Property Price Assessment: How We Assess Every Property Before We Offer

The most expensive sentence in Australian property is "it's listed at $750,000, so it's probably worth around that." It sounds logical. It's also how buyers can end up anchoring themselves to the selling side's number.

An asking price isn't independent evidence of market value. It's an opening position set by the selling side. Before deciding what we're prepared to offer, we build an evidence-based price range using comparable settled sales. The method isn't secret or complicated. It is simply disciplined, and we run it on every property before we offer.

The foundation: what genuinely similar properties actually sold for

At Inverty, the starting point for assessing a property's price is what genuinely similar properties have recently sold for, with adjustments made for relevant differences. Not what's advertised. Not what the selling agent hopes to achieve. Settled comparable sales.

This is a market price assessment prepared as part of Inverty's buying process. It is not a formal property valuation prepared by a registered valuer.

1. Is it genuinely comparable?

Not just the same suburb. We look for comparable sales with similarities in land size, bedrooms and other relevant property characteristics. No two properties are identical, so each comparable is considered in context before it is used in the price assessment.

2. Is it recent enough, and adjusted for the market it sold in?

Property markets move, which means an older comparable may need to be considered in the context of the market in which it sold. A sale from six months ago may not be directly comparable with today's market without considering what has happened since.

That's why we price-index comparable sales to current market conditions before using them in our assessment. Listing prices can provide context, but they are not settled-sale evidence. They tell you what a seller is asking, not what a buyer has actually agreed to pay.

3. Have you adjusted for the differences?

No comparable matches perfectly. One might have a larger block, another a renovated kitchen, another a better aspect. A disciplined price assessment means identifying those differences, including land, condition, position and other relevant features, and considering how they may affect the comparison rather than treating every nearby sale as equivalent.

The mistakes that can cost real money

Buyers can have plenty of information and still make poor comparisons. Some common traps include:

• Anchoring on the asking price and negotiating from a number set by the selling side
• Using current listings as though they were settled comparable sales
• Ignoring differences in land, condition, location or property features
• Becoming emotionally committed to the property before establishing an evidence-based price range

The order matters. Assess the evidence first. Then decide what you're prepared to offer.

Then pressure-test the assessment

However detailed one analysis is, it remains one analysis. Before offering, we look for additional reference points that do not rely on exactly the same assumptions. These may include an independent desktop valuation arranged through a broker where available, together with a data-provider estimate.

Where those indicators broadly align with the comparable-sales analysis, that may provide additional support for the assessment. Where they differ materially, we investigate why before deciding whether to proceed. We've written a companion piece on this process: Three Price Checks Before You Offer.

Our philosophy

Price assessment isn't about predicting what a property will be worth in the future. It's about understanding whether the price being considered today is supported by the available evidence.

That's why every property we assess is considered against ten price-indexed comparable sales and pressure-tested against additional price indicators before an offer is made. The aim isn't to produce a formal valuation. It's to make sure there is a documented, evidence-based reason behind the price we're prepared to offer.