The Saskatchewan REALTORS Association benchmark of $444,700 describes a typical Saskatoon home, not yours, and an automated tool starts from exactly that kind of average. Online estimates, also called automated valuation models, are useful as a starting point but they have a fundamental limitation. They cannot see inside your home. They know the square footage, the lot size, the year built, and the last sale price from public records. They do not know you renovated the kitchen, finished the basement, or updated the bathrooms. They also do not know if the home has deferred maintenance, outdated systems, or condition issues that would lower the value.
A real valuation closes that gap. Joel Dyck walks through your home, documents every feature and improvement, then compares against homes in Saskatoon that have sold recently with similar characteristics. The result is a number that reflects the actual condition and features of your home, not an algorithmic guess based on public data.
If your home has improvements that public records do not capture, and most homes do, an online estimate will undervalue your property. A hand-reviewed valuation will not. A hand-reviewed valuation normally takes about 30 minutes in the home and costs nothing.