EquitySight Methodology

1. Why I publish my methodology

This page documents how EquitySight produces the numbers you see on the site, and which of those numbers are measured data versus estimates. You deserve to know the difference before you rely on anything here.

I publish the methodology because:

• Nobody should rely on opaque property numbers without knowing what they measure and where the inputs come from.
• Australia's property industry has a long history of undisclosed conflicts and paid placements. I want mine out in the open.
• Saying plainly what is estimated is more useful than a confident-sounding number with no basis.

EquitySight is built and maintained by one person — Jacoby, a solo operator. There is no in-house valuation team and no certified valuer on staff. I do not collect any paid data from agents or developers, and I do not accept sponsored content.

2. What suburb pages show, and where each number comes from

Every figure displayed on a suburb page today comes from one of these sources:

Every current rent and price figure carries an "as at" caption naming the source and period. The data sources page lists each dataset, its licence and its refresh cadence.

3. Figures I removed rather than estimate

Earlier versions of the suburb pages displayed fields I could not verify. Rather than label them and hope readers notice the label, I removed them:

• Median household income — the build previously generated a placeholder income figure that was not an ABS number. It was removed from all suburb pages in August 2026. Income will return if and when I can source it properly from ABS Census data.
• Investment score — removed. A 0–100 score computed partly from estimated inputs is not a measurement, so I no longer publish one anywhere on the site.
• School and park counts — never verified against a real facilities dataset, so they are not published.

Some internal fields (a postcode-derived suburb-type classification, and rough transport/amenity weightings) still exist in the build and can influence which sentence variant a page uses. They never appear as displayed figures.

4. Which suburb pages are indexed for search

Only suburb pages that carry genuine, current, suburb-level market data are submitted to search engines. The gate requires all of:

• population of at least 2,000 (ABS 2021 Census),
• a postcode, and
• a current suburb-level median rent or sale price from state government open data.

About 1,475 pages pass that gate today (concentrated in QLD, VIC, SA and TAS, where suburb-level open data exists). Suburbs that don't pass the gate simply don't get a page any more — I removed them in August 2026 rather than keep placeholder shells online. If a suburb page doesn't exist, it's because I don't have data for it that I can stand behind.

5. Suburb prose and strategy text

The strategy verdicts, risk factors and outlook text on suburb pages are generated by rule-based logic over the measured fields — gross yield where both rent and price exist, price relative to state medians, population size and suburb type. Every dollar figure or percentage quoted in that text is computed from a measured input; the logic never invents a number. Where a page lacks a field, the sentences that depend on it are omitted rather than filled with a guess.

6. Known limitations

• ABS 2021 Census population data is five years old at the time of writing. Census 2026 data will be incorporated once the ABS releases it.
• Current market coverage is uneven by state: NSW rents exist only at postcode level, and no free suburb-level sale-price dataset exists for Queensland. Pages say so rather than substituting a modelled figure.
• Valuer-General sale medians lag the market by one to several quarters. The period caption next to each figure is the honest read of its age.
• EquitySight is run by a solo, non-credentialed operator. Nothing on the site is personal financial advice. Always seek licensed, independent advice before making a property decision.

7. Mortgage repayment formulas

The First Home Journey and my calculators use standard, published formulas applied to the numbers you enter — this is where my methodology is on the firmest ground.

The repayment figure — used by the journey, the tool calculators and the Purchase Calculator (/app) — comes from the standard monthly amortisation formula:

`` monthly = P × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n) ``

where P is the loan amount, r is the monthly rate (annual rate ÷ 12 ÷ 100), and n is the number of monthly periods (term × 12). Total interest is monthly × n − P.

Fortnightly-benefit figure

The "switching to fortnightly saves X years and $Y in interest" number is computed by full amortisation, not a closed form. Specifically:

• Payment: monthly / 2 paid every 14 days. Because there are 26 fortnights per year (not 24), this is the equivalent of 13 monthly payments per year — an extra monthly payment vs. the strict 12-per-year schedule.
• Periodic rate: annual rate ÷ 26 (applied once per fortnight).
• Loop: I iterate fortnight-by-fortnight, applying interest then reducing the balance, until the balance hits zero. yearsLess = (term × 12 − monthsEquivalent) ÷ 12 and interestSaved = monthlyInterestTotal − fortnightlyInterestTotal.

This matches the "pay half the monthly amount every fortnight" offer most Australian lenders advertise. It is not the same as paying annual / 26 every fortnight (which would just be monthly repayments relabelled and would save nothing).

Stamp duty, LMI and scheme rules in the calculators and the First Home Journey follow the published FY2026-27 state revenue office schedules and Housing Australia program settings, with the verification date noted on each tool page.

A note on the written guides

The explanatory guides that accompany my calculators are drafted with AI assistance and then reviewed and edited by a human for accuracy before publishing. I mention this so the AI assistance is disclosed rather than implied to be otherwise.

8. Change log

• August 2026 (later) — Removed the ~13,000 placeholder suburb pages entirely; suburbs without verified current data no longer have pages.
• August 2026 — Removed the placeholder household income figure from all suburb pages. Documented the real-data indexing gate (section 4) and the current state-government market data sources.
• July 2026 — Integrated current suburb-level rents and sale medians from state government open data; began indexing the ~1,475 suburb pages that carry them.
• June 2026 — Rewrote this page to separate measured data from estimates. Removed the investment score display.
• April 2026 — First published methodology.

9. Questions?

If anything on this page is unclear, or you find a calculation error, email me at support@equitysight.app. I would genuinely rather hear about it.