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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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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 the 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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“As an older Australian (age 68), I remember well the introduction of the word ‘apartment’ in the early 1960s, just as I was looking at buying or renting a flat. The word is USA based and was introduced to mean a luxury flat rather than something that was bigger than a flat, though you are correct in that an apartment was (generally) bigger.

Most times it was used as a selling tool to advertise a flat for a higher price. If you called a flat an apartment, you got a better price!”

So there you go, another example of how a fancy word is used to add a non-existent value to a product!

But jokes aside, I realize that for many of you English is not your first language, and that my British readers have never had a reason in their life to call a flat “an apartment”, so I decided to continue this linguistic quest and get more answers to what the difference between flats and apartments is.

And summarizing the information that I found, here are the other differences between flats and apartments:

• A flat is on a single floor - an apartment can be a duplex (2-story) apartment
• A flat has its own street entrance - an apartment can be only entered from inside the building
• A flat has the entire floor to itself - apartments are many on one floor.

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Remember how I asked you “What do you think, will property prices stop if no more overseas IT engineers, doctors or accountants will be allowed in Australia?”

So here is what doctor T. from Germany thinks:

“I guess property prices will stop if no more overseas doctors will be allowed in Australia.

Why ?

No more doctors from overseas to meet the shortage of doctors, not only GP’s but also Specialists like Surgeons, Anaesthetists etc, in the country means not enough doctors for all citizens.

In a kind of “biologic solution” the number of people living in Oz will be reduced. Less people means less potential house buyers and this will result in a decrease of property prices.

You want it faster ? No problem. Send all descendents of the original POM’s back to England and you’ve cleared at least half of the country.

The statement that wealthy immigrants would push property prices reminds me of an Austrian guy who 80 years ago told people in my country that wealthy Jews are responsible for pushing up inflation.

This was absolutely bullshit as well as the idea that wealthy immigrants push up prices in Oz.”

Thank you, Dr. T. for saying something that probably many would agree with - if only they weren’t too shy or too busy to respond.

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Apparently those “monstrous” migrants, even though their number is in average 500,000 a year (peanuts, compared to the total annual number of property transactions), somehow manage to drive the property-price inflation. You’ve got to be kidding.

How on Earth can they be doing that, you ask? Well, the explanation John Edwards from Residex offers is that they earn above-average salaries, which they spend, buying houses for crazy prices. Yea, that makes a lot of sense.

Let’s see how much sense exactly it makes.

Imagine that you are a newcomer. You have just arrived in a new country that has a more expensive currency than my own, so the money you brought with you shrunk a fair bit. You haven’t had any predecessors here, who left you an inheritance, something to get your foot in the door of the property market - you are making a fresh start. Your salary may be above average, because you are a highly skilled professional - but locals are paid just as much, and the Immigration department makes sure you don’t get better employment terms than any Aussie born person with the same qualifications. You have the whole future of your kids to worry about, you have to pay their school tuition fees and put them through college. Why don’t you just go and buy a house that will cost you 5.5 times your household income, and top it up, throw another 10 grand in, so that nobody beats you on the price.

I rest my case.

If I had to name a suspect, I’d be having hard time to pick just one - but I can promise you, migrants wouldn’t be on that list. How about the taxation incentives that encourage investing in property, how about the banks that allow people to borrow amounts that are 500% of their annual income?

Reading the comments on that article, I could see that some people found this article to be racist to an extent. I, however, think that this article isn’t being fair to Australian-born people; it really presents them in a bad light. It basically says that Aussies are not skilled enough - and therefore not paid enough - to afford a house, if a small proportion of overseas immigration can price them out of the property market. If I was an Aussie by birth, I’d be offended.

I’d really like to get your opinion - what do you think, will property prices stop if no more overseas IT engineers, doctors or accountants will be allowed in Australia?

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But what exactly IS a better kitchen? The top-end hardware and storage solutions.

People like lazy susans - if you’re not familiar with the term, it’s a circular revolving shelf installed in your cupboards to utilize the space better. Often they are installed in corner cabinets to solve the so-damn-hard-to-reach-pots problem.

Another favorite is the soft closing drawers and cabinet doors. Push them as hard as you like - there will never be a “bang”, very helpful for people with little babies or folks recovering from the night before.

Lift-up doors are very popular, because of the ease of access to the cabinets’ contents and for safety reasons - these doors you can’t walk into (well, unless you try very hard). Touch-opening doors and drawers are in demand as well - imagine cabinet doors with no handles, how cool is that!

Kitchen also includes the appliances installed with it - and people are choosing to have wine fridges, LCD/ Plasma TVs, dishwashers, water filtration systems and free-standing stoves in their kitchens.

As for the kitchen bench tops, nowadays the preferred material is granite - and stainless steel or timber become less and less popular.

Giving their bathroom a makeover, most often people replace the basins with modern-looking ones, replace the older vanity units, tap ware and tiles. Apparently semi-frameless shower screens are a hit, and there is a growing trend for multiple basins and multiple shower heads.

