Why research coverage is not a property score

A score would rank properties. Coverage ranks jurisdictions’ data publication. Treating unknown as a mark against the lot inverts the meaning of a gap. Districts labels the count as coverage and prints that completion measures available evidence, not property quality. It never converts the count to a grade. A completed fail and an unknown gap can matter more than three quiet passes. Read the slots.

Labelled illustration. Property A sits in a New South Wales council on the statewide planning-tracking feed, with a flood layer loaded. Eight of ten checks complete: optionality, nearby pipeline, rent, supply pressure, price explanation, flood, this-lot history, and a statutory land-value slot. Catalyst and net yield stay unknown.

Property B is the same dwelling type and land size, in a council with no nearby adapter and no flood layer retrieved. Four of ten complete. Nearby pipeline is unavailable, not zero. Flood is unknown, not clear. The lots were not ranked. The adapters were. See the coverage page for which feeds are loaded. If you shortlisted B because the page looked quieter, you shortlisted silence. Open the official portal for that council before you treat the quieter page as the cleaner lot.

A completed flood check can report a large intersection. A completed pipeline check can list a 200-dwelling approval next door. Those are completed and material. An unknown catalyst slot is empty and may not matter to you. Do not prefer the higher count. Prefer the findings you can read.

These mistakes compare the count instead of the slots.

• Choosing the 8/10 lot over the 4/10 lot without reading why.
• Reading unknown as a defect of the property.
• Ignoring a completed fail because the count looked high.
• Comparing counts across states as if the adapters were the same. Planning registers differ by state and territory.
• Stopping at the count and skipping the unknown list.

Compare the unknown reasons, not the integers. Two 6-of-10 pages can be different files.

It does not establish how good each source was, or which unknowns matter for your purchase. A completed pipeline check from a register that covers only part of a council is completed and still partial. That is why the confidence note sits beside the slot. Districts cannot say that an unknown check would have found nothing had a source existed.

The property page shows the ten slots, marked completed or unknown, with the count. Open the drill-down for each finding, source list and reason. Use the ten-check sheet to mark pass, fail or unknown from the evidence, not from the count.

Resolve the material ones yourself: council, state portal, insurer. Or make them conditions of an offer. The count will not do that work. Write the unknown reasons in the same notebook as the completed findings. A page that says 8 of 10 with a large flood intersection is more informative than a page that says 8 of 10 with eight quiet passes. The count cannot tell you which of those you have. Coverage is a publishing statistic that happens to be printed on a property page. Treat it that way.