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A commercial partnership between the University of NSW (UNSW) Sydney, PEXA, and FrontierSI has made the technology possible.
The new toolkit utilises big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics to calculate residential property valuations, which will, in turn, be used to collect land tax, inform infrastructure investment, and lending for homes in addition to model insurance risks and property investment returns, according to the project’s chief investigator Professor Chris Pettit, director of the UNSW city future research centre (CFRC).
Hosted by new venture Slate Analytics, the toolkit also reportedly allows users to visualise diverse infrastructure and planning scenarios and the impact of these on surrounding property values and supports data-driven solutions to better city planning.
“The current labour-intensive approach to land and property value assessment results is expensive, subjective, slow and often uses out-of-date valuations for property,” Mr Pettit said.
“Increasing the accessibility and accuracy of value assessments will help homebuyers, investors, businesses and government make more informed decisions.
“This new commercial partnership brings together PEXA’s expertise in data and digital property settlements, and Frontier SI’s specialisation in spatial mapping and geodesy with UNSW’s leading research on data science and the future of our cities to deliver a world-class platform.”
Scott Butterworth, chief data and analytics officer at PEXA, labelled the system as revolutionary, adding that its benefits could also extend to Australia’s lending professionals by “potentially expediting the mortgage approvals process on behalf of Australia’s homebuyers”.
FrontierSI chief executive officer Graeme Kernich has also weighed in: “Through Slate Analytics, FrontierSI and UNSW has realised its vision to bring cutting edge AI into the property valuation products and services space. The investment by PEXA will be critical to furthering this vision and expanding the impact that this capability will have for Australia and beyond.”
The venture builds on previous research conducted with the UNSW’s CRFC, FrontierSI, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Liverpool City Council, the NSW Office of the Valuer General and property data management company Omnilink — funded by an Australian government Cooperative Research Centres Project (CRC-P).
According to a statement, the toolkit cleans, links, and embeds diverse geospatial and property data from trusted government databases and industry partners, including sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and includes a property market dashboard developed in response to COVID-19, which provides a daily property market performance snapshot.
Additionally, it also offers graphs and charts of key property market metrics, including median property prices, auction clearance rates, the house value index, and the performance of the ASX 200 real estate sector, to assist the various government and non-government stakeholders in understanding the impact of the pandemic on the market.
Discovery for the proposed high-speed rail network along Australia’s east coast has already utilised the toolkit, which revealed that the land value growth around the project, estimated to experience increases of up to $140 billion, could be used as funding for the network.
“A significant portion of this could be dedicated to funding its construction and supporting the creation of liveable and vibrant cities and regions,” Professor Pettit concluded.
