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Suburb data, decoded.

Days on market, stock levels, vacancy rates, clearance rates — the 37 numbers that actually move Australian property prices, explained the way we'd explain them to a mate. These are the same signals professional buyers read before they bid.

Signals of a SELLER'S market (prices under upward pressure)

  • Days on Market under ~30
  • Stock on Market under ~1% of all homes
  • Inventory under ~3 months of supply
  • Auction clearance above ~65%
  • Vacancy rate under ~1.5%
  • Vendor discounting under ~3%

Signals of a BUYER'S market (room to negotiate)

  • Days on Market stretching past ~45–60
  • Stock on Market above ~2.5%
  • Inventory above ~5–6 months
  • Clearance rates sliding below ~50%
  • Discounting widening past ~5%
  • Building approvals ramping up (more supply coming)

Price & growth

Typical price

The going rate for a typical house in the area. HtAG's machine-learning version of a median — it irons out the distortions you get when one month happens to sell more cheap (or expensive) homes than usual.
Price impact: This is the benchmark every other number hangs off. Compare it with neighbouring areas: a big gap between two adjoining areas often gets closed over time — the cheaper one gets dragged up.

1-year price growth

How much the typical price moved over the past 12 months.
Price impact: Recent growth tells you the market's current temperature, but chasing last year's winner is how buyers overpay at the top. Read it together with the supply and demand gauges below.

3-year price growth

Total price change over three years.
Price impact: Smooths out one hot or cold year. An area with flat 3-year growth but tightening supply signals can be coiled — the growth hasn't happened yet.

5-year price growth

Total price change over five years — roughly half a property cycle.
Price impact: Areas that lagged their city's 5-year average often play catch-up; areas miles above it may have borrowed growth from the future.

10-year price growth

Total price change over a full decade — a whole property cycle.
Price impact: The honest long-run report card of an area. Strong 10-year growth means the fundamentals (jobs, transport, schools, scarcity) have actually delivered — not just one hot cycle.

Rent & yield

Median weekly rent

The middle weekly rent across homes advertised in the area.
Price impact: Rents are the truth serum of property demand — tenants pay for what an area is worth right now, with no speculation. Rents rising faster than prices often front-run the next price move.

1-year rent growth

How much the median rent moved over the past 12 months.
Price impact: Fast rent growth pulls investors in (better returns) and pushes tenants toward buying — both add buyer demand and support prices.

Gross rental yield

A year of rent divided by the purchase price. A $500K home renting for $500/week yields 5.2%.
Price impact: High yield cushions an investor's holding costs, so yield hunters flood in when rates fall. Very high yields, though, usually flag areas the market expects less capital growth from — the classic yield-vs-growth trade-off.
Favourable: 3.5–5%+ attracts investors

Projected annual ROI

HtAG's modelled range for total annual return: rental yield plus the projected capital-growth band.
Price impact: A modelled forecast, not a promise — treat the low end as the planning number and the high end as the optimistic case.

Volatility index

How far short-term prices swing around the long-term trend, scored 1–10.
Price impact: Low-volatility areas grind upward and hold value in downturns. High-volatility areas (mining towns are the classic) can boom 30% and give it all back — timing risk is real there.
Favourable: Lower is steadier

Supply

Stock on market %

Every home currently listed for sale, as a share of all homes in the area.
Price impact: The single cleanest supply gauge. Under ~1% means owners aren't selling — any demand bump hits a wall of scarcity and prices jump. Above ~2.5–3% buyers can play sellers off against each other.
Favourable: Under 1% = scarce

Inventory (months of supply)

At the current sales rate, how many months it would take to sell everything currently listed.
Price impact: Under ~3 months is a seller's market — stock sells faster than it's listed. Over ~6 months, listings pile up and vendors start cutting. This flips before prices do.
Favourable: Under 3 months favours sellers

Hold period

How long owners keep properties before selling, on average.
Price impact: Long holds = a tightly held market. Owners who don't need to sell don't accept low-ball offers, so downturns barely register. Short holds can flag investor churn or flipping.
Favourable: 12+ years = tightly held

Building approvals ratio

Newly approved dwellings over the past year as a share of existing homes — the supply pipeline.
Price impact: New supply is the natural enemy of price growth. Landlocked established suburbs (nowhere to build) outperform fringe areas where developers can always add another estate. Over ~2% is a serious pipeline.
Favourable: Under ~1% = constrained supply

Demand

Days on market

The median number of days a listing sits online before selling.
Price impact: The market's pulse. Under 30 days, buyers are competing and paying up. Climbing DoM is one of the earliest cooling signals — it usually turns months before prices follow.
Favourable: Under 30 days = hot

Vendor discounting

The typical gap between asking price and what vendors actually accept.
Price impact: Direct evidence of who holds the negotiating power. Near zero, buyers pay sticker price. Past ~5%, vendors are blinking first — and advertised prices overstate what things really sell for.
Favourable: Under 3% favours sellers

Rental vacancy rate

The share of rental homes sitting empty and advertised.
Price impact: Under ~1.5% is a rental crisis: rents get bid up, investors get confident, and priced-out tenants become buyers. Over ~3.5% warns of oversupply or a weakening local economy.
Favourable: Under 1.5% = tight

Auction clearance rate

The share of auctions that end in a sale.
Price impact: Real-time buyer confidence, updated weekly. Sustained readings above ~65–70% almost always coincide with rising prices; below ~50%, buyers have stopped chasing. (Thinly-auctioned areas make this noisy — check the auction count.)
Favourable: 65%+ = rising market

Buy search interest

Online buy-search volume for the area versus the state average (5 = average), adjusted for population.
Price impact: Where eyeballs go, offers follow. Elevated search interest is a leading indicator — it shows up in portals months before it shows up in sold prices.
Favourable: Above 5 = beating state average

Rent search interest

Online rent-search volume versus the state average (5 = average).
Price impact: Strong tenant demand today is buyer demand tomorrow — and it keeps investors' properties occupied, supporting what they'll pay.

