You could be buying your next home with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
Bradford brothers, Anza Malik and Shemeer Ahmad created Valery AI as a platform to help simplify navigating the real estate market by assisting in searching listings, appraising properties and offering financial calculations for down payments and monthly expenses such as mortgage payments, average utility costs or rent.
The primary goal of the platform was to “make Canadian real estate make sense” for the average person, both on a macro level and on a personal level, according to Ahmad who has been a real estate agent for four years and also has a background in computer science.
“We’re not just giving you the data; we’re helping you to make sense of it as well,” he said of the advantage Valery offers compared to typical real estate websites.
“Especially with young Canadians. They don’t know where to start with housing,” Malik said. “It seems almost unreachable.”
With six years experience as a real estate agent, Malik noticed that many people are hesitant to contact an agent and ask questions because they don’t want the pressure to make a purchase.
Valery removes that pressure, and the brothers explained users can create an account by providing some basic contact information and then ask their questions of the AI using the same “natural language” they would use in everyday conversation.
Instead of fiddling with filters, a user could simply say “I’m looking for a three-bedroom house in Bradford for under $1 million,” and the chat bot will respond with available listings.
Valery can also answer broader questions such as how many homes have sold in Bradford over the last three months, what sort of trends were seen over the last year, or how purchase and rental prices compare.
Another feature, called Valery Insights, offers a more narrative look at properties including how many times they’ve been listed, by how many agents and a breakdown of neighbourhood demographics.
While Ahmad doesn’t expect AI to replace real estate agents, he suspects those agents using the technology will have an advantage.
For those who join the Valery Real Estate Inc. brokerage, the platform also offers a feature called Valery Immerse which can help train agents and provide advice on how to better assist clients, based on transcripts of conversations.
Future features are also set to include travel time estimates for work commutes, recommendations for nearby schools, and the best-rated gyms or grocery stores in the area — factors "important to people when they’re looking to move somewhere,” Malik said.
Work on those extra options would be in addition to the roughly three years the brothers estimate they've already spent getting the platform to the point where it was ready for the public to try.
“It’s been a long journey for sure,” Malik said, adding Valery was originally going to be just a home evaluation tool, before they saw the demand for it to evolve into something more.
That included training the AI on “hundreds of hours” of market data based on reports from various institutions as well as insights from the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast.
“It’s not just ChatGPT — it’s GPT with a PhD in Canadian real estate,” Ahmad said.
The AI is based on ChatGPT, using the OpenAI application programming interface (API), and so far Ahmad estimates the brothers have built, torn down and rebuilt three times their custom database of between 10,000-20,000 rows of “unique real estate data points.”
“We want to make sure there’s no garbage-in-garbage-out scenario,” he said. “We spent a lot of time looking for reputable sources.”
Since the beta release of Valery AI in late August, the brothers estimate 700-800 people have been using the platform via its website.
So far, they said the feedback has been positive, and they expect the platform to continue evolving, both with the changing demands of users and also the ongoing advancements in AI technology.
“I think we’re never going to stop trying to push the boundaries,” Ahmad said. “We built the foundation. Now, it’s time to really understand where AI fits into the picture and where we can provide real utility and value.”
For more information, or to try Valery for yourself, visit valery.ca.
