All the tools for serious buyers’ agents
When you start thinking about switching from being a real estate agent or property manager to being a buyer’s agent, one of the first tasks is to broaden your real estate knowledge. Once you’ve completed a course, your key weapons will be all the online tools that a professional buyer’s agent has at their fingertips. In this article, I’ve put together a list of useful websites and resources to help you.
As a buyer’s agent, your job is to find the right property for your client. This means you need to assess more than whether or not the property is in good condition. In your role, you need to look at factors like potential capital growth in the area, rental demand and yield (if your client is an investor), zoning, risks like floods or crime and more.
While as a selling agent or property manager, you could coast along using only sites like realestate.com.au or domain.com.au or even allhomes.com.au, as a buyer’s agent, you’ll need access to more extensive and detailed information.
You’re probably familiar with CoreLogic or SQM Research, but you’ll discover a whole new world when you have access to paid-for information, including comprehensive reports and analysis.
CoreLogic, for example, offers a wealth of up-to-the-minute information from their software solutions page. Here you’ll find everything from RP Data and suburb profile reports to regional market updates, Monthly Housing Chart Pack and the Quarterly Rental Review Report.
SQM Research, headed by the able and much-quoted Louis Christopher, delivers comprehensive free data including sold records, total property listings, asking property prices
vacancy rates, asking rent prices and much more. Sign up for SQM Premium to get access to even more useful reports, such as for distressed properties.
Be a better buyer’s agent with these tools
This isn’t an exhaustive list, and not every site will suit your needs. However, these sites are great launching points for you.
Sold information:
- Property value ‒ CoreLogic
- Home Sold Price
Property investor tools:
- PropTrack by REA
- AuHousePrices
- Real Estate Investar
- Somersoft Property Investment Analysis (PIA) Software
- SuburbsFinder for investment hotspots
- Suburb Trends, especially useful for regional areas
- HtAG (higher than average growth) software that shows yield and capital growth clearly
- DSR (demand to supply ratio) is a useful predictor for capital growth
- YourInvestmentProperty magazine for useful data including demographic trends
Development potential:
- Planning Alerts will notify you of DAs in areas of interest for you
- Landchecker has property information collated in one place. Useful for potential development opportunities
- Archistar
- InfoTrackGO sells reports from development applications on a property to water service location points
Other, including state-specific sites:
- Heatmaps if you like graphs and charts
- Australian Bureau of Statistics census data for home ownership, occupation and general demographics
- id for more demographic resources
- Microburbs. According to their website, ’cutting-edge machine learning distills billions of data points into 5,000+ metrics for every suburb’
- SBS suburb advantage and disadvantage analysis with an interactive map
- Red Suburbs for crime data
- Australian Government jobs trends, useful for predicting rental takeup
- Walk Score, which rates the walkability of each suburb based on completing daily tasks
- Google Maps with Street View, that will give you an idea of the area and its green spaces as you ‘walk’ through the street and suburb.
- NSW Planning Portal
- Qld Globe for current danger points
- Brisbane City Council flood map and alerts
Your CRM ‒ the most important tool of all
Above all, you need to build a CRM with lots of property industry contacts in the areas that you have identified are the best locations for property investors to secure properties. If all you do is scour the internet, you aren’t adding any value.
The key to building your network is to build your relationships, so don’t be a slacker in this regard. Attend open homes, comment on agent blogs, offer to buy them a coffee, refer a sales listing and share their posts on social media. Once you establish your stable of trusted agents, you can send client briefs out to your network and prompt agents to suggest potential matches to your client’s investment strategy.
The more you share, whether it’s with sales agents or other buyer agents, the greater your reward when it comes to networking.
Can I help you find better buyer’s agent tools?
Ever thought about expanding your skills to become a buyer’s agent? I started my own buyer’s agency over a decade ago. I now offer buyer’s agent courses for real estate professionals looking to make the transition to becoming buyer’s agents for property investors. Of course, my course includes all the tools you need to help you identify great investment opportunities for your clients and create a richer life for you. Contact me today to find out more.