Bringing transparency to Calgary's housing market

In today’s housing market, Calgarians are struggling.

Between the lack of real estate, rising costs, and high demand, it's nearly impossible to purchase a home.

Farah Meghani has lived in Calgary since 2013. As a young woman with a stable job, she wants to move past renting, purchase a home, and invest in her future.

However, for the past two years, she has found no success.

“I feel like I’m in a losing battle,” she says. “I think I’m financially ready to buy a house, but I’m really not. It’s so expensive on a single income.”

On top of prices, Meghani says the competition is fierce with an influx of migration from Toronto and Vancouver, along with high immigration rates.

“They are outbidding all of the people who live here,” she says. “There's really no incentive for people who live in Calgary to buy a house in Calgary.”

A secret weapon

Despite all the struggles Meghani has faced in her journey to buy a home, she did find one helpful tool that gives her confidence in navigating the market.

“HouseSigma has been really good because they have opened up the market to a lot of new options,” she says. “You can search up properties, you can look at when it was purchased, how much it was purchased for, and you can see how many owners it’s had.”

HouseSigma recently branched into Calgary after getting its start in Toronto in 2018. The platform focuses on transparency, offering users comprehensive data to help them navigate the housing market confidently.

“Transparency is important because we feel the need to know everything,” Meghani says about millennials in the housing market.

“If we don’t know, we don’t purchase… and HouseSigma gives you the opportunity to be provided with information. They do everything, work-wise, so you don’t have to.”

Getting to know HouseSigma

Michael Carney is director of business development at HouseSigma. He says the platform helps users make informed decisions.

“The app leverages advanced AI and extensive data to provide comprehensive information about properties and market trends,” he says.

It’s a tool for anyone, whether you're a first-time home buyer or a seasoned investor.

“One of our most popular features is the ability to follow a specific community, you will receive new listings, sold updates, and when a property is delisted, all in real time.”

Carney adds that the AI technology estimates property values and rental incomes of a property.

All users need to do to access the information is download the app and make an account.

“I know how competitive Calgary is right now for buyers,” Carney says. “Prospective buyers can access this data, and this will give them confidence while they're navigating the market and allow them to make smarter decisions and understand what's going on in specific communities.”

Prior to HouseSigma, only realtors subscribed to multiple listing service (MLS) boards had access to this kind of information.

“We've provided users with this information that was previously accessible only to industry professionals,” Carney says. “[Data.ai] recently did a survey of all of the most popular apps in Canada, and HouseSigma was ranked the number one financial app for millennials.”

Providing hope among the struggles

Meghani says she checks out her HouseSigma app at least three times a week, scrolling through listings as if she were on any other social media site.

“There's so much more that you can do on the app in terms of what you're looking for. You can narrow it down a lot,” she says.

Although she enjoys the tool and believes all Calgarians will welcome it, she’s still not confident in her ability to purchase a home.

Moving to Canada in 2008, she had a lot to learn about credit cards, saving money, investing, and more.

“I didn’t know anything,” she says. “I had to teach myself.”

Now that she knows and understands, she still feels like she's behind and will never catch up.

“Our cost of groceries, our cost of gas, everything is increasing. Inflation is so high up there that by the time you think that you're saving money, you're really not,” she says.

Meghani still hopes to purchase in the future and believes HouseSigma will help her and other Calgarians navigate the market.

However, as costs continue to rise and the competition remains strong, Meghani hopes things settle in the future and an opportunity to buy will present itself.