Property portal and technology company Domain has announced a partnership with digital property settlement solution PEXA.
The strategic collaboration is set to bring together both companies’ proprietary data assets to unlock new unique insights and value across the property market.
This collaboration is the beginning of a relationship between Domain and PEXA, two companies that operate across highly complementary segments of the property lifecycle from listing, search, research and property value tracking, through to purchase, settlement and ownership.
In their first research report, Domain and PEXA have uncovered whether changes in buyer demand have translated into changes in the property settlement volumes across New South Wales and Victoria.
The key finding of the Closing the Loop report is that the Domain Buyer Demand Indicator (BDI), which tracks weekly demand for houses and units across Australia, can be used as a leading economic indicator to forecast settlement property activity.
The report also found that as the Domain BDI rises and falls, there is a lagged rise and fall of property settlement activity across NSW and Victoria.
In NSW, a rise in the Domain BDI will lead to a rise in settlements eight weeks later. In Victoria, a rise in the Domain BDI results in a rise in settlements 11 weeks later.
Domain Chief Executive Officer Jason Pellegrino said the collaboration was the start of PEXA and Domain working together to unlock new insights into Australia’s property industry.
“The health of Australia’s property market is a topic that generates immense interest to a wide range of Australians,” Mr Pellegrino said.
“Many of the current indices such as auction clearance rates, have significant limitations and are largely directional indicators.
“There has long been an assumption that buyer search activity is correlated with actual property settlements and for the first time, Domain and PEXA can not only validate this correlation, but also establish an accurate leading indicator of housing activity.”
PEXA Group’s Chief Executive Officer Glenn King said: “With more than 80 per cent of all property transfer settlements in Australia now handled on the PEXA platform, our PEXA Insights business has access to a range of timely, authoritative national datasets that can deliver valuable property trend insights for policy decision makers, industry and the wider community”.
Mr King said PEXA Insights had published more than 200 individual research reports to date and established a team to build out its data platform.
“Working with partners like Domain, who share our belief in unlocking the value of property industry data, we are confident of creating valuable data insight products and services for our customers,” he said.