March 19, 2025 • 24 mins
Hosts Ciaran O'Brien and Peter O'Malley reveal how every listing, price change, and failed auction creates a permanent digital record that can impact your property's value. With property data companies storing this information indefinitely, sellers must be strategic about pricing, timing, and online exposure.
We discuss how failed auctions, underquoting risks, and even unrelated online content can affect buyer perceptions. Understanding your property’s digital footprint is key to protecting its value in an era where every detail is just a search away.
As always if there is a specific topic you would like for us to cover, please reach out and let us know!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All down, all silent, going, going, going, go on son
Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the Current Market Insights podcast
brought to you by HarrisPartners Real Estate.
Each episode we chat with realestate author and industry
leader, peter O'Malley, todiscuss the current property
market conditions and provideinsights to assist you on your
property journey.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Current
Market Insights.
I'm your host, kieran O'Brien,and with me is my good friend Mr
Peter O'Malley.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Peter, hello Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Kieran, great to be with you.
Great to be with you again,peter.
I want to talk today about atopic that I find quite
interesting and one that I thinkis probably maybe a little bit
misunderstood or not trulyappreciated by people, and that
is the digital footprint thatyour property has.
(00:57):
Now, I think over the last, youknow, maybe five to eight years
, we've all become somewhataware of digital footprints as
we've become more connected as asociety through social media
and our phones and etc.
Etc.
And we're all aware of thisconcept of on the internet
forever.
But I don't think that manypeople would actually really
(01:17):
appreciate that your propertyalso has a digital footprint
potentially and really, in thatspace, maybe don't understand
some of the implications of whatthat is.
So I thought we might spendtoday's episode just having a
bit of a chat about what is thedigital footprint as it relates
to property and what are somefactors of it, what are some
implications of it and what aresome things that people can do
(01:40):
to either minimise or maximisetheir footprint based on what
their objectives are.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thanks, Kieran.
Look, it is a big topic, thisone.
In short, if someone Googlesyour address, what information
do they find out?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I guess that depends.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's the digital footprint though.
Yeah, and that depends on howit's been marketed in the past,
how often it's been marketed,whether you've got subscriptions
to property data companies suchas CoreLogic and PriceFinder,
which is the that's the domainone, isn't it?
Yes, yeah, so there's all theseaffiliations, and people are
(02:17):
horrified when they realise howmuch data is out there for all
real, out there for all time,that they didn't realize about
their property and about whathas happened with their property
.
So back in the day, vendorswould purposefully overprice and
put their property on themarket and leave it there and
think there were noramifications to doing so.
(02:38):
But along came the internet,and realestatecom and Domain
specifically record theadvertised address and
advertised price of everyproperty every week.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So a property that is sitting around not trading but
just languishing on the marketwith multiple different pricing
strategies is captured there forall time and it's erasable.
We've had instances wherepeople have said, because
someone's damaged their propertyand they've brought it into us
and they've said, can you goback to these database houses
(03:12):
and clean up our digitalfootprint?
And the answer is no, theydon't do it because it was put
out there on that date at thatprice for this long and that's
public knowledge as far aseverybody's concerned.
So a languishing listing that'sbeen on the market too long is
one version of a digitalfootprint for a property.
(03:33):
The other one is an underquote.
So let's say, for example,there's lots of agents around
Sydney at the moment, kieran,that are grooming or coaching
their vendors in how tounderquote compliantly.
And you might say to the realestate agent look, mate, I just
want $3 million for this place.
(03:53):
How you get there is of noconsequence to me.
Who you have to run over thetop of and trample in the
process.
That's just law of the jungle,fair game.
$3 million is my number.
And the agent says, well, look,I know it sounds
counterintuitive, but to get to$3 million, what we should do is
advertise at 2.4 and have anauction in three Saturdays time,
(04:15):
for example.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So I made $2.4 to $3 million.
There's a long way to coverthere.
Are you sure you can pull thatoff?
It's like like, mate, leave itwith me.
Here's three examples where Idid it in the last month.
So you say, okay, mate, we'll go2.4 million dollar auction
guide for my three milliondollar house.
Good luck to you, good luck forme.
In some instances it'll getclose to three million and the
(04:38):
property will transact.
Some instances it'll go throughthree million dollars and it'll
sell on the day and everyone'shappy.
But increasingly, in a marketthat we've experienced over the
last two years, where priceshave stopped rising and agents
are desperate for listings, sothey will tell vendors what they
want to hear, not purposefullysaying I value your property at
(04:59):
three million, but they will saythings like the best way to get
three million is have amultitude of buyers at a lower
price and I'll push them up fromthere.
And then when it passes in atauction for $2.55, that's on the
digital footprint for all time.
Even though you've got areserve on the day of $3 million
, your chances of getting from$2.55 to $3 million are severely
(05:21):
diminished, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, it's a really interesting concept and I think
one of the things that ourlisteners may not be aware of is
if you, at any independentpoint in time, search for a
property, you'll see what iscurrently happening, right.
So, for example, you'll see ifit's advertised.
You might see a guide price oryou might see a whatever.
You might see a sole price.
