Hey HN,
I made Mirror Real Estate (
https://mirrorrealestate.com/), a side project I've been working on.
The goal was to create a clean, fast, global real estate listing site.
Today, I'm launching a new feature I've been working on for the past few months: a free, instant property valuation tool.
Why I built this: Most online home valuation tools (AVMs) are either simple lead-gen forms for real estate agents, are locked behind paywalls, or only work for a single country (like the US). I wanted to create a tool that was free, respected user privacy (no email required), and could provide a ballpark estimate for properties in multiple countries.
How it works (the fun part):
The valuation is generated by an Automated Valuation Model I built. Under the hood, it's a gradient boosting model (using XGBoost) that's been trained on a dataset of property features from recent sales and active listings. Key features include square footage, beds/baths, property type, and of course, location (lat/long).
The biggest technical challenge by far has been data wrangling—cleaning and normalizing property data from different countries, each with its own unique formatting and available fields, has been a monumental task.
The model is still evolving, and its accuracy is heavily dependent on the density of data available in a specific area. It's by no means a replacement for a formal appraisal from a certified professional, but it aims to be a useful starting point for homeowners or potential buyers.
I'd love to get the HN community's feedback.
If you feel comfortable, try it on a property you know. How does the estimate compare to reality?
What's your impression of the user experience?
What key features or data points do you think would most improve the model's accuracy?
Thanks for taking a look.
johnnyfuego•53m ago