A table of sold prices looks precise, but its interpretation depends on what the records contain. Baxau uses imported NSW Valuer General records for its sales evidence. This guide explains how to turn that evidence into a better list of questions, without claiming to value the home.
Define the property you are comparing
- Identify the title and property type; do not assume every nearby sale is comparable.
- Record the features you have actually verified: bedrooms, parking, size, condition and relevant title details.
- Keep unknowns visible. A missing floor area is not an average floor area.
- Separate what a source states from what an inspection or professional report would need to confirm.
Screen a small set before reading the prices
| Check | Reason it matters | Question to record |
|---|---|---|
| Property type | A house and an apartment answer different comparisons | Is the source classification reliable for this property? |
| Contract date | Publication may occur later than the agreement | Am I comparing similar time periods? |
| Size and layout | The same bedroom count can conceal different usable space | Which measurements are verified? |
| Condition and title | Renovations, defects and title restrictions can change the comparison | What documents or inspection results are missing? |
| Location details | A suburb label can cover materially different settings | Are access, surroundings and site constraints comparable? |
A synthetic five-sale example
These five invented prices are for teaching only and do not describe any real suburb: $620,000, $680,000, $720,000, $810,000 and $1,600,000. The middle value, or median, is $720,000. The arithmetic is correct, but it tells you nothing about whether the $1,600,000 record is a house mixed into an apartment sample, a different property or a data issue.
If investigation shows that the final record is a different property type, the remaining four values have a median of $700,000: the average of $680,000 and $720,000. This does not prove either median is the right estimate for your home. It demonstrates why sample selection belongs beside the number.
Read Baxau’s sample notes
The public price pages show property-type counts and medians from qualifying imported records. They use a $100,000 price floor, supported property classifications and a recent contract-date window. A suburb needs at least 30 qualifying records for the price page to be indexable; a percentage-change line needs at least 10 records in each comparison period for that type.
Those are publication rules, not a guarantee of complete coverage or statistical representativeness. Records may arrive late or be corrected, and a broad category can contain different kinds of dwellings. Read the full methodology, including the query cap and source-file date meaning.
Turn a mismatch into a question
Write down why you included each sale, why you excluded a record and which characteristics remain unknown. Ask a suitable professional to check the property-specific issues. Do not mechanically add a fixed dollar amount for an extra bedroom or subtract a percentage for a busy road without evidence supporting that adjustment.
Use the property research tool to organise the evidence and questions. A comparison that ends with three well-defined unknowns is more useful than a precise-looking valuation built on assumptions.