New service bypasses agents, offers free home appraisals

Property value information that was once jealously guarded by real estate agents is now being provided free to anyone with an Internet connection who cares to know what their home, or their neighbour's, is worth.

Zoocasa.com, a real estate search site, has partnered with Centract Settlement Services which has one of the "largest national databases of residential real estate prices and information in Canada," according to a news release.

The service went live earlier this month.

Users can plug in a street address, the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, style of home and the year it was built, and Zoocasa comes up with a "Zoopraisal" for the property.

Zoocasa uses Centract's database of real estate sales information to provide home price estimates based on factors such as size, neighourhood and sales history in the area.

"Knowing the current price of your home is the kick-off point for many Canadians as they consider making their next move," said Butch Langlois, president of Zoocasa in a news release.

The estimate also offers additional data such as detailed neighbourhood demographics.

What it doesn't take into account is the thousands of dollars in new windows a homeowner may have installed last year, for instance, or those prized granite countertops or new cedar shakes -- factors that can vastly improve the value and marketability of a home.

Still, the new service could represent a game changer for real estate agents who have traditionally had a corner on such information.

Andrew la Fleur, a real estate agent with Re/Max in Toronto, said the new service is part of the "ongoing evolution of real estate in Canada." He said a similar service has been available in the U.S. for about five years.

"Quite frankly I'm shocked it took this long to come here," he told CTVNews.ca, adding that real estate agents will have to adapt, just as they have to other recent changes to their profession.

"In the end I don't think it's going to hurt the real estate agents who are professional and who are expert in their area but I think it will force some of the part-time agents or discount brokers to re-evaluate their business models," he said.

"It will overall give the consumer more choices and more options and that's a good thing."

Last year, federal Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken successfully fought to give private home sellers access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which is the primary service through which homes are bought and sold in Canada.

Real estate agents have had to adjust, with many now offering a flat fee service for helping a homeowner list their property on MLS, with the homeowner then handling showings and the actual sale of the home. Traditionally, selling and buying agents split a commission of 5 per cent of the sale price.

Zoocasa's business model is built on advertising, with real estate agents and mortgage brokers paying to have their ads posted on the website. The appraisal service is provided free of charge.

Centract, which provides the data used to make the estimate, is an appraisal company owned by Brookfield Residential Property services.

The service is designed to give people a better idea of a property's value, rather than replace the work of a professional appraiser, Centract said.

In a sophisticated urban market like Toronto, where la Fleur said people are "obsessed" with the value of properties in their neighbourhood, most people likely already have a good grasp of what their home is worth, or what they'll have to pay to get into their dream home, regardless of what a computer-generated estimate tells them.

"I think most people here are more sophisticated than a computer model," he said.

Comments are now closed for this story

C in Ktown
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The site does not appear to make sense. When playing with numbers and using a square footage of 4888 for the land, it returns a higher value than a land square footage of 6046. 6200 then records a higher value than 6400 (which is, in turn, higher that the 4888). So, 4888>6046, but 4888<6400, although 6200>6400????

Jeff
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Nothing new. This type of service has been seen in the US for years (Zillow to name one). If you think that these are going to upset the Real Estate industry you should probably guess again. The business model for Zoocasa relies on those very people that every one seems to think will be driven out of the business by such a site. Think you will get a mortgage when you buy a property that has had it's value pegged on one of the Zoopraisals...guess again. Banks will still ask for a real appraisal that will still cost money and will likely be well off the mark of these Zoopraisals (just ask our friends to the South how well respected their estimates are). You get what you pay for as always has been and will be the case. Did anyone think to check that it is another of Canada's monopoly that actually owns this site...Rogers Communications (maybe this new revenue stream will actually lead to better phone rates for us all - that will have to wait until the greedy shareholders get their cut first though).

PR
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According to Zoocasa, my new home that I just took possession of less than a week ago appraised for 220K than I paid for it. Even the low estimate is 100K above my purchase price.

Zillow has been around for several years and is a great trending tool and portal for realtors, homeowners and home buyers, but it's not always accurate. It will be a little while before Zoocasa can become a valid reference tool for appraising real estate in Canada. You need to start somewhere.

