AI and Realtors may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. This does not influence our reviews or ratings — our opinions are independent and based on our own evaluation.
Altos Research is a real-time housing market analytics platform that delivers weekly, ZIP-code-level market data and trend analysis for real estate agents, brokerages, mortgage lenders, and title companies. Unlike property-level valuation tools (HouseCanary, Quantarium, Zestimate, Redfin Estimate), Altos operates at the market-trend level — tracking inventory, list prices, price reductions, days-on-market, and market-action indexes across every ZIP code in the US.
For real estate agents, Altos matters as a client-conversation instrument. The platform's signature deliverable is a branded, shareable market report that agents use in buyer presentations, listing appointments, and past-client newsletters to demonstrate current market expertise. Agents who consistently push weekly Altos reports to their sphere build market-authority positioning that compounds over time.
Altos was acquired by HousingWire in 2022, giving it distribution into the broader real estate news and data ecosystem. The product has continued to iterate with stronger automation, broader coverage, and tighter integration with mortgage and title workflows.
What Are the Key Features?
Weekly Market Reports. Every Monday, Altos refreshes data across every ZIP code. Agents receive updated market reports with inventory levels, median list prices, price reductions, and Altos's proprietary Market Action Index (MAI) — a numerical score indicating whether a market is favoring buyers or sellers.
Custom-Branded Reports. Reports are branded with the agent's photo, contact information, and brokerage identity. Agents push these to clients via email, text, social media, or print.
Market Action Index (MAI). Altos's signature metric — a single number that represents whether a market is in buyer-favoring, balanced, or seller-favoring conditions. Updates weekly. Useful as a fast-read conversation anchor with clients.
Automated Marketing Suite. Paid tiers include email delivery automation, contact list management (up to 1,000 contacts on Professional, 5,000 on Advanced), and scheduled report pushes.
Multi-User and Brokerage Tools. Advanced tier supports 3 users with shared branding; Enterprise supports unlimited users with full national coverage.
Live Training. Altos offers regular training sessions covering how to read market data, how to present reports to clients, and how to integrate Altos into listing and buyer workflows.
Data Depth. Real-time inventory, list price distribution, price reduction rates, days-on-market trends, and historical comparison series going back multiple years in most markets.
Integration with HousingWire. Post-acquisition, Altos data feeds into HousingWire content and analysis, giving Altos subscribers cross-reference value with industry news coverage.
How Much Does It Cost?
All plans allow cancellation anytime. No API pricing is publicly disclosed. No free trial on paid tiers is advertised — the free Starter tier effectively serves as the trial.
Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- ✓ Weekly data refresh is genuinely differentiating. Most market stats agents cite are monthly or quarterly. Weekly cadence catches trends faster and gives agents fresher talking points.
- ✓ Branded reports are client-ready. No formatting work required — push from Altos, hit send.
- ✓ Market Action Index simplifies buyer/seller conversations. A single number that clients can understand cuts through noise.
- ✓ Functional free tier. Starter with 1 ZIP is genuinely usable for agents focused on a single market.
- ✓ Professional at $79/month is a reasonable entry point for agents covering a small metro.
- ✓ Advanced at $149/month with unlimited in-state reports is strong value for multi-market agents or small brokerages.
- ✓ Post-HousingWire integration adds industry authority. Reports tie into broader industry narrative.
- ✓ Live training is included on paid tiers — lowers the learning curve.
❌ Cons
- × Data is market-level, not property-level. Altos doesn't give you comps for a specific property; it gives you trends across the ZIP.
- × Advanced tier cap at in-state coverage creates friction for agents in multi-state border markets. Enterprise is the step up for multi-state coverage.
- × No free trial on paid tiers beyond the 1-ZIP Starter. Agents who want more than 1 ZIP commit to paid immediately.
- × Affiliate program status unverified. SCOUT flag — determine before WEBB installs any tracked CTA.
- × Advanced analytics platform is not clearly scoped publicly. The differentiator between Professional and Advanced beyond report count and contact count needs clarification.
- × No API pricing disclosed. Agents wanting data-feed integration have to go through Enterprise sales.
- × Report aesthetics are functional, not premium. For luxury brokerages wanting high-end presentation polish, Altos reports may feel utilitarian.
- × Single-ZIP Starter is too thin for most working agents. Most agents cover 5-15 ZIPs; realistic starting tier is Professional.
Who Should Use This Tool
Best For:
- Real estate agents who want a weekly, automated market-data push to their sphere.
- Listing agents building market-authority positioning in buyer-heavy or shifting markets.