It is a snapshot, effectively.
(05:44):
But I think what a lot of ourlisteners don't realize
necessarily is that if you as aconsumer look at a property on,
say, domain or realestatecomau,on the app in particular, every
time something happens with thatproperty also, you get notified
.
So if the price goes up, if theprice goes down, if it doesn't
sell, if it gets withdrawn,there is a footprint for you
specifically as well that showsthe entire history of that
(06:07):
property.
And you know we certainly, asagents in the past, use that
trick all the time to tracklistings and get a sense of how
they're moving and what themarket's doing.
The footprint, whilst it mightlook isolated in that snapshot
of time that you're looking atit, it is there.
All the data is out there to becollected and reviewed as you
go through the process, and Idon't think a lot of people
(06:28):
would necessarily realize thatlook great, great example and
there's much that goes on withdata that the consumer is only
aware of after the fact.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So I went into sign a listing up in february and I
did my research and saw that ithad been on the market in 2022
and I didn't mention anything tothe owners and we just listed
it and we started marketing it.
And right before we went on themarket, they said do you think
there's something that wouldstop this property from selling?
(07:00):
And I said no.
I think everything we'vediscussed about the features and
the merits of the propertyalign with what buyers are
looking for.
And when I remain confident ofachieving a sale, why do you ask
?
And they said well, do you knowthat we tried to sell this in
2022?
I said well, yes, I do knowthat that's part of part of my
(07:22):
research.
And she said that's our concernnow is everybody knows we tried
to sell it in 2022 and that'son our digital footprint that we
can't get rid of.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
That's a really interesting point and it makes
me think again, somewhatanecdotally, of my experience of
some other agents that I'vedealt with in my own purchasing
journey, where I've askedquestions about properties and
said, oh you know, I saw thisone was up for sale last year.
What happened?
You know that's a commonquestion you might ask as a
buyer and I feel like, in myexperience anyway, agents always
(07:56):
had an answer.
You know there's always ananswer it was someone died or
something fell over, whatever itis.
Do you think that agents have,on the whole, used tactics or
set up a system where they cannavigate these challenges to
kind of counter bias?
Because I feel like if you knowyou are facing that footprint,
(08:16):
then are they finding a way toget around it?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You can't quite get around the digital footprint.
You can buy the agent's storyor you can reject it as a home
buyer.
In that instance, that's allyou can do.
So the agent's job is to tryand put a spin on everything.
That's why they're being paidwhat they're being paid.
Sometimes it's plausible andsometimes it's not.
(08:40):
Buyers will always ask us asagents, why are they selling?
And you know, sometimes thereason why someone is selling is
harmless, and sometimes it'sharmful to their best interests.
So we've trained our agents tonot really answer that question.
Because if you're onlyanswering the question when it's
(09:04):
a positive reason or a harmlessreason as to why they're
selling, but refuse to answer itor dodge the question when it's
harmful, well you've just outedyourself as there's something
lurking beneath here, right?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So sometimes you can say too much without saying
anything if a buyer sees you,sees you coming, and that's why
an agent who's always thinkingabout their client's best
interests is so important,rather than one that's just
there to get the property soldeach week or most weeks on this
podcast we read out the auctionclearance rate and we talk about
(09:35):
those.
You know, as it's been runningfor the last six months, 50% or
so that sell under the hammerand the 50% that don't.
Well, what we don't say everyweek and repeat every week is
those 50% that don't sell eachweek have a damning digital
footprint where a buyer is awareit went to auction on the 15th
of March at 3pm and it passedinto a vendor bid or it was
(09:58):
withdrawn beforehand, or itpassed in for 2.55 million and
the owner can't get away fromthat ever again, because the
mass data it's not done byhumans, it's it's all, it's all
scraped, it's all mechanical,it's it's done between domain
and price finder and it used tobe between realestatecom and
(10:20):
core logic or the old rp data,and now realestatecom have their
own data house they've built inthe background that's taking on
core logic head-to-head in themarketplace.
So there's data sharing therebetween putting a listing up on
realestatecom and thesecom andthese real estate data companies
that you'll never get away from.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, I'm glad you bring up the point there.
I guess what I'd really love toget from you and for our
listeners is, objectively, whatis the ultimate downside to that
footprint?
So if I'm a seller who's gotthis negative footprint, now
buyers can see that it's passedin, etc.
What are the?
You know what are the likelyimplications for me if I am them
(11:05):
trying to sell and approach newbuyers in the market.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Let's say there's a bad news flow.
Let's use our example um, uh,where we have a reserve of three
million, the agent talks us orcoaches us into quoting 2.4
auction guide with the promisethat I'll get you there on the
day.
She'll be right, mate.
And then it passes in for 2.55.
In some instances the reason itpasses in for 2.55 is because
(11:32):
it's only worth 2526, eventhough you want, or the vendor
wants, three million.
In other cases there might bebad news flow, like you know
what we've been dealing withrecently.
You know what's coming out ofthe white house and shaking up
market confidences, etc.
Where the day you go to auctionis just not the right day to be
(11:53):
going to auction and yourproperty has a fundamental value
of $2.8 to $3 million but itpasses in on the day for $2.55.
