News & Research

CoreLogic data and analytic solutions support Australia’s next generation of academics

Australia’s thirst for property knowledge remains unquenchable with scores of academics producing significant research papers on the country’s housing market utilising the breadth and depth of CoreLogic data.

The formative research is a direct result of CoreLogic’s partnership with not-for-profit organisation, RoZetta Institute (RoZetta), which provides Australian academics and universities with unfettered access to the latest housing market data and analytics.

A diverse range of behavioural and environmental influences have been studied in relation to property. Academics have researched COVID-19, a property’s proximity to mines, brothels or quality schools and explored pricing bubbles, herding behaviour, ‘lucky numbers’ and how weather impacts auction results.

CoreLogic provides RoZetta with a full suite of housing market statistics, including the flagship hedonic index series, information on residential prices and values, sales volume and rental trend data, inventory levels, auction clearance rates and private treaty metrics such as median selling time and vendor discounting rates.

The partnership also allows students to apply for access to bulk extracts of anonymised transactional data, unlocking key deeper relationships in the data to better understand and measure housing market trends.

Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s Research Director, says ensuring academics are able to utilise Australia’s most comprehensive property data and analytics provides universities and students access to credible and timely information.

“By supporting the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students, we recognise the critical role this partnership plays in supporting their academic research,” he said.

“CoreLogic is helping lay the foundations for their pursuit of further education or employment into corporate roles that will shape business decisions, improve risk management practices and inform policy makers.”

The residential housing sector is Australia’s largest asset class by some margin, estimated to be valued at more than $9 trillion; almost three times the value of all superannuation funds combined, and more than three times the value of companies listed on the Australian stock exchange. Housing also makes up more than half of household wealth, making it a pillar of retirement and wealth.

Mr Lawless said given the enormity of the asset class it was critical to support research into property and peripheral sectors such as banking and finance, property development and valuations, and public sector policy.

“Providing students with access to Australia’s most authoritative source of housing statistics and housing-related data provides an opportunity for innovative research into the performance of Australia’s most valuable asset class, as well as opportunities to explore new methodologies, test theories and investigate the relationship between housing markets and other factors,” he said.

Dr. David Simmonds, RoZetta Institute, Director Data & Research, said the partnership between the two organisations was an ideal match and would have commercial value for the housing industry and a direct impact on macroeconomic policies that affect housing supply and prices.

“Some research will more formally quantify attributes that housing industry participants may already appreciate, such as proximity to quality schools,” Dr. Simmonds said.

“Some will provide new insights into factors driving real estate values and bubbles. And some will lead to a greater understanding of the transaction process itself, not just in housing but more broadly, such as by demonstrating behavioural trading biases outside capital markets where those tendencies were first proposed.”

Students representing 16 of the country’s leading academic institutions, including the Australian National University, Deakin University, Monash University, Queensland University of Technology, Sydney and Melbourne Universities and the University of Tasmania have made use of CoreLogic data since 2004.

Dr. Michael Harre, University of Sydney’s Senior Lecturer in Complex Systems, made use of CoreLogic data during his PhD studies, publishing two key papers in 2021 including the macro-effects of social influence on housing.

He is continuing to develop his findings into more sophisticated models, which would impact the property industry and regulatory bodies such as the Reserve Bank of Australia, which had been in contact with him.

“Without being able to help with industry-centred problems these models remain in academia and don’t achieve their maximum potential,” he said.

Dr. Harre said the high quality of the work being produced by academics wouldn’t be possible without access to such high resolution, high quality data.

“A lack of access to data like this is a well understood problem for the progress of sound social and economic research and what the CoreLogic / RoZetta partnership provides is invaluable, for our work it’s as important as the census data,” he said.

Almost 30 research studies utilising CoreLogic data have featured in academic journals such as the International Journal of Housing Policy and peer-reviewed publications through Elsevier, Oxford University Press and Taylor & Francis.

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CoreLogic Australia

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