Don’t solely rely on data when buying a property

“Someone buying a property today or any point in the future, none of us have got a crystal ball, but they’re making an investment choice based on its future potential, so looking at information that’s related to yesterday, last year, it might be interesting, but it’s already behind us,” Mr Pressley said.

“We can’t change it. So, what’s important as an investor (this is our role as professionals in this space) is to understand the things that have the most influence on property prices.

“[This information] it’s not on a website anywhere. There’s nothing that can say: ‘Next year, this is where things are going to be worse’. We have to form our opinions, but it’s a matter of joining the dots of a whole heap of things, most of which are related to economic conditions in future years, improving or going worse, combined with things on the affordability side of things.”

Mr Pressley highlighted Sydney as a good example with its current affordability crisis.

“Sydney’s economy is still strong, but [housing’s] so expensive and out of reach of more and more people now, and a lot more supply has recently hit Sydney’s markets,” he said.

“According to CoreLogic, it’s five consecutive months that Sydney prices have fallen. They’re not great falls, but five months in a row is a trend.

Mr Pressley said trying to see the future is difficult as a literal crystal ball does not exist, but a good property market researcher will do their best to create a crystal ball with micro and macro observation, and is how researchers select a location.