Canada’s Multiple Listing Service sites — the nationwide Realtor.ca and its Vancouver-based sibling Realtylink.org — are getting some new competition.

While these well-established online tools are invaluable for house-hunters, several new sites are also worth a look if you’re looking to buy a home in Canada.

Billing itself as “Home Search with Smarts” and operating in major cities across Canada, cool-looking Zoocasa.com has useful map-based search options as well as information about neighborhoods and local schools. Even though its listings aren’t yet as comprehensive as the MLS sites, it’s still worth a look. BlogTO has a review of Zoocasa.com here.

BlockTalk.ca is a good source of neighborhood demographic information if you’re house-hunting in Vancouver (the only city where it’s operating so far). It can tell you, for example, that the largest percentage of households in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood are “Electric Avenues,” which it defines as young upper-middle-class urban singles, while “Young Digerati” — young and well-off urban trendsetters — dominate the Coal Harbour area downtown.

This article in the Vancouver Sun has more information about these two sites.

Photo ©Carolyn B. Heller