Explanatory notes
1. Sales statistics are derived from information provided on the ‘Notice of Sale or Transfer of Land’ form that is lodged with Land and Property Information NSW.
2. The geographic areas used for reporting data are based on the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
3. For confidentiality, we do not report sale prices in any geographical area where the number of sales is 10 or less. Statistics calculated from sample sizes between 10 and 30 are shown by an ‘s’ in the relevant table. We suggest these data are treated with caution, particularly when assessing quarterly and annual changes.
4. The median is the value that divides a set of ordered numbers equally into a bottom half and top half. Unlike means (averages), medians are not substantially affected by unusually high or low values. Therefore median values are better measures of central tendency. In addition, some tables provide first and third quartiles. These are the 25th and 75th percentiles in the set of ordered numbers.
5. Individual sales are allocated into time periods according to their contract date. Generally the vendor and purchaser agree on the sale price on or before the contract date. In many instances there is a considerable time lapse between the contract and transfer dates. Therefore in assigning a time period to each property sale, the contract date is considered to be more relevant for market price analyses than the transfer date.
6. The sales data are reported three months after the end of the reference quarter when about 80% on average of the contracted sales have been notified. Waiting a further three months i.e. six months after the end of the reference quarter increases the notifications to about 90%. However, statistical testing on sale price means and medians after three months and six months of notifications does not show any significant difference for most of the LGAs.
7. A variety of factors create anomalies in the sale price attributed to particular properties. To ensure that the statistics reflect the market price of a typical residential dwelling the lower and upper 5% of sale prices for each LGA have been excluded. At LGA level, this does not affect the median but does remove outliers in the calculation of the mean and moves the first and third quartiles slightly towards the median. The impact at higher levels of aggregation is less predictable but is likely to provide a more reliable indication of sale prices.
8. Strata title properties usually include town houses, terraces/villas, flats/units (multi-unit dwellings) whereas non-strata title properties refer to separate houses. However any multi-unit dwelling with a Torrens title would be counted as a non-strata property.
9. New procedures have been introduced in the production of Rent and Sales tables from September 2017. This has produced a break in the sales series and comparisons with tables from old procedures (any reports prior to September 2017) may not be valid.
For further information about these statistics contact FACS Insights, Analysis and Research (email: RentandSales@facs.nsw.gov.au).
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DISCLAIMER
While every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that this document is correct at the time of release, the State of New South Wales, its agents and employees, disclaim any and all liability to any person in respect of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done in reliance upon the whole or any part of this document.