And that's going to haunt youforevermore because buyers are
going to say this property hadits day in court, it went to
public and open auction and itpassed in for $2.55.
So how can you now conceivablytell me that fair market value
(12:16):
is $2.8?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Great example, pete, that's exactly where I was
heading with that.
I really wanted to just spellout for our listeners that the
most damaging aspect really isthat the price it passed in for
is public and if you, you knowwhether it's pie in the sky,
optimism, whatever it is, ifyour asking price is above that,
it's going to be a real uphillchallenge to get to that point
(12:39):
once it does become publicknowledge.
I want to pivot a little bit.
We've talked about digitalfootprint as it relates to your
property and you know previoussales attempts, listings,
rentals, whatever it might be,and how, particularly if you pay
for a report from one of thesedata houses.
You know your price finder oryour CoreLogic.
Historically, you can getaccess to a huge amount of
(13:02):
information about that propertyand you know, as you know all
too well, it lists everything.
You know all the stuff we'vetalked about and some of it's
correct, and some of it's notand some of it's not, but these
are reports that the generalpublic can buy.
What I wanted to kind of pivotto is talk about some of the
other elements of a digitalfootprint that may not be
thought of in this space, andthe one I'm really thinking of
(13:24):
is a sold price.
A lot of clients, you know,reasonably request that sold
prices are withheld, and it'sknowledge that they're withheld
on the day, but they areultimately public knowledge.
What, uh, you know what, whatare the, the kind of
circumstances around that?
The price with hell, you know,withholds, and at what point can
(13:46):
they be accessed through thesereporting houses?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
anyway, once the property settles, it's it's
public information, kieran.
So, yeah, we get vendors andbuyers all the time at the point
of exchange saying, um, if youdon't mind, we prefer the price
is not out there on the internetand it's like yeah, absolutely
fine.
What we do have to say to them,though, is you need to know
that on the day of settlementthereafter, it's public
information, and if one of thewebsites picks that information
(14:14):
up off the lands title officeand duplicates that on
realestatecom or domain, we haveno control over that, and
you'll notice that the pricedoes reappear.
Most people say I'll have movedout by then and moved on, and I
don't really mind.
But just at the point ofexchange, while everyone's got
their eyes on the sale, I preferto keep it confidential for the
(14:35):
time being.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, look, that's my understanding too, and
certainly my experience using,in particular, realestatecom's
pricing platform or historicalpricing platform.
They notoriously grab that dataas soon as it becomes available
, and I know because Data's abig business.
Oh well, it's the true value ofrealestatecom, right, it's the
data they hold.
All of them really, I mean anyof these major websites.
(14:58):
They're not.
Functionality is.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The functionality is designed to simply grab more
data.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, and I think too , a lot of our listeners may be
very surprised to learn some ofthe data that is on these
reports.
I mean, it's not uncommon tograb a property report for a
place that you have looked atand there is so much more info
on there than just property dataas well.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Well, there is.
I was going to go to photos,for example.
So every photo from everycampaign that a property's had
in the in the digital era is islikely to be sitting on real
estatecom servers and can becalled up when you want to look
at it.
Uh, so that's one there.
Um, people, um can misread ormake mistakes with data.
(15:44):
I remember, um, a cottage downin Birchgrove that we were
selling two years ago and areally high-profile Australian
came in and said how can you beasking this price for this
property when it just sold forhalf that essentially half, I
think.
We were looking for over four.
(16:06):
And he came in and, you know,berated me because this sold,
this sold three years ago fortwo million.
And it's like, yeah, it soldthree years ago for two million.
Then the owners did a massiverenovation on it.
Um, and and, uh, and, andthat's why it's worth this price
(16:26):
.
And he's going going no, no,you've got it wrong.
I've checked it out and thedigital footprint was wrong.
But I had this high-profilesportsman getting stuck into me
saying that I'd got it wrong andI was telling fibs just to make
a sale.
It's like I can't help it.
If you've gone to a serviceprovider that's given you a bum
steer.
(16:53):
So there's all sorts of trickerythat goes on with with the
digital footprint and misreads,and you do need to know that
it's not a human.
That is, you know, carefullycross-referencing everything.
It's just mass datacross-sharing, realestatecom
with their data house, domain,with price Finder, and it can
often be clunky data.
It can say that it's got no carspace, for example, when it's
got double lockup garage, and weoften show people these
(17:15):
research reports on their ownproperty and they get really,
you know, really frustrated whenthe data is incorrect, like
we've given them incorrect dataabout their house and it's like
this is just all computergenerated.
This is just a whole worlduntil itself.
Another subtle one, kieran, isthat let's say you have a studio
at the back of your house thatyou lease out and you put it on
(17:37):
domain and realestatecom tolease out your self-contained
studio.
You might have a five bedroomhouse with a studio out the back
, but the moment that onebedroom studio, self-contained
studio goes on domain, youraddress will then be registered
on realestatecom and domain asbeing a one bedroom studio, even
though it's a five bedroomhouse on the land size.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So data data capture doesn't think is my point yeah,
and it certainly uh, certainlycan have a negative impact on
your campaign.
