Hi Steve,
When you say "never" correct what do you mean?
From what I understand this tool gives you a snapshot as to the average valuation banks are handing out for a given post code and uses this to track price growth.
I think it IS useful for determining historic price growth and whether or not the market could be / is on the move in given areas.
Hi Captain, sorry I probably should'nt have generalised with "never" - the "never" certainly applies to me, but for others the figures may ring true. I do look at the figures in API but more just for the % movements in areas, the actual $ figures have always been off for me. For example:
My PPOR is always under the average because I bought a smaller house which has a large number of big (and in some case mansions) around it which drag the average up. So whilst I'd love my house to be worth the "average" - never has been yet.
Then I have 2 brand new(ish) houses in older areas which are worth $220k - but because they're surrounded by old houses, the average for the area is $165k - again, in my situation a meaningless figure. If I went according to the average, I never would have bought my IP's, or I'd be crying myself to sleep every night for paying $50k+ over average
I also have a property in the same area that I bought well below the "average" for the area - again, figure doesn't mean much to me (although this is the closest to the average I've ever been).
So whilst I guess if all the houses in the area are the same, then you may be able to use that as an indication for your property - which I'm sure a lot of people can and do. But my point was that in a lot of cases, the average for the area won't mean anything. It's good to look at the average for an area, but I believe it's better to go on REA.com.au, talk to agents etc. so you can compare actual appples with apples, instead of comparing your apple to the average which happens to be an orange
