Why Districts does not provide a property valuation

A valuation is prepared by a registered or certified valuer, for a stated purpose (mortgage, purchase, family law, tax), on a stated basis (usually market value as defined in the professional standards the valuer cites), as at a date, after an inspection, with reasoning that can be examined. Lenders commission them for lending. Buyers commission them when an independent opinion would change the decision. This page does not describe how to become a valuer and does not summarise those professional standards.

The product’s job is to keep evidence labelled so you can do your own work, or so a valuer you appoint can start from a file rather than a rumour.

• Recorded sale history for the property, with dates, prices and sources.
• The asking price as an asking price, when the property is on market.
• A listing source’s estimate range, where one exists, labelled as that source’s estimate with its date. Not as Districts’ figure.
• Official parcel area beside the listing land size.
• Constraints that bear on price, via the price-explanation check, labelled as a Districts-derived indicator.
• Suburb medians with period, source and sample size, labelled as suburb figures.
• Statutory land value versus ask, only where that state series has been loaded. Often unknown. See statutory land value.

Automated valuation models exist in the market. Districts does not run one and does not rank those products. When a listing feed includes an estimate range, the page shows the range the feed supplied. An estimated midpoint is never shown as a recorded sale and never presented as Districts’ view.

Where a calculation such as gross yield needs a price, and the property has neither an asking price nor a recorded sale, the page names which price source it fell back on. That label is there so you can discard the calculation if you do not accept the fallback.

A median is the middle of what sold in an area over a period. A property is a specific lot. Districts labels every suburb figure as a suburb figure and never applies it to a property. See why median prices can be misleading.

• Treating any on-page dollar figure as what the property is worth.
• Using the last recorded sale as current value without time, works or terms.
• Averaging ask, last sale and a listing estimate into a midpoint.
• Reading the price-explanation check as a valuation adjustment.
• Expecting a data product to replace a valuer when the evidence is thin and the decision is large.

Districts cannot establish market value, cannot tell you whether an ask is fair, and cannot judge the accuracy of a listing source’s estimate. The constraints the price-explanation check reports are recorded facts about the lot, not priced adjustments. What an overlay or zone requires differs by state and council. How the market prices that constraint is a question for comparable sales or a valuer. A recorded sale is what one buyer paid on one day. Districts does not index it forward.

A registered valuer, with a written purpose and basis. For a purchase that is usually market value as at the inspection date. A lender’s valuation is for the lender and may not be shared with you. Your own comparable-sales worksheet is a way to form a negotiation view. See comparable sales. Do not call that worksheet a valuation.