Agent-built platform delivers insights to buyers in 30 seconds
HouseMe.ai, a free-to-use AI-powered platform created by brokers at The Agency, will initially launch in Toronto with plans to expand in the U.S.
A new AI-powered real estate platform aims to provide homebuyers with data-backed analyses on any listing within 30 seconds, free of charge.
The platform, created by The Agency broker and "Luxe Listings Toronto" star Peter Torkan, is called HouseMe.ai and will be available to homebuyers in greater Toronto starting on June 1, with a wider U.S. launch coming within the next few months.
How it works: HouseMe will provide buyers with tools to support them in their next home purchase, including cost-to-close calculations, valuation scoring, negotiation strategies and real-time market insights, according to a news release.
"We built the tool we wish every buyer had when they walked into one of our listings," Torkan, co-founder and CEO of HouseMe.ai, said in a statement. "The information has always existed; we just decided it shouldn't be a privilege. HouseMe offers intelligence for every move."
The Agency's Paige Torkan and Nurit Coombe, brokers who operate out of Toronto and Washington, D.C., respectively, are co-founders of the new platform.
HouseMe.ai enters the Toronto market during a lull, when home sales are down 19.3% year-over-year and prices are also trending downward month-over-month, The Agency said. During this period, buyers are seeking more information about how they can best approach their home purchase.
Insights, 'true cost' and offer recommendations: The platform equips buyers with four key sources of information, the founders said.
The Intelligence Report, which can be generated instantly, brings together insights buyers would typically have to obtain through multiple sources — a buyer's agent consultation, a legal cost analysis and discussions with a private market advisor — a press release said.
The True Cost Calculator gives buyers a cost-to-close breakdown, including land transfer taxes, legal fees and monthly carrying costs. It also includes a feature called the AI Investment Thesis, which provides a financial analysis of each property and an assessment of potential investment risks.
Meanwhile, the AI Valuation Score assigns a 0 to 10 fair-value rating to active listings. It's paired with a Negotiation Strategy, which provides offer recommendations based on data points like days on market, comps and other local market conditions.
The platform's Area Market Pulse feature provides real-time insights on neighborhood pricing trends, inventory and a conversational AI interface that can understand questions in 97 languages.
The platform's foundation: The platform is built on a proprietary data infrastructure that includes a direct data feed encompassing more than 224,000 active and sold MLS records, over 60 AI-powered neighborhood profiles and a conversational engine that can process natural language questions in less than one second.
The founders worked with their engineering team to ensure that the platform hit a 95% accuracy threshold against live MLS data before launch.
'Capturing clear buyer intent': Some might question why agents would make such a tool for buyers, which could seemingly give them reason to ask fewer questions of an agent — or leave buyer's agents with less usefulness to consumers altogether.
But Torkan said that the platform "removes friction in front of the transaction," empowers buyers with more information, and works to enhance the relationship between buyer and agent, while also funneling serious leads to agents.
Torkan added that the core consumer tool will remain a free resource for the foreseeable future, to eliminate an "information barrier" to consumers who might not otherwise be able to afford the $500 for a typical appraisal, for instance.
"The platform benefits our business by capturing clear buyer intent and routing highly qualified transaction leads directly to the right premier human agents," Torkan said in an email.