Land and property is the nation’s single largest asset class. The valuation of these assets is used to collect land tax, inform infrastructure investment and lending for homes, along with modelling insurance risk and investment returns. Property tax currently contributes $50 billion p.a. across Australia, supported by an estimated $300 million p.a. of costs to government. Services for banking and finance are delivered by the property valuation industry, costing over $350 million, of which more than 75% is wages. The current labour-intensive approach to land and property value assessment results in expensive (Hefferan and Boyd, 2010), subjective, slow and often out of date valuations for property (Parker, Lockwood and Marano, 2012). These shortcomings coupled with the emerging cyber threats to the underpinning valuation data infrastructure require a collaborative approach between industry, government and researchers to develop secure, scalable, commercially viable solutions (Reed and Pettit, 2018). 

Value Australia CRC-P will support Australia’s largest market, the $6.8 trillion property market, by creating valuation products that provide better information sooner to homebuyers, investors, businesses and governments whilst reducing costs and risks. Combining research, extensive data assets from public and private organisations (e.g. Valuer Generals’ offices, local government and Commonwealth Bank) and using state-of-the-art analytics and artificial intelligence this project will deliver secure digital valuation models and tools that cover a broad range of land and property types across Australia and overseas. 

The product suite and deliverables will include:

 - Cyber secure land and property valuation models including machine learning driven mass appraisal valuations for urban, peri-urban and regional Australia 

- Predictive Infrastructure sequencing and integrated city growth models 

- Value creation models for critical infrastructure projects with a focus on proximity benefits attributed to transformational public infrastructure and land rezoning 

- Infrastructure value capture financial models including incremental financing, betterment taxes & land taxes 

- Economic feasibility models to calculate the likely returns on property development. 

Value Australia builds on two years of pilot work across Metropolitan Sydney and Brisbane through the RAISE project, and will create a national suite of data and software products over the coming three years. The project has $8.7 million of cash and in-kind funded through an Australian Government CRC-Project grant.  

For further information about the project, please contact Professor Chris Pettit.