Data Sources
Every metric has a source. Here are ours.
Primary data sources
CoreLogic
Australia’s largest property data provider. Source for:
- Median house and unit prices
- Sale transaction data
- Days on Market
- Vendor Discounting
- Rental yields
- Capital growth (CAGR across multiple windows)
- Auction clearance rates
TopBurb subscribes to CoreLogic Residential Data Services, currently on the WA-only tier for the Perth launch. National tier follows from the Brisbane report onward.
SQM Research
Leading source for rental market data in Australia. Source for:
- Vacancy rates (monthly, suburb-level)
- Rental supply and demand indices
- Weekly asking rents
- Stock on market trends
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Free, authoritative government data. Source for:
- SEIFA deciles (IRSAD index)
- Population and household counts
- Household income
- Dwelling and construction statistics
- Census demographic data
State Government data
Each state publishes property and livability data relevant to investors:
- Landgate (WA) — Perth land and property data
- WA Police Force — crime statistics by LGA
- Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) — bushfire risk maps, BAL designations
- Department of Main Roads — infrastructure pipeline
- Planning WA — zoning, development approvals
Secondary data sources
Domain & realestate.com.au
Listing-level data used for real-time supply and demand signals. Not primary for price data (CoreLogic is cleaner), but strong for forward indicators.
Local government data
Each Perth LGA publishes its own data covering:
- Development approvals pipeline
- Infrastructure spending
- School enrolments and catchments
- Zoning and amenity changes
Public transport authorities
Transit distance calculations use current network data from Transperth and the Public Transport Authority of WA.
How fresh is the data?
Different metrics update on different schedules:
| Metric | Update Frequency | Typical Lag |
|---|---|---|
| Listings & DOM | Daily | 1-3 days |
| Rent & Vacancy | Monthly | 2-4 weeks |
| Sales prices & CAGR | Monthly | 4-8 weeks |
| Crime statistics | Quarterly | 1-3 months |
| Building approvals | Monthly | 4-6 weeks |
| Population estimates | Annually | 6-12 months |
| SEIFA | Every 5 years | 18-24 months post-Census |
Every report notes the “data as of” date for each metric section.
What we don’t use
- Social media sentiment analysis (noisy, biased, not reliably correlated with returns)
- AI-generated “suburb reviews” (unverifiable)
- Proprietary data from developers or agencies (conflicted)
- Predictive forecast models from third parties (we publish current data, not forecasts)
Cross-validation
Wherever possible, we cross-validate metrics across two or more independent sources before including them in the Score. If CoreLogic and SQM disagree on a rental yield, we flag the discrepancy rather than picking one. Transparency beats false precision.
Licence and usage
All data used in TopBurb reports is either:
- Licensed under commercial subscription (CoreLogic, SQM)
- Publicly available government data (ABS, state agencies)
- Scraped from public listings under reasonable-use provisions
Our reports summarise and analyse this data — we don’t republish raw CoreLogic or SQM datasets, which would violate their licence terms.
Questions about a specific metric?
Email us at support@topburb.com.au and we’ll tell you exactly where a number came from, how it was calculated, and when it was last updated. Transparency on methodology is the whole product.