If you are looking to sell andor lease, you know a one-bedroom
apartment or a studio inBalmain is certainly worth a lot
less than a five-bedroom housein Balmain, for example.
On that note, I reflect on myown experience using, you know,
CoreLogic in the past andPriceFinder, et cetera.
(18:19):
You know through our work, andone of the things that always
struck me as interesting withCoreLogic is they have a
mechanism on the back end oftheir website.
You know, the access point tocorrect errors, and it always
made me wonder whether or notthere is an avenue for vendors
to make corrections or submitcorrection requests to these
(18:40):
data houses should there be anerror identified.
So, for example, if you knowsomeone has done a full
renovation and that two-bedroomno-parking cottage has suddenly
become a four-bedroom,two-parking cottage, can they
request through these datahouses, some mechanism to alter
the footprint to better reflectthe current setup?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I think realestatecom and Domain probably would.
I don't see it around as muchat the moment, but I don't know
if you remember a website calledOn the House.
Yeah, certainly at the moment,but I don't know if you remember
a website called on the house.
Yeah, certainly they they were.
They were chasing the dataspace in a big way and there
were a couple of times wherethey had automated valuation
models and they were capturingdata and obviously if you
(19:19):
capture the wrong data, you'regoing to give the wrong
automated valuation.
And I contacted them about oneof our listings.
They just had horribly wrong,very nice about it, and just
said look, the data input thatyou're using here is completely
wrong and therefore the outputthat you are providing to the
general public is well off.
(19:39):
And I've got buyers, forwhatever reason, on this
property at this time.
I've got buyers that keepreferencing this.
So would you mind cleaning yourdata up?
And they went to war protectingthe integrity of their data and
refused to change anything it'slike.
Well, I give up.
If you're a data company andit's clearly shown to you that
you're using incorrect data andyou go to war protecting it,
(20:00):
well, what hope are you?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
no, exactly, and you know, I wonder, as we kind of
move towards a wrap on thissubject.
I wonder for circumstanceswhere someone like a lender or a
bank might use a you know whatwe call a curbside valuation,
using some of these reports anddata sources to kind of
reference the value of aproperty.
Do you think there's anypotential or likely impact if
(20:22):
there is, like an egregious dataerror on some of these
valuations and thereforepotentially the lending capacity
and or valuation of theseproperties?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Look, I don't know too many people that are making
big decisions on automatedvaluations at a corporate level.
I know there's consumers thatare doing it and they cast an
eye to it for some sort ofValidation Validation, there's
the word I was going to say,confirmation, but validation
will work and that'sunderstandable.
But I think we do need to bevery, very wary around this
(20:53):
space, around the data captureand what it tells us.
It can help.
But at the end of the day, Ithink buying and selling real
estate is a serious business asa consumer and you really should
sit down and form your owndecision and identify the bugs
that might be in the clunky data.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Great discussion today, pete, as I guess a final
message to our listeners, thenis there anything practical that
people can do just to kind ofmaximise or improve their
footprint potentially beforegoing to market, because
obviously that's going to be thethe time before things happen
where you can really protect it.
But is there any proactivesteps that people can take just
(21:34):
to make sure they're givingthemselves?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
you need to know when your address goes online for
any reason, it will be capturedagainst the property's digital
footprint for all time.
So if your teenage son throwsthe wildest of house parties
while you go away for theweekend and you end up in the
news, that'll turn up on theproperty's digital footprint at
(21:57):
some stage.
Yeah, there's been manyexamples where crimes have been
committed in homes and if youGoogle the address it pops up.
So the internet in that regarddoes not think around the data
capture.
It's just whatever is happeningat that address is captured
(22:19):
there for all time.
I'm giving some non-real estaterelated examples that we have
seen in our time in real estatehow it comes through DA
applications.
Kieran, getting a little bitcloser to the core topic, if you
put a multitude of developmentapplications in on your property
and they're ambitious, they'regetting captured.
(22:41):
Now, for someone who wants toput a dormer window on the
second story of their house,that's probably not such a big
point.
But for someone who thinksthey're on a development site
and is trying to get multipledwellings up, you don't want a
multitude of different DAs beingsubmitted and declined because
that's going to hamper yourability in the future to sell
that development site.
(23:01):
So this is a really bigdiscussion which we're only
skimming the surface of today.
Just to give people an idea,they need to think about their
digital footprint before theystart making moves, and I think
the most common one is thevendor that lists and languish,
which happens in soft realestate markets, and the other
one who is coached intounderquoting by the real estate
(23:25):
agent on the promise that I canget the price back up, and then
when they get to auction day, itall goes wrong and the auction
starts low, stays low and stopslow, cruelling the chances of
the vendor of ever getting thathigh price or that premium price
they dreamed about.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, really great discussion, Pete.
It's, yeah, incrediblyimportant to protect yourself
and your asset for when thingsdo go wrong.
That's for sure.
As always, really great chat.
Thanks for coming in and havinga go with us today.
Yeah, good on you.
