Calgary entrepreneur Scott McKay describes it as “Tinder for real estate.”
McKay is the founder of LotSpot, a new Calgary-developed, location-based app that delivers prospective home buyers detailed information on both new and re-sale homes by combining readily available open data and unique features described by sellers to market their properties.
“Why do we know more about the phones we talk on and the cars we drive than the homes we live in today? What it comes back to, is data,” McKay said.
“We know about that stuff because it’s already out there. We can hit multiple websites and compare. With homes, you can’t.”
Using application programming interfaces (API), LotSpot accesses data on a home that isn’t kept in your standard tabletop feature sheet. McKay said everything from last assessed property value, to average drive time to work (via Google) or potentially nearby school rankings could be delivered through their app, providing a fuller picture of a home’s value.
“What it comes down to is access to information,” McKay said, noting that often times buyers are emailing realtors to find out things like furnace efficiency, age of roof and buyers have to wait for a response.
“We’re going to take that guesswork out and we’re going increase the ease of use.”
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