Free Property Valuation Resources

It goes without saying that finding a reliable online source for valuation of a property is difficult, especially when that property doesn’t have any obvious peers to compare with (either manually or by algorythm). They all claim to have viable assessment criteria, but when you stack them up side by side, you realize just how much variation there can be, and given the potential for human influence/involvement, no one source can be considered particularly authoritative (even if they do lay claim to being used by the banks – which BTW use at least three different sources).

I recently applied through a mobile lender for an equity loan (specifically the ANZ’s Equity Manager, which is more a line of credit facility). After discussing this with the broker, he indicated the ANZ uses three sources, and promptly asked me to put a value on my property – to which I replied with a figure I had sourced two years prior from APM, factoring of course the growth in my area over the past two years (I had this prepared as I expected the question). It was to my mind a generous figure, but then owners tend to overprice anyway, so lets see where this lands..

After a few days he got back to me with a value on my home that was 10% above what I had cited. I was gobsmacked.. until I looked at the current online valuations, and realized just how much disparity there was..

 

The Sites I used for FREE:

Realestate.com.au for CoreLogic/RP data
RP Data does of course have it’s own website, and provides a couple of paid options, depending on what you need – but the above link is a quick way to get a valuation on a specific property, using CoreLogic as the underlying source. If you want more on RP Data, your options are RP Data Professional, which has a monthly subscription, or Property Value which is a seperate site, has a little less data, and is far cheaper for the investor.

Domain.com.au for APM (Australian Property Monitors)
APM provides valuations that I found to be mid range, and closer to my expectations of the market (this doesn’t make APM consistently right, just closer to the mark in my opinion). They also provide services to PriceFinder.com.au – which is a paid service, but I’ll explain how to get freebies there at the end of this article (and they’re worth it too).

OnTheHouse.com.au for Residex (now owned by Corelogic)
Another good one to use, and like APM, closer to the mark.

There are more out there, but these really are the underlying sources for most other sites providing automated valuation services, and above are free sites you can use to see their data.

Of course, a price estimate alone is nothing compared to the volume of data an investor needs..

Sites providing property and suburb level profiles charge a hefty price for access (typically $250+ per month) – such as Real Estate Investar, Pricefinder, and RP Data, and one, Ripehouse, only offers annual access at $1500+ (although they DO have a unique approach to market analysis, which I find quite sensible if you can afford it).

AN AWESOME RESOURCE..

For me, I chose an API subscription – Australian Property Investor Magazine, because its a VERY informative resource released monthly – their online databank and articles are indispensible, and you get a free pricefinder subscription along with it (normally $175+ per mth).. and I subscribe quarterly to API magazine for just $15.

REMEMBER – THIS IS MY OWN UNPAID OPINION – I RECEIVE NOTHING FROM ANYONE FOR THE ABOVE.