Why We Don't Use CoreLogic: How Microburbs Gets Better Data
Most property data platforms in Australia get their numbers from the same place: CoreLogic. They buy aggregated data, wrap it in a nice interface, and sell it to you as "insights."
We do something different.
We Collect Our Own Data
Microburbs is a primary researcher. We don't buy pre-packaged data from CoreLogic or anyone else. We've built our own database of over 90 million property listings—more than Domain and realestate.com.au combined.
Every day, we collect raw property data directly from the source. Sales. Rentals. Listings. We take it all in at the individual property level, then build our analytics from the ground up.
Why does this matter to you?
Other Platforms Can't Look Inside the Box
When a platform buys data from CoreLogic, they get suburb-level summaries. They can tell you the median house price in Marrickville. They can show you historical growth for Richmond.
But they can't tell you which streets within that suburb are performing—because CoreLogic doesn't give them that level of detail. They're stuck with averages.
That's like choosing a restaurant based on the average food rating for an entire postcode. Useful? Barely.
What Our Approach Gives You
Because we own our data pipeline, we can do things no one else can:
Street-level analysis. A suburb might show 32% renters on average. But within that suburb, some streets have 10% renters while others have 60%. That distinction matters for your investment. We can show you.
Weekly updates, not monthly. Most platforms update their data on the first of each month. By month's end, you're looking at information that's 3-4 weeks old. In fast-moving markets, suburbs can shift $30,000-$40,000 in that time. We update our core metrics weekly.
Accurate valuations. CoreLogic's automated valuations have an average error rate of around 13%. Ours sits at 6%. That's not a small difference when you're deciding how much to pay for a property.
Hedonic pricing. Standard median prices get distorted when a few expensive homes sell in a month. Our model adjusts for the actual composition of sales—so you see what the market is really doing, not statistical noise.
2 Billion Data Points. Not Opinions.
Our growth forecasts aren't based on gut feel or "expert predictions." They come from machine learning algorithms processing over 2 billion data points.
We've tested this methodology every month for the past 15 years—180 separate tests. The forecast has proven 85% accurate at identifying suburbs that outperform the national average.
We can't predict the future. No one can. But data beats guessing.
The Real Difference for Your Investment
Here's what this actually means when you're buying property:
You won't overpay. Weekly data and accurate valuations mean you understand true market value—not where the market was a month ago.
You won't miss opportunities. Street and pocket-level analysis reveals quality investments that suburb-average data filters out. A "high renter" suburb might contain owner-occupier pockets with strong growth potential.
You can explain your decisions. Whether you're investing your own money or advising clients, you have objective, back-tested data behind every recommendation. Not just a hunch.
You catch market moves early. When our growth forecast for a suburb drops from 8.5% to 7.1% in two weeks, that's a signal. The market has already started moving. Monthly data would leave you buying late.
Why CoreLogic Isn't Enough
CoreLogic serves a purpose. They're the dominant data provider in Australia, and most platforms use them because it's easier than building a database from scratch.
But their data is built for a different purpose—primarily for lenders and valuers who need quick suburb benchmarks. It's not designed to help you find the best property within a suburb, or identify which streets outperform, or catch market movements in real time.
We built Microburbs because that granular, timely analysis is exactly what property buyers need. And the only way to provide it was to become the source ourselves.
The Bottom Line
When you use Microburbs, you're not getting CoreLogic data with a different interface. You're getting an entirely different dataset—one built specifically to answer the questions property buyers actually ask:
- Which suburbs should I target?
- Where within those suburbs should I buy?
- What's this property actually worth?
- When is the right time to move?
We collect our own data because it's the only way to answer those questions properly.
That's the Microburbs difference.
Microburbs processes over 90 million property listings through proprietary data pipelines, updated weekly. Our growth forecasting methodology has been validated at 85% accuracy over 15 years of back-testing.
