Better Dwelling was founded in 2017 as a real estate news service that used artificial intelligence to assist with its data journalism. It was co-founded by Stephen Punwasi, whose background is in cognitive computing and machine learning. In 2017, the company began a daily news syndication service carried by mainstream news publishers such as
Business Insider,
HuffPost, and
Maclean's. Better Dwelling has reported on the
Canadian property bubble and housing crisis. The organization and its staff have collaborated on research with Canada's national housing agency and
Transparency International Canada. In 2021, Better Dwelling was collateral damage in a controversy surrounding
Big Tech's censorship of criticism of China and
Optimum Publishing International. The outlet had published what was described by Canadian newspaper
National Post as an "innocuous" clip of an interview with Optimum author and
Global News reporter
Sam Cooper, discussing his coverage of the
Cullen Commission. == Research ==