RealRoot

Main page
Autofill area
Manual area
Neighbourhood comparison
Report generated
Monthly budget
Monthly budget neighbourhood list

Inspiration

Choosing where to live is one of the most important financial decisions people make, yet it’s often based on incomplete information. We were inspired to build a tool that reflects the real, long-term cost of living and helps people avoid being priced out after moving.

What it does

Analyzes the true cost of living across different neighbourhoods and generates a score according to the risk of living in a neighbourhood.

Users input: Income Target neighbourhood

Then calculates: Rent burden Commute cost and time (live estimates) Time lost to commuting Gentrification risk using urban development signals

How we built it

Frontend: React-based UI with interactive dashboards Custom components for analysis, comparison, and user input

Backend: Flask API to handle scoring logic and data processing

Data & APIs: Google Maps - distance matrix and geocoding Toronto Open Data - building permits and development activity Statistics Canada - economic context IBM Watsonx - language input parsing

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was accessing real-world datasets and getting free api keys.

Many housing platforms have limited or restricted APIs
A lot of data was not openly accessible

Because of this, we had to:

Rely on open data sources and reports Balance accuracy with feasibility within hackathon constraints

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully built a working full-stack application with real data integration
Created a unified “true cost of living” metric, not just a rent calculator
Managed time and tasks together as a team

What we learned

Real-world data integration is often the hardest part of building and we learned how to use them in our application
Simplicity in UI is critical when dealing with complex backend logic
How important it is to split tasks and manage time well
To not give up over the multiple problems that we had to encounter