In 2026, among the 692 best-verified real-estate experts in each Canadian market (10 provinces, 76 cities, 150 sectors), the median professional has a 5.0/5 Google rating from 115 reviews, 18 years of experience and an active licence verified on a public register — for a median Payotte score of 78/100. Certified appraisers are the structural exception: a median of just 21 reviews, despite the longest experience (22 years).
Payotte Barometer — October 2026: where is a verified expert missing?
The dated quarterly edition goes further than this Index: it maps the slots (sector × profession) still without a verified expert, profession by profession, province by province and city by city.
Editions are quarterly; the Index itself is recomputed on every data update.
Coverage in numbers
By profession
Among the best-verified expert in each market. Median Payotte score, Google rating, reviews and experience.
| Profession | Experts | % Recommended | Median score | Google rating | Reviews (median) | Median exp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real estate broker | 148 | 74% | 82 | 5.0 | 131 | 17 yr |
| Mortgage broker | 141 | 77% | 80 | 5.0 | 179 | 16 yr |
| Home inspector | 138 | 64% | 78 | 5.0 | 211 | 17 yr |
| Notary / lawyer | 147 | 77% | 77 | 4.8 | 81 | 17 yr |
| Appraiser | 118 | 58% | 73 | 4.8 | 21 | 22 yr |
By province
Published verified experts and median Payotte score by province (sorted by number of experts).
| Province | Published experts | Cities | Median score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario | 232 | 22 | 79 |
| Quebec | 171 | 24 | 74 |
| British Columbia | 100 | 10 | 78 |
| Alberta | 97 | 8 | 83 |
| Manitoba | 28 | 1 | 77 |
| Saskatchewan | 22 | 5 | 74 |
| Nova Scotia | 20 | 1 | 76 |
| New Brunswick | 14 | 3 | 77 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 4 | 1 | 59 |
| Prince Edward Island | 4 | 1 | 67 |
Index generated on 2026-10-05 · recomputed on every data update.
What the Index reveals
Across every market covered, the typical verified expert is firmly established: 18 years of experience and 115 Google reviews at a median 5.0/5. This is not a beginner's profile — it is the verifiable top of each local market.
The exception is sharp and structural: certified appraisers carry the longest experience but the fewest reviews, because their clients (lenders, lawyers, courts) don't leave Google reviews. That is exactly why the Payotte score combines five signals rather than reviews alone.
The provincial ranking is not flat either: from the top (Alberta, 83/100) to the bottom (Newfoundland and Labrador, 59/100), the median-score gap reaches 24 points. The profession-by-profession detail and the full provincial ranking are in the Payotte Barometer 2026.
Methodology
- Sample. Payotte publishes only one verified expert per market (city × sector × profession), the highest-scoring on its 100-point scale. These figures describe "the best-verified expert in each market," never all professionals. Scope: 692 published experts out of 747 evaluated.
- Scale (100 points). Google reviews 35 · experience 30 · active provincial licence 15 · local roots 15 · verifiable bonus 5. States: green (≥ 70, "Recommended"), yellow (50–69, published with an explanation), red (< 50, not shown).
- Medians, not means. We report medians (less sensitive to outliers). Missing fields are excluded from each median, never filled in.
- Sources. Public data (Google reviews, provincial licence registers: OACIQ, RECO, RECA, BCFSA, AMF, FSRA, AIC, law societies) compiled and verified by Payotte. No invented data.
Raw data
Download the full Index (CSV) for your own analysis — cite Payotte as the source.
Download the CSV