Popularity index (HAPI)

HtAG's 1–10 gauge of how much research attention a suburb is getting this quarter versus last.
Price impact: Rising attention = growing competition for the same homes. Useful for spotting quietly-trending areas before the crowd fully arrives.

Area fundamentals

Socio-economic decile (IRSAD)

The ABS's advantage/disadvantage score, split into ten bands: 10 = most advantaged areas in the country, 1 = least.
Price impact: Wealthier catchments have deeper buyer pools, more owner-occupiers and lower forced-selling risk — that puts a floor under prices in downturns and speeds up recoveries. Rising IRSAD over time = gentrification in progress.
Favourable: Higher = stronger price floor

Renters vs owners

Renting households for every owner-occupier household. 0.5 means one renter household per two owner households.
Price impact: Owner-occupiers hold through downturns; heavy-investor areas see more synchronised selling when rates bite. Lower ratios generally mean stickier prices — but some renter-heavy areas are simply pre-gentrification.
Favourable: Below ~0.4 is owner-dominated

Units vs houses

How many units exist relative to houses in the area.
Price impact: Where units dominate, apartment oversupply can drag the whole market's stats. A low ratio means houses set the tone — and land, not buildings, drives long-run growth.

Years to own (affordability)

How long a local median-income family would need to fully pay off a typical home at current rates — over 30 means genuinely stretched.
Price impact: When locals can't afford local prices, growth has to come from richer buyers moving in. Affordable areas have more room to run when a growth cycle starts.
Favourable: Under ~35 years has headroom

School rank

Average quality of local schools, 1–100, built from NAPLAN and ACARA data.
Price impact: Catchment maps move markets. Families pay six-figure premiums to be inside good public-school catchments, and that demand is recession-resistant — parents don't un-enrol kids in a downturn.
Favourable: 70+ commands a premium

Public housing share

Share of homes that are government/social housing.
Price impact: High concentrations historically cap price growth and rental demand from private tenants. Watch for change: areas where governments are selling down stock have seen strong gentrification runs.
Favourable: Under ~3% typical for growth areas

Infrastructure spend per person

The dollar value of approved non-residential construction (roads, hospitals, schools, commercial) per adult, past 12 months.
Price impact: Cranes precede price growth. Big public and commercial investment brings jobs and amenity — the classic leading indicator that an area is being built into a better one.
Favourable: Higher = money flowing in

Economic diversity

How varied local employment is across industries, 0–100. One-industry towns score low.
Price impact: Diverse economies don't collapse when one employer sneezes. Low scores = your property's value is leveraged to a single industry's fortunes.
Favourable: 60+ is resilient

Mining/agriculture exposure

How dominant mining and agriculture are locally. Scored in reverse: 100 = barely any exposure, low scores = commodity town.
Price impact: Commodity-exposed markets move with iron ore and cattle prices, not property fundamentals — spectacular booms, brutal busts. Most burnt property investors in Australia bought mining-town 'bargains'.
Favourable: Higher = less boom-bust risk

Distance to CBD (GPO)

Kilometres to the nearest capital-city General Post Office — a standard proxy for 'how far from the CBD'.
Price impact: Scarcity of land near jobs is the engine of Australian capital growth. Every ring further out adds developable land — and supply is the enemy of growth.

Risk

Flood safety index

Share of properties OUTSIDE designated flood zones. Scored in reverse: 100 = virtually no flood exposure, low = lots of properties in flood zones.
Price impact: Flood exposure hits twice — insurance premiums (which price-sensitive buyers feel every year) and post-event stigma. Insurers are repricing risk aggressively; low-scoring areas will feel it in resale values.
Favourable: 95+ = minimal exposure

Bushfire safety index

Share of properties OUTSIDE bushfire-prone zones. 100 = minimal exposure.
Price impact: Same double-hit as flood: rising insurance costs plus tighter (more expensive) building standards in bushfire zones. The market is only beginning to price this in.
Favourable: 95+ = minimal exposure

HtAG composite scores

Capital growth score

HtAG's composite rating of the area's capital-growth prospects, built from 30+ underlying metrics.
Price impact: A shortlist-builder, not a verdict — use it to find areas worth investigating, then check the individual signals tell the same story.

Cashflow score

Composite rating of rental-return strength.
Price impact: High cashflow + high capital growth rarely coexist. Decide which job the property is doing for you and score accordingly.

Lower-risk score

Composite rating of downside protection — higher means lower risk.
Price impact: The score to weight up if you'd be stretched by a 10% dip. Risk scores matter most late in a cycle, exactly when everyone stops looking at them.

Overall score

The average of the capital growth, cashflow and lower-risk scores.
Price impact: A blunt but useful single number for ranking a longlist. Two areas with the same overall score can be wildly different underneath — always open the bonnet.