What is a property history report, and how can it help you?

If you’re in the early stages of purchasing a property you may be curious to the history of the home you’re considering buying. After all, how can you move forward with a property if you don’t know its past, including rental yields and growth of its market value?

How can a property report help potential buyers?

Conducting a property history report can assist buyers with just that. By researching key facts of the property, including sales value history, valuation history, rental history, or current price estimates, you can paint a more detailed picture of the value of a property and potential return it may yield.

If you’re planning on using the property for investment purposes, it’s important that you can gauge potential rental returns based on historic and current rent prices. This includes data not just from the potential property, but similar properties in the same suburb.

For both investors and owner-occupiers, learning the property value history can help you to better understand not only how much the value has increased since it was built, but how much similar houses may have grown or fallen in value and sold for recently. All of this can help you to make a competitive offer on the property or be used as a bargaining tool, particularly if prices are falling in your potential area.

Benefits of comprehensive property history reports:

• Identify historic rental prices and calculate potential returns
• Identify historic appraisals
• Identify what the property has sold for in the past
• Identify how many times a property has sold
• Identify how long it has previously sat unsold on the market
• Identify information around similar properties on the same street or in the same suburb

How to conduct a property report

Unlike sourcing your credit history, for example, there’s no one ‘property history report’ you can run for a listing you’re interested in. In fact, it may take a little bit of research to get all the information you’re after.

However, websites such as RateCity offer a comprehensive analysis of the property market that can be used to create a report. This includes historical property valuations, property sales history, and rental information. By collating this information, as well as data provided public records offices, you can create a better understanding of the property you intend to purchase.

RateCity provides retrospective property information to would-be buyers for free based on providing a property’s address. A profile of the property is then created, which includes helpfiul information like:

• Property details – Number of bedrooms, bathrooms, land size etc.
• Property value report – Includes estimate low, moderate and high value range you may expect on this property.
• Sale history – Past property sale prices and years it was sold.
• Suburb sale information – Recent sale values of similar properties nearby

Real estate websites may also be able to assist in building out your property report by providing:

• Rental history – public listings of rent prices
• Suburb rental information, including current advertised rental prices of similar properties nearby
• Nearby schools
• Suburb population information, including median house and unit prices, age and demographics of residents
• Market trends – typically graphs sale or rent prices over several years

Government platforms and public records

State and territory governments keep records of property sales, title transfers and other important information you may be searching for. While it may cost a small fee to obtain the information depending on your state or territory, it may help paint a more detailed picture of your potential property.

This can be particularly useful for older homes, as most property listing websites may only provide data for up to last decade, if not shorter. Get in touch with your local State Records office for more information.

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