About Payotte
One verified expert per sector. Always free. Always independent.
Our mission
Payotte started from a simple observation: finding a good broker, inspector or notary in a specific neighbourhood is a real ordeal. Existing platforms list hundreds of professionals with no clear hierarchy, often funded by paid listings or advertising.
Payotte does the opposite. For every geographic sector and every profession, we select a single expert — the one with the highest score on our 100-point grid. One result per search. Not a hundred.
The scoring system
Each expert is assessed on 5 criteria for a total of 100 points:
Average rating and review volume on Google Maps. Both matter: a 4.9-star rating from 3 reviews counts for less than a 4.7 from 200 reviews. It carries the most weight because it is the hardest public signal to manipulate.
Years actively practising the profession. A strong reliability signal, measured from the date the licence was obtained.
Verified on the official register (OACIQ, RECO, RECA, BCFSA, AMF, AIC, etc.). No exception: no valid active licence, no publication.
Does the expert genuinely operate in this sector — declared specialty, local presence and activity — rather than across the whole city?
Media presence, professional awards, video presence or other verifiable distinctions.
The three publication states
The expert meets all our criteria with a score of 75/100 or more. Their profile is complete.
The expert is the best available in this sector, but some data is missing. We publish the profile with two explanation blocks: what is missing, and why they are still recommended.
No expert clears the minimum threshold. The page shows an unavailability message. We keep searching.
Independence and funding
Payotte is independently funded. No expert pays to appear. No advertiser funds the ranking. No commission is taken on transactions made with the listed experts.
The only selection criterion is the Payotte score. If an expert with a lower score contacts us to appear, the answer is no.
Who is behind Payotte
Payotte is published independently by Gregory Payotte, a Canadian citizen — not a broker, not a player in the real estate industry. And that is a deliberate choice: Payotte draws its value not from industry connections or insider opinions, but from a transparent, verifiable method with no conflict of interest whatsoever.
The idea is simple: use modern tools — including artificial intelligence — to aggregate and structure public data at scale (Google reviews, official licence registers, real estate board market data), then make that research available free to all Canadians.
Our absolute rule: no invented data. Every published figure comes from a public source that we cite. AI is used to organize information, never to fabricate facts — and when a piece of data remains to be confirmed, we say so clearly rather than asserting it.
A question, a correction, a report? Write to me directly at gregory@payotte.com — I read every message.
Current coverage
Payotte covers the 13 Canadian cities of 250,000+ residents, spread across 87 geographic sectors, for 5 real estate professions — up to 435 expert pages when data is available.
Cities are covered in their primary language: French for Montreal and Quebec City, English for the others.