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March 2010

Property Reports 101: What is “Postcode Sales History Report”?

by Chris on March 26, 2010
Property Reports 101: What is "Postcode Sales History Report"?

Suburb View Those of you who had a look at the property reports websites know that some of them call it a “Postcode Report”. You could also have noticed that there’s another similar report, named “Suburb report”.

In case you were wondering, yes, there is a difference between “Suburb report” and “Postcode report”, and the reason why “Suburb report” is normally cheaper is because it can have less data than “Postcode Report”. In many cases Postcode report includes quite a few suburbs, all sharing the same postcode, whereas Suburb report will include only one suburb.

For example Postcode Report for 3196 will include suburbs Bonbeach, Chelsea, Chelsea Heights and Edithvale because they all share the same postcode. But if you were to buy a report for Chelsea, it would not include even the adjacent suburb Chelsea Heights.

I recon that for the $10 difference Postcode report is a better buy, because it will give you a bigger and clearer picture. You might even see that there are better opportunities in another suburb nearby that you didn’t consider before.

What’s inside?

First, there are 2 kinds of Postcode reports – 12 and 24 months of data – and, of course, the price is higher when more data is included.

Property-specific information

You will find a list of all the sales in the last 12 or 24 months, specifying:

- Property address (just a street name, not even a house number in Victoria)
- Type of the house / land (detached, semi-detached, hobby farm, etc)
- Sale price
- Sale date (just month and year for Victoria, not the full date)
- Estimated area (land)

Some providers will include information about the number of bedrooms / bathrooms / parking spaces in each sold house, others won’t. In some reports you will find whether the houses were sold by auction / private sale.

What can I do with this information?

If you are too busy to be to gathering this data on your own, looking through the latest auction results, this report saves you time. Or if there are no auctions in the suburb of your choice, this is your only way of knowing prices of the houses that were sold via private sales. Although some information about private sales is available online for free, it is very limited and won’t give you a clear picture.

Having the list of real sales figures in the suburb/postcode you can work out the gap between the asking price and the sale price, and therefore estimate how much you will REALLY have to spend, as advertised prices can be under-quoted or over-quoted.

You can see what locations / suburbs are more expensive than the others, and direct your search towards areas you can afford. This will save you time, money and your search will be focused (as opposed to you looking for properties all over the place and feeling overwhelmed).

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Property Reports 101: What is “Street Sales History Report”?

by Chris on March 19, 2010
Property Reports 101: What is "Street Sales History Report"?

Houses on a streetYou will find this report available at different providers’ websites under the names of “Street Sales History Report”, “Street History Report” or just “Street Report” – but they all are essentially the same.

What’s inside?

Property-specific information

For all the sold houses on that particular street you will get the following:
- Property address (just a street name, not even a house number in Victoria)
- Type of the house / land (detached, semi-detached, hobby farm, etc.)
- Sale price
- Sale date (just month and year for Victoria, not the full date).
- Estimated area (size of land).

This section will contain all the recorded sales of houses in this particular street in the last 10 – 15 years. Some providers will include information about the number of bedrooms / bathrooms / parking spaces in each sold house, others won’t. In some reports you will find whether the houses were sold by auction / private sale.

Street-specific information

- Average price of sold properties
- Median price of sold properties
- Highest price (best house?)
- Lowest price (worst house?)

What can I do with this information?

If you are a home buyer and already have your heart set on one particular street, if you are determined to buy a house just there and nowhere else, then you need to know what’s going on in your neighborhood.

Even though you’re buying the property for yourself and not as an investment – you don’t need a house that is a bad investment. You can have both advantages: buy a house that you like and have a decent capital growth in the long term.

Study how prices in this street changed over the years. Compare apples to apples – group similar houses together by the number of bedrooms / bathrooms. If you see some extreme prices (very high or very low compared to the rest) – throw them away, don’t look at them, just to be on the safe side. This little exercise will show you the capital growth that you can expect from your future home.

See where “your house” fits in – judging by the asking price, are you buying the best house or the worst house on the street? If the asking price exceeds most of the sale prices on this street, ask yourself why, and whether it’s worth it, or this is just the greed of the vendors showing. There could be justification for the high price – for example if there’s a park right across the road, or if your house was recently renovated, is sparkling and spotless – as opposed to other houses that are in “original” (read “ancient”) condition.

If you are a home seller – then this report should guide you in setting your expectations. See what your neighbors sold for, compare your house to similar properties in your street, take into account improvements that you’ve made (if any) and then compare the asking price or appraisal suggested by your estate agent to reality.

You will be killing two birds with one stone – the first bird is understanding what your house is worth now, and the second bird is understanding what your estate agent’s word is worth. And while there might not be much you can do about your house, estate agents are plenty to choose from :)

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Property Reports 101: What is “Individual Property Report”?

by Chris on March 10, 2010
Property Reports 101: What is "Individual Property Report"?

