Every property has a job to do. It either builds the portfolio or ends it.
Free. Straight to your inbox.
The screen, before a client sees a property
Six questions. Every property. Before anyone signs anything.
Three of the six are about the market. Three are about the address. A property has to clear all six, and the moment one fails we say do not buy it. The report gives you the whole screen, including the questions we would rather competitors did not have.
Most buyers check whether they like it.
We check whether it lets them keep going.
Building and pest, strata, title, conveyancer. All necessary, all standard, and all of it tells you whether the property is sound. None of it tells you whether the property is any good.
Free. No call required.
The six, in order
The check almost nobody outside the industry runs.
Most buyers assess a property on its own merits. Will it grow, is it a good price, do the numbers work. All reasonable questions, and all of them treat the purchase as if it were the last one you will ever make. It is not. It is one move in a sequence.
Scoped to the market
Momentum, potential and supply are questions about the suburb, not the house. Price growth is the last thing to move in any market, which makes it the worst thing to buy on. Several indicators turn well before it, and all of them are measurable.
Scoped to the address
Serviceability, price against comparable settled sales, and where the property actually sits inside the suburb. You can pick the right market and still buy the wrong street, and suburb level data hides all of it.
A lower growth property that keeps you buying beats a higher growth one that stops you at two.
Whether the rent covers the holding cost, how much of that rent the lender will count, and what the shortfall does to your serviceability. A property that runs at a monthly deficit does not just cost you that deficit. It reduces what any lender will advance you next time, which is a far bigger number.
Inside the report
What's Inside
Why serviceability decides everything
Check one, in full. How to model the borrowing position after the purchase, the shading each lender applies to rental income, and the only question that counts: does the next approval still exist.
The four signals that turn before price
Days on market, stock on market, rents and local incomes. Not the current reading of any of them, the direction and the rate. A 2% vacancy that was 4% is the opposite conclusion to a 2% that was 1%.
Structural growth versus borrowed growth
Diverse employment, incomes rising faster than prices, funded infrastructure with a delivery date. Against single industry towns, stretched affordability and projects that were announced but never funded.
The supply pipeline nobody checks
Development and building approvals pulled from council, not listings portals, compared against household formation rather than population alone. Two thousand approved apartments does very little to a detached house market, and a great deal to the unit market next door.
What compresses the buyer pool
Transmission lines, main roads, industrial zoning at the boundary, flood prone pockets. Most of it is visible on a map before you ever inspect, and it shows up twice: in the valuation, and again when you sell.
Free. Straight to your inbox.
Who's behind this
We run this screen before we run it for you.
This is not theory. It is the actual screen we run on every property before a client sees it, published exactly as it stands, including the questions we would rather competitors did not have.
Nikhil Sreedhar
Ahijith Chandra
Handle is a research led buyers agency helping Australian professionals build portfolios that eventually make the job optional. Between us we hold nineteen properties worth around $16 million, every one of them bought while we were still working full time, and every one of them run through these same six checks first.
Licensed buyers agency
Do not take our word for any of it.
Free download
Six checks. All six have to clear.
The whole screen, including how we model serviceability after the purchase, the four signals that turn before price, and how we pull the supply pipeline out of council rather than a listings portal.
Free. No call required. Unsubscribe any time.
Handle Properties is a licensed buyers agency. We are not financial advisers, credit advisers, tax agents or superannuation advisers. This report is general information about property investing and does not take account of your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any property or financial product.
Charts and figures shown in the report are illustrative. Lender serviceability treatment, rental income shading and assessment rates differ between lenders and change over time. Nothing here is credit advice, and no outcome is promised. Past performance is not a guide to future performance and property values can fall as well as rise.
Title, structuring and contract matters should be handled by your conveyancer, solicitor and accountant. Before acting on anything in this report, speak with your accountant, a licensed financial adviser and your broker.
Free download
The 6 Checks we run before we let a client buy
The whole screen. Three checks on the market, three on the address.