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Home › Property Value › Australia’s Top Property Valuation Sites Put To The Test
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There are three main ways to estimate the value of your property;
The rise of DIY property valuation websites has made it easier than ever to find out how much your house is worth.
Real estate agent appraisals are increasingly challenged by vendors armed with price estimates and comparable sales data sourced online.
But are the online, do-it-yourself property estimates consistent? And do their valuations accurately reflect sale prices?
We agree you can never be armed with too much knowledge when it comes to finding out the true value of your home.
It is important for you to locate all the information you need and we promise to guide you through the various websites available.
Are you ready to put the top online property valuation websites to the test?
So here they are:
Note:
CoreLogic provides the same price estimate on its website, propertyvalue.com.au, as on partner REA’s website. For this reason, we have bundled the two together as CoreLogic/REA.
Here’s a brief overview of the websites we’ve discussed in this article, plus a few extras.
Did you know?
Some, such as Domain, REA, and OTH provide an estimate without asking for personal information.
Here is something else to keep in mind:
Others request contact information or payment in exchange for a more accurate estimate.
Domain’s Home Price Guide launched recently and have promoted the website extensively.
Home Price Guide provides an estimated value for the searched property.
What’s included:
Property Value is CoreLogic’s (formerly RP Data) publicly available property price estimation tool. It also has subscription price estimate tools, which we did not analyse. The publicly available estimate looks like:
Realestate.com has two price estimation tools.
They are:
The estimate is a range provided on properties currently not for sales and is sourced from CoreLogic.
OTH was one of the first websites to provide free, online property price estimates. It uses data sourced from government and real estate agents.
The calculated estimate looks like this:
RealAs helps buyers assess how much to pay for properties currently for sale. It claims that 90 percent of its property valuations are within 10 percent of the final sale price.
How does it work?
After you enter in an address it will:
After you register, you can see realAs’ prediction.
Value Our House is a private company that sources information online to provide house price estimates.
How do you use it?
After entering an address on the homepage you need to provide property information and full contact details to see the house value estimate:
Realestate.com.au has another property valuation tool located at property.value.realestate.com.au. It gives homeowners a free property report and arranges a price estimate from a local agent.
Be advised:
It does not provide an instant price estimate.
Homeguru is also owned by realestate.com.au. It operates in a similar fashion to property.value.realestate.com.au.
After entering in an address, the user is prompted with a series of screens asking for more information about the property (beds, baths, condition, etc.) and their contact details.
What does it do?
The user receives an email explaining that a real estate agent has been provided with their details and will be in touch to provide an estimate. The email links to a page that includes comparable sales sourced from realestate.com.au and RP Data (now CoreLogic).
Homeowners can appoint a licensed valuer to appraise their property after a physical inspection. They base their property valuations on a detailed assessment of the property and recent market sales.
And don’t forget:
They are legally responsible for the information they provide.
Real estate agents provide price estimates after they have inspected the property and evaluated recent sales in the area.
Because they actually see the property and have knowledge of similar properties in the area, they are able to make far more accurate estimates of your property’s value than online property valuation websites.
Which Real Estate Agent will help you find top real estate agents in your area so you can get the valuations you need.
For starters:
We calculated estimates for 214 recently sold properties using all five property valuation websites.
Then:
We compared those estimates to actual sale prices.
Each property was sold between 6 and 12 November 2015.
As a reference:
All sale prices were displayed on realestate.com.au and properties were sourced from each Australian state and territory, mostly from capital cities.
In a nutshell:
They broadly reflected Australia’s population footprint.
This may surprise you!Each property estimate website was reasonably accurate at assessing the portfolio of properties. Average variances between the estimate and the recent sale price ranged from 6% to 15%.
While realAs was the most accurate on average, we observed some discrepancies at an individual property level across all websites.
But, does it matter?
Unless you’re a big property investor, the average is all you really care about.
Here’s how the websites ranked, from most accurate to least accurate:
But wait – realAs has a completely different methodology to the other sites we examined (using information input from buyers) and we found that a lot of properties did not have estimated values.
We found that 13% to 25% of the 214 properties searched returned no data at all. They either had no estimate or no sale price.
What did we find?
53 results across all websites had variances greater than 30% of the sale price.Domain and OTH were the worst offenders. They each had 19 properties with variances greater than 30% of the sale price.
Given the number and size of some of the outliers, we re-ran the findings to see if the order of website accuracy changed when outliers greater than 50% of the sale price were excluded.
Get this!
We got rid of 27 properties in total.
Here’s another interesting thing:
We found that while the average variances dropped, the accuracy ranking remained similar.
The adjusted average variances for each site are as follows:
For the majority of property owners, these websites give a broad indication of how much their home is worth today.
But remember this:
These are relatively new tools.
As they fine-tune their algorithms and expand their data sources, they will become more accurate.
realAs is one small step ahead of its competitors.
What sets it apart?
It sources price information from buyers, rather than relying on property features and recent market data like its competitors.
Their approach does lend itself to a huge problem though – only properties currently on the market can give estimates.
OTH appears to be the most comprehensive of the price estimate tools, returning estimates for 87% of all properties searched.
And one more thing:
While it had a median average variance of 4%, it also had big discrepancies as well: +466% and -89%.
Newcomer Domain, backed by its APM and PriceFinder smarts, had the lowest median variance, but also returned the most amount of outliers.
Lastly:
CoreLogic fared very well and gave us the second best estimations, while also presenting us with a large amount of available estimations for properties.
After all, CoreLogic is widely considered to have the largest data set, and its property price indices are industry-leading.
We recommend CoreLogic for sellers looking for preliminary information on their property. If you would like your own report from CoreLogic, just have a quick look at our page explaining how to get one.
Keep in mind:
These estimates were collected mid-November 2015, and may have changed since.
If you want to know what your home is worth, these websites aren’t a bad place to start. Visit a few and see what they come up with.
As realAs provides estimates for properties currently on the market, it may be of limited use to homeowners seeking an estimate before selling.
While a cursory check can’t hurt, we suggest you do not rely on them.
In all honesty:
If you’re seriously thinking about selling, we advise you to do your own research.
You should:
You might also want to seek the opinion of a licensed valuer, or request an appraisal from a couple of quality local agents. If you need help in this area, our agent comparison tool will identify those agents who are currently selling properties like yours, in your suburb.
As you can see, property valuation sites tend to be inaccurate but can provide an idea of your property’s value and provide a valuable initial resource to homeowners when selling your home.
But, even in this modern age, a computer algorithm isn’t going to beat human knowledge. We recommend paying for a valuer to provide you with a formal valuation or finding top agents in your area and using their local experience to give you a free market appraisal.
Remember:
These percentage variances were calculated from estimates provided by the respective website during mid-November 2015. They may have changed since, as new market data comes to hand.
A property valuation is a formal process performed by a professional to determine the price of your property and are considered accurate at determining the value of your property. An appraisal, however, is an estimation of your property’s value. They are normally informal and most likely performed by a real estate agent on first viewing of your property. Appraisals are intended to be a guide prior to a formal valuation.
A professional property valuation will normally cost between 2-$500 dependant on your area and property type. Get in touch with your top local agents here to get an accurate quote.
The time it takes to value a property is dependant on the size and style of property. Smaller units or apartments may take 15 minutes, while larger properties several hours. It is common for valuers to not provide the number on the spot, rather they take the information home and compare it against other similar sales in your area to create a more accurate property valuation.
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