Hand drawn mapIt’s the same story with any range of similar products: when you first look at them and there are more than just 2, it’s easy to get lost. There was a sales study I heard about, where they put 6 kinds of jam on the supermarket shelf and 30 percent of the people bought a jar. Then they put 30 kinds of jam on the shelf and just 3 percent of people bought it. Barry Swartz called it “the paradox of choice”.

This was just to demonstrate why I am going to analyze property reports – because it could narrow your choice down and help you pick the one that would really help you buy or sell your house.

So let’s get to it.

Different report providers give the same reports different names. You will find here all the possible names of the reports that are essentially the same, and will be able to easily recognize them on the provider’s website.

Individual Property report (or Property Report)

What’s inside?

Property-specific information

This report includes information about just one property. It may include
- Pictures of the inside / outside (probably taken last time that house was for sale),
- A price estimate and information whether it’s above or below the median price for its suburb,
- A forecast what the house will be worth in one year – based on the estimated growth for the suburb / postcode that property belongs to,
- The amenities that property is close to (schools, shops, etc) and the distance,
- When the house was listed for sale (how long has it been on the market),
- How many times it was advertised and what was the asking price every time,

- How many times it was sold, via private sale or auction, and for how much.
- A list of “comparable” properties that were sold within the same area with prices and dates of sale.

Area-specific information

- How many houses were sold in the last year, the highest price, the lowest price and the median price,
- How many were advertised for sale, the highest asking price, the lowest and the median price and more general information of the same kind.
- Market trends of the suburb / postcode, meaning the movements of the median price during the last 10 years and the percentage of the change.
- Some statistics about the suburb, age of population, nature of occupancy (renters / owners), etc.

For a sample Property Report click here

What can I do with this information?

First, let’s filter away the fluff.

If you’re considering buying or selling a house in a specific area, the number one thing you do is get the free suburb profile online – which covers the median prices, their trends, suburb statistics for age, occupancy and household income, in other words 30% of the information in the report. So these are the pages you don’t need to look at in your report. They are not the reason you bought it in the first place.

Next, let’s move on to the information you didn’t have before.

Frankly, if I was a seller - I would think twice before buying this report. I know what my house looks like from inside and outside and what amenities it’s close to because I’ve lived there for some time. I know what I paid for my house and can calculate the future price in a year on my own, using the projected growth for the suburb, which is available for free in many websites. The only reason for me to still buy this report would be to find out what my neighbors sold their houses for (if their houses are similar to mine).

But if I was a buyer - that’s a different story. Even though I would have probably known about the amenities this location offers and the median prices and trends – the information about the number of times this house was sold in the past years is very useful. If the house was changing hands frequently, then it would suggest that no proper maintenance was done there for a while, therefore I would be expecting expenses.

Knowing what price it was sold last time for, I could calculate the current price (using the known median price growth for the suburb), and from the prices of other similar houses sold in this area I could work out the top and the bottom price limit for my negotiation. From the past asking prices and past selling prices I could work out “the gap” and it would give me an idea how much to offer.

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Property Reports 101: Why use them?

by Chris on March 3, 2010
Property Reports 101: Why use them?

House in the airThis post is the beginning of a new series “Property Reports 101″. There will be 3 posts in the series, talking about the reasons to use property reports, about the various report types and their purpose, and about the various report providers with their respective pricing.

My goal for this series is to help you understand whether you need to buy a property report, what kind of report will be right for you and how much you should spend on it.

Let’s begin.

If I had to name just one reason to purchase property reports when considering buying or selling a house, it would be time saving. If I had to name one more – it would be the peace of mind from the knowledge that you’re getting or paying the right price for your house.

Property reports will save you time that you’d have to spend searching for free sources of property sales data. Many real estate websites will display a small number of sold houses with prices in almost any area, but to gather this information and put it together in an orderly manner will take a lot of time and patience (speaking from experience).

Before we move on to detailed comparison of various property report types, let me explain more about WHY you would need a property report for your street, suburb or area and how it can help with your decision on a price and timing of the purchase or the sale.

Home buyers – 3 more reasons to purchase a property report

1. If you’ve already decided on a suburb you want to buy in, there are more expensive and less expensive areas within the same suburb. Looking at your property report you can map those areas and see what is within your price range and what isn’t.

2. If you’ve already decided on a street or an area within a suburb, using a property report you can see what would be a reasonable price for a house in that street.

You could choose similar houses in the same street (with the same number of bedrooms / bathrooms and similar features) and compare their prices to the asking price on your house to see whether the asking price is fair.

If the house is being sold via auction, you can use the highest sale price in that street as your “stop limit” when bidding to avoid over-paying.

3. Property report will be a useful tool in the negotiation process, if you want to negotiate the price down – it will show the agent that you’ve done your homework and can’t be fooled.

Home sellers – why purchase a property report

You can use the sales data to set a reasonable price-range for your house. Why not just listen to your estate agent? Well, to win your listing an agent might give you a much higher estimate for your house price than what you’d get eventually.

But if you have a list of comparable houses in your area with the prices they were sold for, you would be able to double-check what your agent says – which, in turn, would help you choose an honest agent!

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