- Brokerage owners wanting a consistent, branded market data product for their agents.
- Mortgage professionals and title agents wanting cross-market data for conversation pieces.
- Past-client nurture workflows — automated monthly Altos reports keep agents in front of sphere contacts.
- Social media content — Altos reports generate market-data posts consistently.
Not Best For:
- Agents looking for property-level AVMs — use HouseCanary, Redfin Estimate, or Zestimate.
- Agents who only close 2-3 deals a year and don't build a sphere nurture motion — the monthly cost doesn't pay back.
- Brokerages wanting a fully integrated CRM + market data + lead-gen stack — Altos is a data layer, not a CRM.
- Markets where Altos has thin coverage (rare — Altos covers most US markets well).
- Agents in a single ZIP who can survive on the Starter tier indefinitely.
- Agents wanting API access without Enterprise pricing conversations.
How Does It Compare?
vs Keeping Current Matters (subscription): KCM is a real estate market-education content service — monthly articles, infographics, and client presentations. More editorial, less data-native. Complementary to Altos; different value angles.
vs HousingWire subscription (~$29-$99/mo content tiers): Industry news and analysis from Altos's parent company. Good for agent industry awareness; not a client-facing report tool.
vs Local MLS market reports (free with MLS membership): Your MLS provides market statistics. Altos differentiates on weekly cadence, branded reports, and the Market Action Index framing.
vs ShowingTime market data (free with many MLS memberships): Buyer-demand and showing-activity data. Different data category; complementary rather than competing.
vs Zillow/Realtor.com market data (free): Consumer-facing aggregate market data. Different framing; less agent-branded.
vs HouseCanary (~$79-$99/mo agent tier): Property-level AVM with market context. Different category — property-level vs market-level.
vs CoreLogic market analytics (enterprise): Deep institutional-grade market data. Not agent-priced; enterprise-only.
vs STATLook / Real Estate Business Intelligence tools (varies): State or regional analytics platforms. Altos wins on national consistency and weekly refresh cadence.
vs REBAC / RE Stat Insider (varies): Specialized market-reporting products. Altos's Market Action Index is unique enough to maintain product differentiation.
Implementation Notes
The highest-ROI workflow for Altos Research is weekly sphere nurture. Agents who push an Altos-branded report to their sphere every Monday — via email, text, or social — build market-authority positioning that converts to listing leads over 6-18 month windows. The key is consistency; the tool doesn't deliver value unless the agent actually distributes the reports.
The second workflow is listing appointment preparation. Walking into a listing meeting with last week's Altos report for the seller's specific ZIP — showing current inventory levels, days-on-market trends, price-reduction rates, and the Market Action Index — demonstrates that the agent operates from current data rather than stale impressions. Sellers who see an agent arriving with fresh market analytics trust that agent more than sellers who get platitudes about "the market is hot" without supporting data.
The third workflow is buyer offer coaching. In buyer-favoring markets, Altos data helps buyers understand that waiting, negotiating harder, or requesting price reductions is supported by the data. In seller-favoring markets, the data helps coach buyers toward competitive offers and tightened contingencies. Either way, specific market data beats gut feel in client conversations.
The fourth workflow is social media and content. Altos reports generate a steady stream of market-data posts. Agents building LinkedIn or Instagram presences use weekly market data as a content anchor that requires minimal effort to produce.
For brokerages, the operational lesson is that an Altos subscription without an agent distribution motion wastes the money. The tool doesn't sell homes — the agent's consistent distribution of the data does. Brokerages that buy Advanced or Enterprise tiers should also invest in training and accountability around how agents actually use the reports.
The realistic starting point for a new agent is Starter (free, 1 ZIP) while building distribution habits, then upgrading to Professional ($79/mo) once the habit is consistent and the agent covers more than 1 market. Jumping to Advanced ($149/mo) makes sense once an agent is covering 10+ ZIPs or running multi-office brokerage workflows.
Our Verdict
Altos Research is a strong weekly-market-data tool for agents building market-authority positioning with their sphere. The Professional tier at $79/month is a reasonable bet for agents covering a mid-size metro; Advanced at $149/month is the sweet spot for multi-market agents and small brokerages. The functional free tier means there's zero excuse not to try the product before committing.
The key mental model: Altos is not a CMA tool, not an AVM, not a lead-gen platform. It is a market-data-as-content engine. Agents who commit to the weekly push rhythm — to their sphere, to social media, to past clients — extract disproportionate value. Agents who subscribe and never send a report waste the money.
Bottom line: Altos Research scores 4.5/5 across the dimensions above.