The whole process, including the parts most agents won't show you.
If you want to run this yourself, everything you need is on this page. Most people read it and decide they'd rather not spend their weekends on it. That is a reasonable conclusion.
The market screen
Run quarterly across every SA4 region in Australia, in two stages. The first is mechanical: eleven conditions, fixed before the screen runs, that a market either meets or does not. It usually leaves five to ten candidates. The second stage is mine.
| Condition | What it rules out |
|---|---|
| Price band | Anything outside the budget. Set from your brief before the screen is run. |
| One-year price growth, capped | Markets that have already run. Buying after the growth is not the same as buying before it. |
| Affordability, capped | Markets where the median already costs too many years of local income. The cap loosens as the budget rises. |
| Socio-economic advantage, floored | Areas whose fundamentals don't support the price. Applied above the entry band only. |
| Stock on market, capped | Markets with too much of their housing stock listed at once. |
| Stock on market, trending down | Markets where listings are building up rather than clearing. |
| Inventory, trending down | Markets where the backlog is growing. |
| Building approvals ratio, capped | Markets about to have new supply delivered into them. |
| Hold period, floored | Markets owners cycle out of quickly. |
| Data confidence, high only | Suburbs where the sample is too thin to trust. |
| Lower-risk score, floored | Suburbs carrying risk the rest of the screen doesn't catch. |
What the filter cannot do is weigh demand. Days on market, vendor discounting, rental vacancy, the share of listings actually selling, and what buyers and renters are searching for — these vary enormously across the markets that survive, and almost none are strong on every one at once. So the last step is done by hand: five to ten candidates, read one at a time, weighing what each market is good at against what it is not. That judgement is what you are paying for. The filter is the part you can check.
This market has already cleared the filter. Outside the dashed line is better, and almost nothing sits outside it everywhere at once — this one is tight on vacancy and supply but slow to sell and thin on buyers. That trade-off is what I am actually judging, and it is why the last step is not automated. The filter is identical every quarter and you can hold me to it; what I do with the five to ten markets it leaves is the part you are hiring.
What happens, week by week
Strategy and brief
Borrowing capacity, ownership structure, timeline, and what this purchase has to do inside your wider position. Ends with a written brief you sign off.
Market shortlist
The current screen narrowed to markets that fit your brief and budget. You get the data behind it, not just the names.
Search and evaluate
On-market, off-market and pre-market. Everything that reaches the shortlist is inspected, and comes to you with a scored assessment.
Due diligence
Building and pest, title or strata, flood and planning overlays, comparable settled sales, rental appraisal. The walk-away price is set here — before emotion arrives.
Negotiate and secure
I run the negotiation. You are not in the room and not on the phone to the selling agent, which is precisely the point.
Settlement and handover
Coordinated through to settlement, then a property manager who has actual tenants, and a note on what the next purchase should look like.
Stages overlap — searching continues while due diligence runs on an earlier candidate. Twelve weeks is typical; a tight brief in a thin market can run longer, and that is said upfront rather than discovered.
What you actually receive
Every property that reaches your shortlist comes with a one-page assessment. This is a real one, with the address and vendor details removed.
Nobody else in this market shows you their paperwork.
4 bed / 2 bath / 2 car
Recommend| Market screen | Passed — 5 of 6 |
| Land content | 612 m² |
| Comparable settled | $XXX–$XXXk |
| Rental appraisal | $XXX / wk |
| Gross yield | X.X% |
| Overlays | None |
| Walk-away price | $XXX,000 |
Why it passes: above-median land in a market clearing four of six supply metrics, vacancy under 1%, no overlays, priced below the last three comparable settled sales on the same street type.
What I don't claim
Four things you will read on almost every buyer's agency site in this country. I don't say any of them, and it is worth explaining why — because the reasons are the method.
"Bought $80,000 below market value"
Market value is what a property should sell for after proper marketing, between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under compulsion. A completed sale after a full campaign is the best evidence of that number. So a purchase price is not below market value — it largely defines it.
What these numbers usually mean is below the asking price, which is a vendor's hope or an agent's bait, and proves nothing. Or they mean below a bank valuation — and valuers are generally instructed with the contract price in front of them, so a val at or just above contract is the default outcome, not a finding.
There is a real effect underneath it: property is not an efficient market, and an off-market deal is by definition one where the market was never fully consulted. But that gap is paid for, not won. The buyer gives up the campaign and hands over speed, certainty, an unconditional offer and a settlement date that suits the vendor. You didn't beat the market. You paid market price for a transaction on different terms.
"Instant equity on settlement day"
Equity you cannot withdraw is a line in a brochure. Sell the day after settlement and agent commission, legals and the stamp duty you have already paid would consume most of it. Growth is something that happens over years of holding, and the only honest way to show it is with a purchase date next to it.
"Guaranteed returns" or "2x ROI or you pay nothing"
Nobody can guarantee the performance of a property. Anyone offering it is either mispricing their own risk or relying on you never measuring the outcome. It is also the kind of representation that attracts regulatory attention, which should tell you something.
"The next hotspot" and "suburbs about to boom"
A forecast is not a screen. The thresholds on this page describe conditions that exist now and can be checked by anyone with the same data. A market moving toward them earns my attention; one moving away from them loses it. No prediction is required, and none is offered.
Three things, all of them checkable. The walk-away price — set from settled comparables and written down before the negotiation starts, so you can see afterwards whether I held it. The screen at the time of purchase — which metrics the market cleared on the day, published. And what happened afterwards, twelve and twenty-four months on, including when the answer is nothing much. That last one is the only test that isn't a story, which is exactly why almost nobody publishes it.
Still want to do it yourself?
Genuinely — go ahead. The method above is the whole thing. If you'd rather it were run for you by someone who's been doing it for twenty years, that's what the call is for.
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