Overthinking your real estate research? How much is too much?
By: Steve Walker
Tags: Research, Data, Property, Maps, Real Estate

Is this the house for me?

Real estate is a national hobby in Australia. Whether you are looking to buy or sell now or later, or just want to know what the market is doing, major real estate listing sites get plenty of traffic. But what is it that people want to know? Clearly at the top of the list is property values. You either want to know that you paid, or will pay, the right price for a property, or that it is going up at a good rate since you bought it, thereby increasing your wealth. But how important is this really at a micro level?

In Australia, home owners hold onto their houses for just over 11 years on average and their apartments for just under 10 years on average. Over the last 25 years the median property value increase has averaged 6.8% per annum which means that for the average time held, values will have more than doubled. Looking at what price is paid on purchase, even a 2% difference (which equals about $17,000 on current average values of $850,000) seems to be not so significant against a value increase of $850,000+ from now until sold in 10+ years’ time.

That extra 2% paid may give you the edge to secure the property you really desire. Further, at current interest rates of say 3.5%, your extra monthly repayments for principle and interest should vary by around $100 only. The problem is that we get drawn into the comparison game where we want to know we are getting the best deal possible and that we are buying into the highest potential value-increasing property. Should our decision-making on a major lifestyle choice be predicated on that basis?

Leaving price/value aside, what should we look for in our property research?

Simple view of locality profile

It seems that many property portals are now giving us potentially everything, including the colour and style of the kitchen sink! We now have the opportunity to access historical and current data on the property, locality, risks, community characteristics, neighbours, crime, traffic, shops, schools, parks, fees, transport, services, ethnicity, crime, drugs, climate (change), planning, pollution, broadband, drive times, pests, insurance loadings, family demographics, bike and walking trails, sporting clubs, coffee quality and much more!! The result is that we are being overwhelmed by data/information that is rarely presented in a logical and simple manner to allow easy profiling of any specific property.

Let’s therefore go back to basics such as the intuitive approach offered by Residz which is about having a simple view of whether a property meets your needs in terms of layout and whether the local area and community aligns with your lifestyle. Those attributes, even allowing for different family profiles, should be easily attainable with a few clicks from a simple locality or address search, all up taking less than 15 minutes. Spending more time to dig deeper is then up to you depending on your specific hobbyhorse. This is what other real estate portals need to get back to instead of looking like the controls of an alien spacecraft with no user guide.