Honest Door brings useful data to home-buying experience
While exciting, shopping for a home can also be frustrating if you are lacking some vital information that would help with making that final decision.
Dan Belostotsky, a serial entrepreneur from Edmonton, has introduced his free comprehensive online real estate tool — honestdoor.com — to the Calgary marketplace following a successful launch in the provincial capital in May.
To date, the website has tallied in excess of 200,000 hits.
Home and commercial property buyers and sellers in Calgary can now check, for free, in-depth information about every property in the city — including last sold price, assessed price history, an Honestdoor Price estimate, permit data, transaction data, and soon to be released neighbourhood growth rates, Belostotsky says.
“Honestdoor was born out of my own frustration when searching for properties to buy,” says the company founder and chief executive officer. “It seemed wrong that consumers didn’t have access to the information they needed to make informed decision when this information has been available to Americans for years.”
And getting your hands onto all that data is a fairly simple exercise. Just go to the honestdoor. com website and either click on the map icon to search and click on any property you want (houses, apartment buildings, or commercial properties, or type in any address and a popup will appear. You can click “view HD Price” and that will take you to the Honestdoor property page where there is additional information and machine-learning analytics, Belostotsky explains.
“We are excited to offer Calgarians the easiest way to access all the information they need to make the best decisions about keeping, selling or buying a home.”
Honestdoor now provides its services to Calgary, Edmonton, Leduc, and Spruce Grove — but growth plans don’t stop there. When asked about expansion plans, Belostotsky describes them as “big-time” adding that within 12 months he plans to bring “every city, not just the big ones” in Canada into the Honestdoor fold.
As well as growing the market, plans for the future include a new wave of features offering future price projections on each home and identification of homes and neighbourhoods likely to appreciate more quickly over time.
Belostotsky is the owner of Otto Capital, a private investment company focused on tech and real estate, and is heavily involved in the digital industry.
Belostotsky founded a digital billboard and media company that was then acquired by the Jim Pattison Group, and later partnered with Cieslok Media which was then acquired by Bell Media. He is a venture partner with Panache Ventures, an active seed-stage venture capital fund, and is a mentor with Venture Mentoring Service of Alberta helping entrepreneurs throughout Alberta.