Jeff
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I feel there are still much incorrect information about the competition bureau's fight with CREA. For the most part, nothing has changed in regards to what is allowed on REALTOR.CA - only one big board (Toronto) was really fighting with limited service brokerages. In Calgary, for instance, nothing has changed except for seeing Melanie Aitken's smug face being heralded as a hero more often.

Patrick in PG
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Not Even Close.I just sold my home for 70K less than this would have me believe and I was fortunate to get what I got. If I went by the value shown I would be in a much higher class neighbourhood.

Canuck in the USA
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bah! Zillow has been available in the US for years. Those of us here have pretty much accepted that the estimated values listed on the site are typically overinflated. Assume the displayed estimates are in the "upper percentiles" of actual sale prices and its not a bad indicator. Don't expect to actually sell your home for that price though.

Melissa
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I tried it for our town and our home and it is way way off what the market here is doing!

Henry
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Could this concept work in the England, UK?

shovhd
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This program is on crack! According to it, my home is worth about $100k more than similiar homes in the area recently sold for. I'd be waiting a long time if I set my asking price that high.

CMQ
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CTV needs to get their story line straight about bypassing agents. At the top of this webpage is a link for agents to sign up to post their listings so people can see what's out there on the market and contact the agent if interested. So this "site" is not exactly "agent free." I found this out within 30 seconds of viewing the site.

Ryan, Guelph
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Interesting... according to that website, the value of my house has gone up almost $100000 since I bought it 3 years ago. With that kind of outrageous inflation, who can afford to buy anymore?

Seems Sketchy
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So Centract has sold it's database of property appraisals to another company for profit. It is generally the individual homeowners who pay to have their home appraised for selling, financing purposes. Are there not privacy laws that protect people from having their private financial data ie) house value available for public consumption , particularly if they are not being marketed for sale? Did Centract have all of the homeowners' permission to package and sell this data when they performed the appraisals in the first place ?

Confused
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Am I missing something? Zoocasa.com doesn't actually give arbitrary property values. It just lists prices of properties currently for sale... Nothing that MLS doesn't already do. Where are the "free property appraisals" that this article talks about?

@ Stella In Toronto
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How does an agent drive the market into bubbles? Agents don't have any money. Buyers do. If a buyer, or a group of buyers want a house bad enough, you have a bidding war on your hands. I've seen the asking price of a house bid up $100K. That's not the agents doing, that's the people buying the property. Two things lead to bubbles; over valuation and ease of credit. Real estate in Canada is for the most part over valued. In the GTA it ranges from 12 - 30%. Banks are also too quick to lend money these days to people who can barely afford the payments on their over valued properties, even at current basement dwelling interest rates. I agree that there are bubblesin certain areas of the country but it's not the agents doing it, it's the buyers.

Brian
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This site provides the same info as MLS.ca. However, it doesn't do it as well as MLS.ca

AM
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Next the general public needs to be able to access comparable homes listed for sale in their area along with those that have recently sold.
This information should be available to all, not just real estate agents.
We are slowly seeing the end of the need of an agent to sell a home which is great. There is no reason someone should have to shell out 5% of the cost of their home, just to sell it.

Frank
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It doesn't work for rural properties - it just gives you the average in the area - so only good for the city people

Fact check first
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People have always been able to get an approximate value on your home on the City of Winnipeg's assessment page on the website. This information has never been guarded by real estate agents.... if anything this affects appraisers, not realtors. Realtors perform market evaluations to determine value, but those are also just estimates, done in person, and are also done for free. People set their own house prices anyway. You might want to do a little more research into the industry before writing an article spitting venom at realtors when it has nothing to do with them at all. For the record, I work at a bank. Not a realtor or an appraiser.

Stella in Toronto
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This is good. Agents are the ones driving the housing market into bubbles, just setting them up for collapse only to drive them into bubbles again out of greed.

Jon in London ON
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The postal system, video stores, classified ads.......now home appraisals. Is there nothing that the internet won't conquer?