Australia · 12 tools · Verified 8 October 2026
Every property research tool, and the one job each does.
Nobody researches a home with one website, because the data lives with a dozen custodians. Here is who holds what, what it costs, and the order to use them in for a single address.
How the tools divide up
Three kinds of source answer three kinds of question. The portals know what homes listed and sold for. The government holds the planning, hazard, title and valuation records. The professional databases package the first two for agents and lenders. A buyer needs all three, and most of it is free.
- Free to use9 of 12, including every government source
- Small feeA title search from the land registry
- Professional only2: Cotality and Nearmap, via your broker or agent
The tools, compared
Each row is what the tool publicly describes itself as doing, checked on 8 October 2026. Links go to the tool itself.
| Tool | What it is for | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| knest.ai free property report PropertyWize (Sydney) · NSW residential | One report per address: independent price estimate with comparable sales, flood, bushfire, heritage, zoning, power lines, road and rail noise, land and suburb data, plus an AI agent for questions. | Free | The research half of due diligence in one place, with the sources named. |
| realestate.com.au property pages REA Group · Australia | Current and past listings, sold prices and the realEstimate value range for an address; rental listings. | Free | Listing history and the market's asking prices. |
| Domain property profile Domain Group · Australia | Sales and rental history, a price estimate and suburb data for an address. | Free | A second listing history and estimate; the two portals often differ. |
| property.com.au REA Group · Australia | Sales history, surrounding sales and land and property information for an address. | Free | Surrounding sales when you are building your own comparables. |
| NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer NSW Government · NSW | The lot, zoning, planning controls, hazard and constraint layers, and a downloadable property report for any NSW address. | Free | Zoning and planning controls straight from the source. |
| Council DA tracker Each NSW council · Per council | Development applications, modifications and, where published, plans for an address and its neighbours. | Free | What is approved next door, and how a lot was subdivided. |
| NSW Land Registry Services NSW LRS (via information brokers) · NSW | Title search: the legal lot and plan, registered owner, mortgages, easements, covenants and caveats. | Free (fee for records) | The legal position before you exchange. |
| NSW Valuer General NSW Government · NSW | Government land values by address and access to property sales information. | Free | Land value, which is what rates and land tax are based on. |
| NSW SES Flood Data Portal and Local Flood Insights NSW SES · NSW | Council flood studies, models and suburb-level flood history and risk. | Free | Understanding how and when an area floods. |
| Google Earth historical imagery Google · Australia | Aerial imagery over time, to see when a building appeared and what was there before. | Free | Looking backwards at a site. |
| Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) RP Data Cotality · Australia | Professional property database: sales history, ownership-related records, comparables and valuation data. | Professional | Agents, brokers and valuers; ask your broker for a report. |
| Nearmap Nearmap · Australia (urban) | High-resolution historical aerial imagery, updated several times a year. | Professional | Site history in detail, if you have access through work. |
knest.ai is our own product and appears in the list on the same terms as the others. We draw on government and licensed data, listed on the data sources page, and do not scrape the portals.
A workflow for one address
Take a subdivided lot, say a 7B on a suburban street. The question that matters is what created it and what the land is allowed to do. This order gets there in an afternoon.
- Planning Portal Spatial Viewer. Find the lot, read the zone and the constraint layers, download the property report.
- Council DA tracker. Search 7B, then 7 and 7A: the subdivision or the original build was probably lodged against the parent lot.
- Portals. Sales history, past listings and the two estimates on realestate.com.au and Domain; surrounding sales on property.com.au.
- knest report. Price estimate with comparables, flood, bushfire, heritage, noise and power lines for the lot in one place, then ask the AI agent what to investigate before making an offer.
- Valuer General and Google Earth. Land value, and the imagery that shows when the building appeared.
- Land registry title search. The legal lot and plan, easements, covenants and caveats, before you exchange.
The checks themselves, and the order to run them, are in how to research a property before buying in NSW.
Start with the free report
One NSW address, every layer, sources named. Then take the title search and the inspection from there.
Get the free property reportProperty research tools, answered.
What is the best free tool to research a property in Australia?
There is no single one, because the data sits with different custodians. For listings and sold prices use realestate.com.au, Domain and property.com.au; for zoning and planning the state planning portal; for flood the SES and council maps; for title the land registry. In NSW, a knest free report pulls the price, risk, planning and noise layers together for one address and names the source of each, which saves the tab-hopping but does not replace a title search or an inspection.
What apps help you research a property before buying?
The portals (realestate.com.au, Domain) have apps for listings and estimates. knest.ai has an iOS and Android app with free NSW property reports, risk flags, comparable sales, suburb data and 3D land. Government planning and flood data is web only.
Is CoreLogic free?
No. CoreLogic, now Cotality, sells RP Data to property professionals. Buyers usually get a CoreLogic report through a mortgage broker, bank or agent. Several banks offer a free property report built on the same data to their customers.
How do I find the development history of a property?
Search the council's DA tracker for the address and for the parent address if the lot was subdivided (for a 7B, search 7 and 7A as well). Pair it with Google Earth's historical imagery to see when the building appeared, and the title search for the plan that created the lot.
Do I need to pay for a property report?
Not for the research. Price estimates, sales history, planning, flood, bushfire and noise are all available free, and knest publishes a free report for any NSW address. You pay for a title search (a small fee), a strata report, a building and pest inspection and a contract review.
Which of these does knest.ai use?
knest draws on more than 40 government and licensed datasets including NSW Planning, NSW Spatial Services, the Valuer General, NSW RFS and Transport for NSW; the full list is on the data sources page. It does not scrape the portals.
Sources
- Each tool's own description of its service, at the URL linked in the table, as read on 8 October 2026.
- Title searches and information brokers: NSW Land Registry Services.
- What knest draws on: knest data sources.