HomeBlogReview of Home Estimation Tool by Housesigma.com

Review of Home Estimation Tool by Housesigma.com

HouseSigma

Housesigma.com is a convenient online platform for anyone interested in finding the market value of any home. It’s also great for finding homes for sale in any neighbourhood. 

Visitors to the website can look up property prices, property sale history, potential rental income, and market trends. Housesigma.com is widely used in Ontario and British Columbia, with over one million visitors per month in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) alone.

Housesigma provides a free real estate price estimator tool. It is quick and easy to use, based on an address of property of interest. 

HouseSigma - Estimate Home Price
HouseSigma

Pros and Cons of Housesigma’s Real Estate Estimator Tool

Pros

For starters, Housesigma is entirely free. 

The platform loads very fast, and the tool can calculate prices in an instant. 

The tool is very user-friendly.  

With just the address, a user can get a ton of information about the home.  

HouseSigma - Real Estate Estimator Tool
HouseSigma

Housesigma doesn’t force you to give any personal information in order to use the real estate price estimator tool. Many other real estate websites and apps that offer free tools require your contact information before you can access their tools. Housesigma can give you an estimated price range for a given property right away without signing up. However, in order to view the sold prices of comparable properties you will need to sign up with an email. This is due to the regulations surrounding access of sold property data. Ontario’s real estate boards require any website that offers sold property data to require some sort of user login to access the data. 

When using Housesigma with a free account, you can view comparable properties that were sold or are for sale.  This is usually extremely valuable when determining whether to make an offer or how to price  your property for sale.

Cons

Users should be reminded that the estimator does not guarantee the value of a home. It is ususally not as reliable at predicting future market trends. 

Housesigma data is limited to properties in Ontario and British Columbia only. 

We have found that the tool is not as effective in rural regions as it is in urban centers.

Like most tools, it does not have data on privately sold homes.

Why We Love Housesigma’s Real Estate Estimator Tool

With Housesigma, homebuyers, sellers, real estate agents and investors can gauge the current market value of a home without spending any time or money on an in-person appraisal. Instead, they can get estimates in seconds. 

This tool helps homeowners review selling prices of comparable homes, which can help them set the right price to sell based on their desired results.  It also helps buyers determine the right offer to make on a home so they get the home they want. For homeowners looking to refinance their mortgage, they can look up their home’s current market value to find out how much equity they have.

At Mortgage Broker Store we have been using this tool since it was created and it is one of the most accurate home pricing tools we have ever used. Mortgage professionals use it to look up clients’ estimated property value when determining eligibility for a home equity loan as well as the size of the loan. Because the tool is so fast and easy to use, our mortgage professionals can provide answers to clients without delay. 

How This Tool Compares to Professional Appraisals

Housesigma uses comparative sales analysis to determine the value of a property. Housesigma uses artificial intelligence to conduct pricing analysis, meaning pricing is calculated instantly. Professional appraisers use the same data, but it takes them longer to evaluate property, and they usually charge hundreds for their services. 

Comparative sales analysis is the process of identifying the selling information for several similar properties that have sold in a given area. Finding the range of selling prices, or the average selling price, is a method professional home appraisers use to determine the market value of a property.

HouseSigma vs Professional Appraisals
HouseSigma

Several factors are measured during comparative sales analysis including the property size, building type, amenities, previous sale price, property age and more. 

While Housesigma is a great tool to use, like all online real estate tools, they have some limitations compared to professional appraisers. 

A professional appraiser is considered to be the industry standard for home evaluations. A professional appraiser will personally inspect a property, they can provide the most accurate price estimates possible. They can spot defects and other features that are not considered by online tools. Home appraisers have no agenda, as they do not make any extra income by providing high or low home appraisals. 

Since appraisers are constantly inspecting homes on a regular basis, they can better predict future pricing trends and market fluctuations. For these reasons, professional appraisers are considered a more trustworthy way to find the market value of a home. Real estate appraisers are tightly regulated and most lenders will insist that they have at least one professional designation: Canadian Residential Appraiser (CRA) or Accredited Appraiser Canadian Institute (AACI). 

Housesigma is a highly innovative and useful tool, but it is most effective when used alongside a professional appraisal, not as a replacement for one. 

HouseSigma - Estimate Home Price
 HouseSigma

Housesigma provides this information for every home in their database, allowing users to conduct their own comparative sales analysis or use their tool for quick results.

HouseSigma - Estimated Range Tool
HouseSigma

Housesigma’s Price Estimator vs Other Real Estate Tools

Housesigma’s estimator tool was compared to other popular real estate tools, including Zoocasa, Zillow, RBC, WOWA and Properly.ca. 

Toronto Real Estate Agent Scott Ingram compared Housesigma to Zillow and Zoocasa. He found that all three of the tools tended to underestimate home values. Housesigma generally estimated lower home values more frequently than Zillow and Zoocasa, however he concluded that Housesigma’s estimates were the closest to real home prices out of the three tools. 

Ingram also mentioned that he uses Housesigma on a regular basis due to its fast results and user-friendly design. Ingram said.  ‘It’s way easier to look stuff up remotely there than trying to log into TREB’s clunky and mobile-unfriendly MLS.” 

Zillow and Zoocasa are quite popular in North America, however, in Ontario, the price estimator tools for RBC, WOWA and Properly.ca are more common. The RBC price estimator tool most often provided home value estimates that were significantly different than the values provided by the other tools, and the highest estimates. RBC’s tool also requires you to enter the last year the home was purchased and the price it was sold at, information that can be challenging to find if you are not the homeowner. 

Properly.ca uses the property address to generate a home estimate but it will not provide this information unless you are a member. Housesigma does not require membership to access their home price estimator tool, you only need to log in to see data on homes that have sold recently. This accessibility gives Housesigma a distinct advantage over Properly.ca.

WOWA provides estimates for the property and the neighbourhood. This tool includes estimated information for homes across Canada, but there are fewer details available. Housesigma offers more property information including property taxes, lot width, lot depth, amenities, bathrooms, and bedrooms, which makes the tool more useful for those looking at real estate in Ontario and British Columbia.

While each tool requires very few steps to get a home estimate, Housesigma is by far the most convenient. You only have to enter the address of the property and the tool will automatically fill in the rest of the information for you. By using AI-driven technology Housesigma can provide instant, useful and accurate real estate data on any property in Ontario and British Columbia.  

The team at Mortgage Broker Store uses Housesigma to find the right properties for clients. The abundance of data provided for each home listing is simply unmatched compared to most real estate tools.  Housesigma helps us make decisions faster, which is vital when making bids on active properties. 

About Jonathan Alphonso

Mortgage Agent, Web Developer, and Real Estate Investor. Together with Ronald Alphonso I run MortgageBrokerStore.com. I write about a variety of topics on Canadian mortgages and real estate. Our particular specialty is dealing with Ontario power of sale and foreclosure situations.

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