Home listings now show nearby daycare options

Buying a house often happens at the same time a family is starting or growing its household. For many buyers, the cost of child care is one of the two largest expenses they will face after housing. Until now, prospective owners had to look for that information separately from the real estate data they were reviewing.

Redfin, a real estate brokerage, has launched a new feature that displays nearby early care and education programs directly on property listings. The tool works in partnership with Winnie, a national online marketplace for child care. The integration went live on Redfin’s mobile apps for iOS and Android at the end of September.

Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, said the timing of a home search frequently coincides with the arrival of a child. He noted that understanding child care options helps buyers calculate their total housing budget before committing to a mortgage.

The feature is available on every for-sale listing on Redfin’s desktop and mobile websites. Winnie’s database covers more than 250,000 licensed early care and education programs across the country. On a property page, users will see a tab labeled “Preschool & daycare” next to the existing “K-12” school rating from GreatSchools.

Clicking the child care tab reveals up to five nearby providers. The list includes center-based, home-based, and school-based programs. Each entry shows the age range the program serves and the distance from the home. A pop-up window provides additional details such as hours of operation, contact information, and any published parent reviews.

Isabelle Novak, a spokesperson for Redfin, stated that the tool only shows providers within a 10-mile radius of the property. If no licensed programs exist within that distance, a message will appear indicating that no options were found.

Sara Mauskopf, co-founder and CEO of Winnie, said the partnership is intended to help families see the full cost of moving. Winnie creates provider profiles using public state licensing databases. About a quarter of the 250,000 provider pages have been claimed by the operators, who can then update information like available slots.

Mauskopf described child care as a necessity for many households rather than a luxury. She recalled her own experience of moving to a new area and scrambling to find care for her three children. She said some families in “childcare deserts” may find affordable housing but face a lack of nearby licensed programs, which can be a dealbreaker.

One major missing piece of data is tuition. Mauskopf noted that many providers still require families to tour the facility before sharing prices. She said this practice is unlike other markets, where costs are typically listed upfront. However, she observed a recent shift as families increasingly use artificial intelligence to ask about rates.

Mauskopf said a growing number of providers are now willing to list prices online because AI tools can already generate estimates. She hopes this trend will continue so that tuition data can soon be integrated into the Redfin platform, giving buyers a complete financial picture before they sign a mortgage.