Thanks, Kieran, and thanks toeveryone for listening to
Current Market Insights.
We look forward to speakingwith you next time.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Thanks for joining us on the Current Market Insights
podcast brought to you by HarrisPartners Real Estate, the
podcast providing real estateinsights you won't find anywhere
else.
All down, all silent, going, going, going, go on son
Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the Current Market Insights podcast
brought to you by HarrisPartners Real Estate.
Each episode we chat with realestate author and industry
leader, peter O'Malley, todiscuss the current property
market conditions and provideinsights to assist you on your
property journey.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Current
Market Insights.
I'm your host, kieran O'Brien,and with me is my good friend Mr
Peter O'Malley.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Peter, hello Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Kieran, great to be with you.
Great to be with you again,peter.
I want to talk today about atopic that I find quite
interesting and one that I thinkis probably maybe a little bit
misunderstood or not trulyappreciated by people, and that
is the digital footprint thatyour property has.
(00:57):
Now, I think over the last, youknow, maybe five to eight years
, we've all become somewhataware of digital footprints as
we've become more connected as asociety through social media
and our phones and etc.
Etc.
And we're all aware of thisconcept of on the internet
forever.
But I don't think that manypeople would actually really
(01:17):
appreciate that your propertyalso has a digital footprint
potentially and really, in thatspace, maybe don't understand
some of the implications of whatthat is.
So I thought we might spendtoday's episode just having a
bit of a chat about what is thedigital footprint as it relates
to property and what are somefactors of it, what are some
implications of it and what aresome things that people can do
(01:40):
to either minimise or maximisetheir footprint based on what
their objectives are.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thanks, Kieran.
Look, it is a big topic, thisone.
In short, if someone Googlesyour address, what information
do they find out?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I guess that depends.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's the digital footprint though.
Yeah, and that depends on howit's been marketed in the past,
how often it's been marketed,whether you've got subscriptions
to property data companies suchas CoreLogic and PriceFinder,
which is the that's the domainone, isn't it?
Yes, yeah, so there's all theseaffiliations, and people are
(02:17):
horrified when they realise howmuch data is out there for all
real, out there for all time,that they didn't realize about
their property and about whathas happened with their property
.
So back in the day, vendorswould purposefully overprice and
put their property on themarket and leave it there and
think there were noramifications to doing so.
(02:38):
But along came the internet,and realestatecom and Domain
specifically record theadvertised address and
advertised price of everyproperty every week.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So a property that is sitting around not trading but
just languishing on the marketwith multiple different pricing
strategies is captured there forall time and it's erasable.
We've had instances wherepeople have said, because
someone's damaged their propertyand they've brought it into us
and they've said, can you goback to these database houses
(03:12):
and clean up our digitalfootprint?
And the answer is no, theydon't do it because it was put
out there on that date at thatprice for this long and that's
public knowledge as far aseverybody's concerned.
So a languishing listing that'sbeen on the market too long is
one version of a digitalfootprint for a property.
(03:33):
The other one is an underquote.
So let's say, for example,there's lots of agents around
Sydney at the moment, kieran,that are grooming or coaching
their vendors in how tounderquote compliantly.
And you might say to the realestate agent look, mate, I just
want $3 million for this place.
(03:53):
How you get there is of noconsequence to me.
Who you have to run over thetop of and trample in the
process.
That's just law of the jungle,fair game.
$3 million is my number.
And the agent says, well, look,I know it sounds
counterintuitive, but to get to$3 million, what we should do is
advertise at 2.4 and have anauction in three Saturdays time,
(04:15):
for example.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So I made $2.4 to $3 million.
There's a long way to coverthere.
Are you sure you can pull thatoff?
It's like like, mate, leave itwith me.
Here's three examples where Idid it in the last month.
So you say, okay, mate, we'll go2.4 million dollar auction
guide for my three milliondollar house.
Good luck to you, good luck forme.
In some instances it'll getclose to three million and the
(04:38):
property will transact.
Some instances it'll go throughthree million dollars and it'll
sell on the day and everyone'shappy.
But increasingly, in a marketthat we've experienced over the
last two years, where priceshave stopped rising and agents
are desperate for listings, sothey will tell vendors what they
want to hear, not purposefullysaying I value your property at
(04:59):
three million, but they will saythings like the best way to get
three million is have amultitude of buyers at a lower
price and I'll push them up fromthere.
And then when it passes in atauction for $2.55, that's on the
digital footprint for all time.
Even though you've got areserve on the day of $3 million
, your chances of getting from$2.55 to $3 million are severely
(05:21):
diminished, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, it's a really interesting concept and I think
one of the things that ourlisteners may not be aware of is
if you, at any independentpoint in time, search for a
property, you'll see what iscurrently happening, right.
So, for example, you'll see ifit's advertised.
You might see a guide price oryou might see a whatever.
You might see a sole price.
It is a snapshot, effectively.
(05:44):
But I think what a lot of ourlisteners don't realize
necessarily is that if you as aconsumer look at a property on,
say, domain or realestatecomau,on the app in particular, every
time something happens with thatproperty also, you get notified
.
