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We reject 92% of the properties we review.

The traps that cost investors are rarely in the listing: a train line, a substation, a street of look-alike units. Our 20-point checklist screens them out. Bring us a property you're considering and our team will run it through the same checks.

Talk to our due diligence teamGet the free 20-point checklist
REB Buyer's Agency of the Year 2026 winnerREB Buyer's Agency of the Year 2024 winnerREB Buyer's Agency of the Year 2023 winner

REB Buyer's Agency of the Year, winner 2023, 2024 and 2026.

Arjun Paliwal, CEO, Founder and Head of Research, walks through the traps the checklist screens out. Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

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The 20 property traps

What the checklist screens out.

The checklist was built from more than a decade of sales data across hot, flat and cold markets in 20 cities. It looks at what changes how long a property takes to sell and the price it sells for. These are some of the traps it catches.

  1. 01Location

    Train lines

    $65,000 less and more than three times as long to sell as similar homes a few hundred metres away

  2. 02Location

    Power lines in view

    About 2x longer to sell than similar homes in the same suburb

  3. 03Location

    Cemeteries

    30+ days to sell, against 9 days for a nearby home

  4. 04Location

    Main roads and highways

    Traffic and noise drag on resale, and homes under or beside highways see more vendor discounting.

  5. 05Location

    Next to a school

    Traffic, no-parking zones and noise mean longer days on market, even when the listing sells it as a plus.

  6. 06Lending

    Substations

    Some lenders limit lending close to them, for you and for whoever buys from you later.

  7. 07Market

    Look-alike units

    In investor-heavy unit markets, renting one out can take two to three months in some areas, even in a housing shortage.

  8. 08Price

    Paying above the evidence

    Comparable sales set a price floor and ceiling: land size, the interior and exterior, how recent each sale was and local growth.

  9. 09Numbers

    Cash flow that does not hold

    Council rates, insurance, water, vacancy, property management and interest, checked before you commit.

  10. 10Fit

    The wrong strategy

    Whether the property suits renovating or holding in your portfolio. We do not do quick flips.

  11. The free 20-point checklist

    Run a property through the same checks yourself before you fall for it.

    Get the free 20-point checklistWatch all 20 traps (opens in a new tab)

Figures are single properties our team analysed, not averages.

Right market, wrong property

Get the market right and you can still buy the wrong property.

Every property we review lands in one of three piles. The judgment calls are why we test against sales data and inspect on the ground.

  1. Clear fail

    Rejected on the checklist

    Two properties we turned down: a house on a busy road with several bus stops, and one directly facing a school car park.

  2. Judgment call

    Settled by the days-on-market test

    Do similar properties with the same feature take longer to sell, or sell at a deeper discount? A vegetation or bushfire overlay, and what insurers charge for it, is a typical case.

  3. Clear pass

    On to the inspection

    A property that passes moves forward, and every property we buy is inspected on the ground.

The checklist comes from a study of more than 1,000 properties across hot, flat and cold markets, testing what lengthens the time to sell or deepens the discount.

Who runs the checks

Checked in the data. Then checked in person.

Three teams sit behind the checks: our research checklist and the data behind it, field inspections by our own field ops team, and our AIM-certified acquisition team.

  1. 1In EDGE

    The numbers

    Our due diligence models run in EDGE, our in-house platform, on data from PropTrack, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Domain and Cordell, among others.

    See InvestorKit EDGE
  2. 2On the ground

    Our field ops team

    Field inspections by our own field ops team check the property and its street against what the listing shows.

    How our inspections work
  3. 3At the table

    Our acquisition team

    Every member of our acquisition team is negotiation-certified by the Australian Institute of Management (AIM). If the property passes and you want help on price, they negotiate or bid at auction for you.

    Negotiation and inspections

Proof

The checks behind the 92%, recognised.

The platform and the people behind our due diligence, a release on the work and a client whose portfolio changed after the checks did.

Sidd and Liz beside text about building a $4.1 million property portfolio

Client storySidd & Liz

From a Sydney Apartment Lesson to a $4.1M Portfolio Across 3 States

Sidd & Liz started where many Sydney investors begin. He bought what looked like the safe option: a two-bedroom apartment in Western Sydney, close to transport, shops, schools, and major roads. On paper, it made sense. But the property did not perform the way he expected. With InvestorKit, Sidd and Liz rebuilt the strategy. They moved away from local familiarity, went borderless, and built a four-property portfolio across Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria. Today, that portfolio is worth over $4.1 million and has generated more than $1.4 million in equity. Here’s their story.

Awards

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Individual results vary. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Questions

Questions, answered.

See every question

Considering a property? Check it first.

Book a free 15-minute call. Send us the listing, and our due diligence team will explain what we check and what happens next: buy, negotiate or walk away.

Talk to our due diligence teamGet the free 20-point checklist