That’s it from me, now it’s your turn to speak up - what does your dream kitchen or bathroom look like?

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And in any renovation project, what are the 2 major components? The new kitchen and bathroom, of course. Now this part explains the HIA report about Australian kitchens and bathrooms getting bigger and better. They say that in 2008/09 the average cost for a new kitchen / bathroom, including installation, was $14,000 and that people will be spending more in 2010 and 2011.

If we do the math, to replace both the kitchen and the bathroom will cost us $28,000 - compare it to $60,000 for relocating and you get a saving of $32,000. Of course there are other costs involved in a renovation, but still - this alternative looks much more attractive.

And now back to you - what do YOU think, renovate or relocate?

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Let me give you some reasons to be skeptical about the huge rise in sea level by 2100. The climate change report is full of predictions based on assumptions. When I mentioned that people have been building relatively close to the shoreline because the sea level around Australia was pretty stable over the years, I didn’t back that - well, here are the numbers.

Between years 1842 and 2002 the sea level around Australia rose by about 17 centimeters. If you do the math, 17cm divided by 160 years gives us about 1 millimeter per year. Which means that if the sea level continues to rise at the same pace, 100 years later we will have a rise of 10cm - no big deal.

The report also assumes that greenhouse gas emission will continue at the present rate - well, maybe they will and maybe they won’t. The awareness has clearly been created and is being backed up by legislation and regulations of all sorts, to have the emissions reduces, etc.

It is also not a given that we, humans, have caused the global warming and there are quite a few scientists who claim that we’re now going through a natural process of global warming which has been closely followed by Ice Age in the past - in which case we need to worry about icy roads, not flooded houses.

All in all, I would say - if you love the ocean view, there’s still no reason to give up on it, especially if this climate change report affects the coastal property prices and creates some opportunities for you. One thing to bear in mind is that you would be facing difficulties insuring property that can be inundated - probably would be a wise thing to call an insurance company or two and ask about their policy regarding coastal homes.

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Because the ice and glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are melting. Scientists don’t fully understand the whole mechanism of this melting and can’t predict exactly how and when the sea level will rise; they are estimating it to rise 1.1 meters by 2100.

Why have people been building close to the shoreline?

Because over the last 7000 years sea level around Australia has been stable, and people assumed it will stay the same. But now things are changing and the latest report from the government clearly makes that a false assumption.

What’s the worst thing that can happen?

Right now the benchmark for “nightmare weather” is an event similar to June 2007 when in NSW storms caused 200,000 houses to lose power, thousands of people were forced to evacuate and damage to property exceeded 1 billion dollars.

Where things might get really bad?

According to a graph from the government climate change report, there are 4 areas where the most extensive damage from storm tide is expected: Kingston, Hobsons Bay, Greater Geelong and Wellington. In Kingston the estimated number of existing buildings at risk is between 6500 and 9000, in Hobsons Bay between 4500 and 7500 houses are at rick, in Greater Geelong - between 4500 and 6500, and in Wellington between 3500 and 4000. These numbers are assuming the 1.1 m rise that is expected by 2100.

Where is the “risk zone”?

Have a look at the “before and after” photos below, taken from the “Climate change risks” report.

Here you are looking at Altona (Hobsons Bay area) in 2009.

And now you are looking at Altona in 2100, notice the blue area? Areas covered with water here used to be covered with houses in 2009, photo above.

These next 2 photos are of Geelong. This one is Geelong as we know it.

And this one is a prediction of Geelong after a storm tide in 2100.

That’s it, no more scary photos

Now about the City of Port Phillip. According to the 2100 predictions, properties close to the Elwood Canal, Luna Park, the St. Kilda Baths, the St. Kilda Pier and Marina are at risk from 2 factors - the first is a storm surge, and the second is infrastructure instability.

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“OK, Chris” you say “so the sea levels might rise 1.1 meters by 2100, but what does it mean to us?”

Let’s begin with the big picture. On the country level, between 157,000 and 247,600 residential buildings might be at risk of damage from sea inundation, many of the ports (and therefore our import and export) might be affected and many of the recreational places such as marinas might suffer.

Not only the ports - but also the airports are at risk, as well as the power plants that are located within 500 meters of the coastline. What’s more, there are many police stations, hospitals and fire and ambulance stations located close to the coast.

The climate change risks include not only inundation, but also what scientists call “events of extreme weather” - cyclones and storm surges. They are originated over the ocean and the closer a property is to the coast line, the bigger its chances to suffer from cyclones.

On the state level, considering that 25% of Australian population lives in Victoria, we’ve got a significant number of buildings in coastal areas that is in danger of inundating and storms.

The areas at risk include bayside suburbs Chelsea and Aspendale, Altona (and the City of Hobsons Bay), Geelong, St. Kilda and Middle park.

In my next post I will write in more detail about each of the areas at risk, explaining about the problematic locations and what percentage of houses is likely to suffer in each location. Stay tuned!

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