So if the price goes up, if theprice goes down, if it doesn't
sell, if it gets withdrawn,there is a footprint for you
specifically as well that showsthe entire history of that
(06:07):
property.
And you know we certainly, asagents in the past, use that
trick all the time to tracklistings and get a sense of how
they're moving and what themarket's doing.
The footprint, whilst it mightlook isolated in that snapshot
of time that you're looking atit, it is there.
All the data is out there to becollected and reviewed as you
go through the process, and Idon't think a lot of people
(06:28):
would necessarily realize thatlook great, great example and
there's much that goes on withdata that the consumer is only
aware of after the fact.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So I went into sign a listing up in february and I
did my research and saw that ithad been on the market in 2022
and I didn't mention anything tothe owners and we just listed
it and we started marketing it.
And right before we went on themarket, they said do you think
there's something that wouldstop this property from selling?
(07:00):
And I said no.
I think everything we'vediscussed about the features and
the merits of the propertyalign with what buyers are
looking for.
And when I remain confident ofachieving a sale, why do you ask
?
And they said well, do you knowthat we tried to sell this in
2022?
I said well, yes, I do knowthat that's part of part of my
(07:22):
research.
And she said that's our concernnow is everybody knows we tried
to sell it in 2022 and that'son our digital footprint that we
can't get rid of.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
That's a really interesting point and it makes
me think again, somewhatanecdotally, of my experience of
some other agents that I'vedealt with in my own purchasing
journey, where I've askedquestions about properties and
said, oh you know, I saw thisone was up for sale last year.
What happened?
You know that's a commonquestion you might ask as a
buyer and I feel like, in myexperience anyway, agents always
(07:56):
had an answer.
You know there's always ananswer it was someone died or
something fell over, whatever itis.
Do you think that agents have,on the whole, used tactics or
set up a system where they cannavigate these challenges to
kind of counter bias?
Because I feel like if you knowyou are facing that footprint,
(08:16):
then are they finding a way toget around it?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You can't quite get around the digital footprint.
You can buy the agent's storyor you can reject it as a home
buyer.
In that instance, that's allyou can do.
So the agent's job is to tryand put a spin on everything.
That's why they're being paidwhat they're being paid.
Sometimes it's plausible andsometimes it's not.
(08:40):
Buyers will always ask us asagents, why are they selling?
And you know, sometimes thereason why someone is selling is
harmless, and sometimes it'sharmful to their best interests.
So we've trained our agents tonot really answer that question.
Because if you're onlyanswering the question when it's
(09:04):
a positive reason or a harmlessreason as to why they're
selling, but refuse to answer itor dodge the question when it's
harmful, well you've just outedyourself as there's something
lurking beneath here, right?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So sometimes you can say too much without saying
anything if a buyer sees you,sees you coming, and that's why
an agent who's always thinkingabout their client's best
interests is so important,rather than one that's just
there to get the property soldeach week or most weeks on this
podcast we read out the auctionclearance rate and we talk about
(09:35):
those.
You know, as it's been runningfor the last six months, 50% or
so that sell under the hammerand the 50% that don't.
Well, what we don't say everyweek and repeat every week is
those 50% that don't sell eachweek have a damning digital
footprint where a buyer is awareit went to auction on the 15th
of March at 3pm and it passedinto a vendor bid or it was
(09:58):
withdrawn beforehand, or itpassed in for 2.55 million and
the owner can't get away fromthat ever again, because the
mass data it's not done byhumans, it's it's all, it's all
scraped, it's all mechanical,it's it's done between domain
and price finder and it used tobe between realestatecom and
(10:20):
core logic or the old rp data,and now realestatecom have their
own data house they've built inthe background that's taking on
core logic head-to-head in themarketplace.
So there's data sharing therebetween putting a listing up on
realestatecom and thesecom andthese real estate data companies
that you'll never get away from.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, I'm glad you bring up the point there.
I guess what I'd really love toget from you and for our
listeners is, objectively, whatis the ultimate downside to that
footprint?
So if I'm a seller who's gotthis negative footprint, now
buyers can see that it's passedin, etc.
What are the?
You know what are the likelyimplications for me if I am them
(11:05):
trying to sell and approach newbuyers in the market.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Let's say there's a bad news flow.
Let's use our example um, uh,where we have a reserve of three
million, the agent talks us orcoaches us into quoting 2.4
auction guide with the promisethat I'll get you there on the
day.
She'll be right, mate.
And then it passes in for 2.55.
In some instances the reason itpasses in for 2.55 is because
(11:32):
it's only worth 2526, eventhough you want, or the vendor
wants, three million.
In other cases there might bebad news flow, like you know
what we've been dealing withrecently.
You know what's coming out ofthe white house and shaking up
market confidences, etc.
Where the day you go to auctionis just not the right day to be
(11:53):
going to auction and yourproperty has a fundamental value
of $2.8 to $3 million but itpasses in on the day for $2.55.
And that's going to haunt youforevermore because buyers are
going to say this property hadits day in court, it went to
public and open auction and itpassed in for $2.55.
