. Manage email and text preferences in Settings. Even if you opt out of marketing, we may still send account emails and respond to a request you made; text opt-outs continue to apply.

When you text one of our sign codes, we reply with that home's details, and we text you again only if you reply YES. We keep your number and your text so the listing's agent can follow up with you.

Every email we send you links to a page, which needs no sign-in, where you can choose the kinds of email you get (new listings, market reports, open houses and events, news from Ivy, and check-ins your agent schedules) or unsubscribe from all of them. Email apps that show an Unsubscribe button use the same choice in one step. We stop emailing an address that bounces or reports our email as spam.

7. Your choices and rights

You may ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it. You may also ask us to stop using it for marketing. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under the law of your state, and we will honor them as that law requires.

To make a request, contact us as described under Contact us. We will need to verify your identity before acting on it. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. Some information cannot be deleted, such as records of a real estate transaction that we are required by law or professional rules to keep.

8. How long we keep information

We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Policy, including serving you as a client, following up on an inquiry, and meeting the recordkeeping obligations that apply to real estate brokerages. When it is no longer needed, we delete it or keep it in a form that no longer identifies you.

A record of what was done on the website that was never connected to anyone is deleted 90 days after the last visit. Once connected to you, it is kept for up to two years.

Behavior recommendation snapshots and their review history expire 180 days after creation. When an agent corrects future advice, that recommendation and its correction history can remain for up to 365 days from the recommendation’s creation. Expired review records are removed through regular cleanup. These snapshots do not keep copies of client comment text. Original inquiries, tasks, communications and transaction records follow their own recordkeeping periods described above.

9. How we protect information

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encrypted connections, access controls that limit each agent to the clients and transactions they work on, and service providers that maintain their own security programs. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we learn of a security breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you as the law requires.

10. Sensitive information

Please do not send Social Security numbers, bank or credit card numbers, passwords or health information through our website forms, the Ask Ivy assistant or open house sign-in. If a transaction requires financial documents, your agent will tell you how to provide them securely.

11. Children

The Services are intended for adults and are not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the “Last updated” date at the top of this page, and if the changes are significant we will provide additional notice, such as on the website.

On October 10, 2026, the website began recording the listings visitors view, the searches they run and the homes they save, as described under Information we collect, with the visitor ID cookie and the retention periods above.

13. Contact us

For questions about this Policy or to make a privacy request, contact:

Please use the subject line “Privacy request” and do not include sensitive information in your message.