‘Sold’ prices on property websites

Discussion in 'Loans & Mortgage Brokers' started by Michael Feynman, 15th Sep, 2016.

Join Australia's most dynamic and respected property investment community
  1. Michael Feynman

    Michael Feynman Member

    Joined:
    18th May, 2016
    Posts:
    9
    Location:
    Canberra
    I know this post probably just marks me as a real newbie, but I’ve just discovered that the ‘sold’ prices on my go-to property website are not reliable. I use allhomes.com.au quite a lot to look at Canberra property. I particularly like(d) it for how easy it is to see the price a property sold for. I did read somewhere that the ‘sold’ prices usually only show the final advertised asking price rather than the actual selling price, but I never followed up on this info to confirm it. My own recent experience shows something similar. I bought a unit advertised initially at 179K, then reduced to 170+. I offered 164, provided the current tenant was willing to sign a 12-month lease. The tenant wouldn’t, so I changed my offer to 163, which was also accepted. Prior to exchange of contracts, the tenant indicated they were going to move out, so I lowered my offer to 160, which was also accepted (I now wonder how low I could have gone). Anyway, the eventual ‘sold’ price shown on allhomes was 163K and not the true sale price of 160K.

    I’m a bit disappointed - it does make the ‘sold’ prices on allhomes fairly useless. Can anyone shed any more light on this? I guess the price is provided by the agent, so can they just make up any figure they want? Why choose 163 (the second last agreed price)? I notice that my Canberra PPOR shows the correct sale price (bought at auction). I wonder what proportion of properties show the correct price. Are other property websites similarly unreliable? Would be really grateful for any info on this…
     
  2. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    27,094
    Location:
    Sydney or NSW or Australia
    In NSW you can use the globe plug in for Google Earth to pull up past sales, zoning, UCV, land size etc. Most states should have free access to the same via their own lands website.
     
    Michael Feynman likes this.
  3. Big Will

    Big Will Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    2,517
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
    The free websites it is up to the agent to provide the correct price and 99% of the time they are unless human error. It is rare for the paid sites to have wrong information unless they sourced it from the free websites.

    I wouldn't complain if it was sold for 163k, I would love it if they valued that property at 250k (100k more) as it could cause people to get excited and buy at higher prices meaning you get instant capital gains.

    There is a property near my house that the land sold for 1.2M when it was advertised at 600k. Looks like an amazing result however I also know they were looking at selling the block next door which was the part of the same property before they knocked down the house and subdivided it.

    I highly doubt my land is now worth 1M plus due to this sale but hey doesn't hurt :).
     
    Michael Feynman likes this.
  4. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    27,094
    Location:
    Sydney or NSW or Australia
    @Big Will - not surprising. If a block is bought, subdivided and resold keeping the old street number, the resale of the new block has a different street address and isn't shown in conjunction with the previous sale.
     
  5. Agent30yrs.

    Agent30yrs. Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    19th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    295
    Location:
    Brisbane
    You would be surprised how much of the information is incorrect on both the paid and free sites. Some like corelogic (rpdata) automatically draw data direct from agents operating systems like Desktop as well as other sources i'm sure, but it's full of incorrect information. RE.com's auction results are a joke - junk data in junk data out and I've also seen real issues in apartment buildings where the lot numbers are not the same as the unit numbers particularly with images .
     
    Michael Feynman likes this.
  6. Connor

    Connor Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    31st Aug, 2015
    Posts:
    437
    Location:
    Melbourne
    As an example a couple of the free property sites show a property I purchased in 2009 as 172k buy, $460 rented, current value 570k.... If only haha. Actual buy in was 330k
     
  7. Big Will

    Big Will Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    2,517
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
  8. Luka

    Luka Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    15th Dec, 2015
    Posts:
    95
    Location:
    Gold Coast
    In Qld the auction sales can be unreliable on re.com. on a few occasions a house that was passed in, then given a for sale price, finally went under contract two weeks later but went unconditional 10 days after that, still listed as sold at auction that week, in reality it should have been listed as passed in 3 weeks earlier??
     
  9. dabbler

    dabbler Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,572
    Location:
    Sid en e - olympic city
    Don't worry, your never going to be privy to all the details/info

    I have bought few times where the vendors have agreed to sink significant $ into the property before settlement, there is no way to know that apart from speaking with someone in the deal.

    Also places can be sold off market, or to friends etc etc

    So, all pricing is a guide, even if it was reliable, still a guide.

    PS 3 or 5k is nothing, so would consider that accurate info.
     
    Michael Feynman likes this.
  10. Azazel

    Azazel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,091
    Location:
    Brisbane
    I've still seen a few that don't have a sale price.
    I thought they're meant to be up after about 3 months?
     
  11. dabbler

    dabbler Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,572
    Location:
    Sid en e - olympic city
    You mean on RE website ads ? agents can play games with this, only way to really know is access through the/an authority, like the LPI in NSW.
     
  12. jprops

    jprops Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    24th Sep, 2015
    Posts:
    885
    Location:
    Sydney
    They use the price as advised by the agent otherwise it says price withheld. After 3 months the govt data becomes available and they use that information.
     
  13. Azazel

    Azazel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,091
    Location:
    Brisbane
    I've still seen a couple of sold properties with no sold price, one of them is over 12 months.
     
  14. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    27,094
    Location:
    Sydney or NSW or Australia

    Did it fall through?
     
  15. Azazel

    Azazel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,091
    Location:
    Brisbane
  16. Luka

    Luka Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    15th Dec, 2015
    Posts:
    95
    Location:
    Gold Coast
    What's the trick used to delay this, along with hiding previous sales prices and land info from on the house etc? I've seen it happen a bit over the last couple of years.
     
  17. Azazel

    Azazel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    8,091
    Location:
    Brisbane
    No idea, haven't been able to work it out.
    Not sure if it's by design, or something got overlooked somewhere.
     
  18. jprops

    jprops Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    24th Sep, 2015
    Posts:
    885
    Location:
    Sydney
    Sometimes the govt data is not available - why I'm not sure.
     
  19. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    22nd Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    11,767
    Location:
    Perth
    I have found ksou to be reliable for the properties I have checked. But that is a very limited dataset so it could be wrong for other properties. Who knows?

    You could always check 3 sites and see if the sale price is the same on each (either all correct or all wrong ;))

    3 Bamfield Road, Heidelberg Heights, vic - Property Sold Price

    Property Report for 3 Bamfield Road, Heidelberg Heights VIC 3081

    3 Bamfield Road, Heidelberg Heights, Vic 3081 - View Sold History & Research Property Values - realestate.com.au