So how can you now conceivablytell me that fair market value
(12:16):
is $2.8?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Great example, pete, that's exactly where I was
heading with that.
I really wanted to just spellout for our listeners that the
most damaging aspect really isthat the price it passed in for
is public and if you, you knowwhether it's pie in the sky,
optimism, whatever it is, ifyour asking price is above that,
it's going to be a real uphillchallenge to get to that point
(12:39):
once it does become publicknowledge.
I want to pivot a little bit.
We've talked about digitalfootprint as it relates to your
property and you know previoussales attempts, listings,
rentals, whatever it might be,and how, particularly if you pay
for a report from one of thesedata houses.
You know your price finder oryour CoreLogic.
Historically, you can getaccess to a huge amount of
(13:02):
information about that propertyand you know, as you know all
too well, it lists everything.
You know all the stuff we'vetalked about and some of it's
correct, and some of it's notand some of it's not, but these
are reports that the generalpublic can buy.
What I wanted to kind of pivotto is talk about some of the
other elements of a digitalfootprint that may not be
thought of in this space, andthe one I'm really thinking of
(13:24):
is a sold price.
A lot of clients, you know,reasonably request that sold
prices are withheld, and it'sknowledge that they're withheld
on the day, but they areultimately public knowledge.
What, uh, you know what, whatare the, the kind of
circumstances around that?
The price with hell, you know,withholds, and at what point can
(13:46):
they be accessed through thesereporting houses?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
anyway, once the property settles, it's it's
public information, kieran.
So, yeah, we get vendors andbuyers all the time at the point
of exchange saying, um, if youdon't mind, we prefer the price
is not out there on the internetand it's like yeah, absolutely
fine.
What we do have to say to them,though, is you need to know
that on the day of settlementthereafter, it's public
information, and if one of thewebsites picks that information
(14:14):
up off the lands title officeand duplicates that on
realestatecom or domain, we haveno control over that, and
you'll notice that the pricedoes reappear.
Most people say I'll have movedout by then and moved on, and I
don't really mind.
But just at the point ofexchange, while everyone's got
their eyes on the sale, I preferto keep it confidential for the
(14:35):
time being.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, look, that's my understanding too, and
certainly my experience using,in particular, realestatecom's
pricing platform or historicalpricing platform.
They notoriously grab that dataas soon as it becomes available
, and I know because Data's abig business.
Oh well, it's the true value ofrealestatecom, right, it's the
data they hold.
All of them really, I mean anyof these major websites.
(14:58):
They're not.
Functionality is.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The functionality is designed to simply grab more
data.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, and I think too , a lot of our listeners may be
very surprised to learn some ofthe data that is on these
reports.
I mean, it's not uncommon tograb a property report for a
place that you have looked atand there is so much more info
on there than just property dataas well.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Well, there is.
I was going to go to photos,for example.
So every photo from everycampaign that a property's had
in the in the digital era is islikely to be sitting on real
estatecom servers and can becalled up when you want to look
at it.
Uh, so that's one there.
Um, people, um can misread ormake mistakes with data.
(15:44):
I remember, um, a cottage downin Birchgrove that we were
selling two years ago and areally high-profile Australian
came in and said how can you beasking this price for this
property when it just sold forhalf that essentially half, I
think.
We were looking for over four.
(16:06):
And he came in and, you know,berated me because this sold,
this sold three years ago fortwo million.
And it's like, yeah, it soldthree years ago for two million.
Then the owners did a massiverenovation on it.
Um, and and, uh, and, andthat's why it's worth this price
(16:26):
.
And he's going going no, no,you've got it wrong.
I've checked it out and thedigital footprint was wrong.
But I had this high-profilesportsman getting stuck into me
saying that I'd got it wrong andI was telling fibs just to make
a sale.
It's like I can't help it.
If you've gone to a serviceprovider that's given you a bum
steer.
(16:53):
So there's all sorts of trickerythat goes on with with the
digital footprint and misreads,and you do need to know that
it's not a human.
That is, you know, carefullycross-referencing everything.
It's just mass datacross-sharing, realestatecom
with their data house, domain,with price Finder, and it can
often be clunky data.
It can say that it's got no carspace, for example, when it's
got double lockup garage, and weoften show people these
(17:15):
research reports on their ownproperty and they get really,
you know, really frustrated whenthe data is incorrect, like
we've given them incorrect dataabout their house and it's like
this is just all computergenerated.
This is just a whole worlduntil itself.
Another subtle one, kieran, isthat let's say you have a studio
at the back of your house thatyou lease out and you put it on
(17:37):
domain and realestatecom tolease out your self-contained
studio.
You might have a five bedroomhouse with a studio out the back
, but the moment that onebedroom studio, self-contained
studio goes on domain, youraddress will then be registered
on realestatecom and domain asbeing a one bedroom studio, even
though it's a five bedroomhouse on the land size.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So data data capture doesn't think is my point yeah,
and it certainly uh, certainlycan have a negative impact on
your campaign.
If you are looking to sell andor lease, you know a one-bedroom
apartment or a studio inBalmain is certainly worth a lot
less than a five-bedroom housein Balmain, for example.
