Free app updates value of your Singapore property

Want to know how much your property is worth or its rental yield without having to tear your hair out while trying to work out the sums?

Let SRX Property's sophisticated application (SRX.com.sg/tracker) do all the number crunching and issue the information you need in a flash.

Its free Property Tracker provides subscribers with a customised, monthly update on the value, rent, and rental yield of their homes. It also keeps them informed about listings and transactions that have occurred in their neighbourhood.

SRX Property, which is powered by StreetSine Technology Group, aims to reach out to the estimated 1.4 million homeowners and renters in Singapore will use the app to monitor the value of their property and rentals.

When launching the new app yesterday, Mr Sam Baker, Chief Executive Officer of SRX Property, said "Our goal is for every household in Singapore to receive monthly updates on the market value and rent of their homes.

"This will make Singapore the most transparent property market in the world."

Your own property tracker webpage

Each subscriber will immediately receive a personalised, secure, and unique webpage with a special URL tied to the home's postal code and the number of a single mobile phone for security reasons. (For example, http://www.srx.com.sg/560175.)

Apart from knowing how much your home is now worth (the X-Value), you can obtain data of its past transactions. 

The highlight of the app is of course the X-Value, a computer-generated evaluation of a home's market value. It is based on information captured from a comprehensive pool of reliable channels such as the government's land, building and housing authorities plus property agencies.

The calculation takes into account best-practice methodologies, including comparable market analysis, and adjustments concerning location, size, floor, and age, for instances.

Mr Andrew Chee, Head of Valuations of SRX Property, said: "The most common method in valuing a property is by comparing the sales transaction prices of other similar properties, which we call Comparable Market Analysis or the Sales Comparison Approach in valuation terminology. The computer adjusts these comparables, using Hedonic regression, so that apples are compared with apples. It then calculates an estimated market sale or rental value of the subject property, meaning the X-Value."

The Property Tracker also monitors real-time listings in your vicinity. 

Homeowners like to keep tabs on the listed prices of nearby homes for sale, said Mr Jeremy Lee, Chief Technology Officer, SRX Property. "This information helps them gauge where their neighbourhood property market is moving. By employing our geospatial algorithms, we can easily link nearby listings to the subscriber's home and help them stay abreast of movements in the listing market," he said.

Subscribers can also identify undervalued property in their neighbourhood.

Said Mr Chee: "We define an undervalued property as a listing or rental that is asking for a price below its X-Value.

"Our geospatial algorithms start at the subscriber's home and start searching, in a radial direction, for other similar properties asking below its X-Value. When the computer finds one, it reveals it in the subscriber's personal webpage."

The app gives a monthly update of the homes sold in the neighbourhood. In many cases, a subscriber can compare the sold price with the original listing price. "This is critical information in assessing the property market sentiment, yet until now, this information has not been available to the general public," said Mr Chee.

Every month, shortly after SRX Property releases its property indices, Property Tracker subscribers will receive an SMS update on their home value and a link to their personal webpage.

They will also receive a monthly property eNewsletter that provides analysis and commentary on the Singapore property market.

Apart from the monthly SMS update on their home value and transactions in their area, subscribers can opt for special alerts that notify them of completed sale transactions in real-time or whenever nearby listings come online.

The final feature of the inaugural version of Property Tracker is a mechanism for subscribers to invite a friend to sign up too. They can do their invitations via Facebook, Twitter, email, Whats App, and SMS.

chenj@sph.com.sg