Trade Me launches free property data with Property Insights

Media Release

12 October 2016

Trade Me launches free property data with Property Insights

Trade Me Property launched a new tool today that aims to make it easier to research the New Zealand property market. Property Insights is a free website that helps buyers and sellers gather detailed information about New Zealand houses before making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives.

Property Insights provides free information for over 1.5 million New Zealand homes, like ratable value (RV) data, previous sale prices, and property information like when the house was built and its floor size. It also provides a computer-generated estimate of a home’s current value called the Trade Me Property Estimate.

Trade Me Property’s head of product Alistair Helm said that Property Insights is a big step for property buyers and sellers. “New Zealand has lagged behind the US, Australia and UK for far too long by not providing this type of information for free. But Kiwi property buyers and sellers can now depend less on paid reports and friends in the real estate industry, and instead access the information in one place for free.”

Mr Helm said that the Trade Me Property Estimate was one of the best features of the new product. “We think it’ll be an extremely useful research tool, providing a computer-generated estimate that gives an indication of what a property might sell for.”

The Trade Me Property Estimate is calculated using sales of similar properties, RV data and details of listing and user activity on Trade Me.

“These estimates are useful because unless you live and breathe property you’ve really got no idea of what your house might sell for, or how much you might be looking to pay for the house you’re researching.

“Buyers can waste a lot of money on information like building reports and Land Information Memorandums (LIM), only to realise down the line that the property was out of their league and would sell far above its RV. For sellers this provides a realistic starting point when talking to agents and when considering putting their house on the market.

“These are computer generated estimates, so they don’t take into account new renovations or interior work. They’re a starting point rather than a replacement for a valuer or an agent walking through the house.”

Mr Helm said that some people may feel this data should be withheld or behind a paywall. “We think the majority of New Zealanders will relish access to this data, and that this information should be made easily accessible. This information is available at council offices for free right now but it isn’t easy to get to.”

Trade Me Property has agreements with all of New Zealand’s 63 councils for the RV data, and all but one council agreed to provide the sold data.

The data on Property Insights is updated monthly when councils provide new sales and RV data.

-ends-

NOTES

- You can access Property Insights at: www.trademe.co.nz/property/insights

- As mentioned in the release there are a number of overseas sites who do this too these include Zillow in the US, Zoopla in the UK and Domain in Australia

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