On that note, I reflect on myown experience using, you know,
CoreLogic in the past andPriceFinder, et cetera.
(18:19):
You know through our work, andone of the things that always
struck me as interesting withCoreLogic is they have a
mechanism on the back end oftheir website.
You know, the access point tocorrect errors, and it always
made me wonder whether or notthere is an avenue for vendors
to make corrections or submitcorrection requests to these
(18:40):
data houses should there be anerror identified.
So, for example, if you knowsomeone has done a full
renovation and that two-bedroomno-parking cottage has suddenly
become a four-bedroom,two-parking cottage, can they
request through these datahouses, some mechanism to alter
the footprint to better reflectthe current setup?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I think realestatecom and Domain probably would.
I don't see it around as muchat the moment, but I don't know
if you remember a website calledOn the House.
Yeah, certainly at the moment,but I don't know if you remember
a website called on the house.
Yeah, certainly they they were.
They were chasing the dataspace in a big way and there
were a couple of times wherethey had automated valuation
models and they were capturingdata and obviously if you
(19:19):
capture the wrong data, you'regoing to give the wrong
automated valuation.
And I contacted them about oneof our listings.
They just had horribly wrong,very nice about it, and just
said look, the data input thatyou're using here is completely
wrong and therefore the outputthat you are providing to the
general public is well off.
(19:39):
And I've got buyers, forwhatever reason, on this
property at this time.
I've got buyers that keepreferencing this.
So would you mind cleaning yourdata up?
And they went to war protectingthe integrity of their data and
refused to change anything it'slike.
Well, I give up.
If you're a data company andit's clearly shown to you that
you're using incorrect data andyou go to war protecting it,
(20:00):
well, what hope are you?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
no, exactly, and you know, I wonder, as we kind of
move towards a wrap on thissubject.
I wonder for circumstanceswhere someone like a lender or a
bank might use a you know whatwe call a curbside valuation,
using some of these reports anddata sources to kind of
reference the value of aproperty.
Do you think there's anypotential or likely impact if
(20:22):
there is, like an egregious dataerror on some of these
valuations and thereforepotentially the lending capacity
and or valuation of theseproperties?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Look, I don't know too many people that are making
big decisions on automatedvaluations at a corporate level.
I know there's consumers thatare doing it and they cast an
eye to it for some sort ofValidation Validation, there's
the word I was going to say,confirmation, but validation
will work and that'sunderstandable.
But I think we do need to bevery, very wary around this
(20:53):
space, around the data captureand what it tells us.
It can help.
But at the end of the day, Ithink buying and selling real
estate is a serious business asa consumer and you really should
sit down and form your owndecision and identify the bugs
that might be in the clunky data.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Great discussion today, pete, as I guess a final
message to our listeners, thenis there anything practical that
people can do just to kind ofmaximise or improve their
footprint potentially beforegoing to market, because
obviously that's going to be thethe time before things happen
where you can really protect it.
But is there any proactivesteps that people can take just
(21:34):
to make sure they're givingthemselves?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
you need to know when your address goes online for
any reason, it will be capturedagainst the property's digital
footprint for all time.
So if your teenage son throwsthe wildest of house parties
while you go away for theweekend and you end up in the
news, that'll turn up on theproperty's digital footprint at
(21:57):
some stage.
Yeah, there's been manyexamples where crimes have been
committed in homes and if youGoogle the address it pops up.
So the internet in that regarddoes not think around the data
capture.
It's just whatever is happeningat that address is captured
(22:19):
there for all time.
I'm giving some non-real estaterelated examples that we have
seen in our time in real estatehow it comes through DA
applications.
Kieran, getting a little bitcloser to the core topic, if you
put a multitude of developmentapplications in on your property
and they're ambitious, they'regetting captured.
(22:41):
Now, for someone who wants toput a dormer window on the
second story of their house,that's probably not such a big
point.
But for someone who thinksthey're on a development site
and is trying to get multipledwellings up, you don't want a
multitude of different DAs beingsubmitted and declined because
that's going to hamper yourability in the future to sell
that development site.
(23:01):
So this is a really bigdiscussion which we're only
skimming the surface of today.
Just to give people an idea,they need to think about their
digital footprint before theystart making moves, and I think
the most common one is thevendor that lists and languish,
which happens in soft realestate markets, and the other
one who is coached intounderquoting by the real estate
(23:25):
agent on the promise that I canget the price back up, and then
when they get to auction day, itall goes wrong and the auction
starts low, stays low and stopslow, cruelling the chances of
the vendor of ever getting thathigh price or that premium price
they dreamed about.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, really great discussion, Pete.
It's, yeah, incrediblyimportant to protect yourself
and your asset for when thingsdo go wrong.
That's for sure.
As always, really great chat.
Thanks for coming in and havinga go with us today.
Yeah, good on you.
Thanks, Kieran, and thanks toeveryone for listening to
Current Market Insights.
We look forward to speakingwith you next time.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Thanks for joining us on the Current Market Insights
podcast brought to you by HarrisPartners Real Estate, the
podcast providing real estateinsights you won't find anywhere
else.
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