How to make a comprehensive real estate market study
A comprehensive real estate market study combines current market trends—including supply and demand, asking and closing prices per square metre, and time on the market—with a comparable competition analysis of active, sold and delisted properties. Estate agents also evaluate property-specific location and building factors alongside time-series forecasting to spot emerging opportunities, leveraging tools like CASAFARI’s Market Analytics (Area Insights), Property Valuation (Comparables) and Property Sourcing.
Look at the current market conditions and trends
A good place to start when trying to understand the behaviour of a market is to analyse the current balance between supply and demand in the market. Is it a buyer’s or a seller’s market? How many assets are being put on the market, how many are being bought and sold?
The answers to these questions can be easily found with CASAFARI’s Market Analytics (Area Insights), a tool that analyses big data to identify patterns and translate them into market trends.
CASAFARI Market Analytics: follow the property market trends
To understand why a market has such demand and supply levels, it’s relevant to go back to basics and understand broader economic factors, such as interest rates, inflation or employment rates, for example. Being aware of the recent news that can affect the local dynamics, such as governmental policy changes, is part of putting together a comprehensive real estate market study.
But if we go back to looking at numbers, you also want to have a look at the average price per square metre, to establish a baseline for pricing, and pay attention to the price segmentation of assets. Higher-end properties may behave differently from entry-level homes, for example. This can also be easily found with Market Analytics.
You also want to consider how long properties with the same characteristics as yours have been on the market before being sold, as this can indicate the demand and price elasticity.
Finally, you also want to look both at the average closing price of each market and the average asking price. This comparison can help you understand the amount of negotiation involved in selling or buying a property in a specific area, and whether you should strategise a sale already predicting increases or decreases in prices when negotiating with potential buyers.
Add a competition analysis to your real estate market study
Deep-diving into comparable properties allows them to accurately assess the true market value of a property. By analysing the details of similar properties in your real estate market study —such as their location, size, condition, and recent sale prices—professionals can identify trends and nuances in the local market that may affect property values.
In order to do so, you need only CASAFARI’s Property Valuation and Market Study tool. Use this tool to instantly review properties currently on the market that are similar in type, size, location and price range to understand the competition. Or, if you need to see recent sales data, select only the “Closing price comparables”.
CASAFARI’s Property Valuation report in detail: what you can create
Make sure to specify the property type when you’re running your valuation, so you can differentiate specific dynamics of each segment.
It’s interesting as well to look at the competitors and try to identify any unique features that might differentiate the asset on your portfolio from others in the area, such as a large lot, custom architecture, a high estimated rental yield or others. This can be done by exploring each asset’s property pages.
Finally, you might even want to look at our Property Sourcing for delisted properties, with the same characteristics and location of yours, to try and get insights into why they didn’t sell or potential advantages your portfolio might have over them.
Take into account property-specific factors
As you well know, it’s not only the market that influences how a property is seen, right? It’s important to also add some property-specific pieces of data to your real estate market study, to assess which of its characteristics might affect how it’s seen by potential buyers.
The first factor is – you guessed it – location, location, location. Go to the property you’re analysing on our Property Sourcing and open its property page to see the Location Widget. With this feature, you will be able to evaluate its proximity to amenities that are interesting to potential buyers or tenants and the overall neighbourhood desirability.
Location widget: a new update of CASAFARI’s Property Sourcing
Additionally, you should put on your to-do list talking to the owner and investigating the conditions of the property, how old it is, if it has an elevator on the building, a parking space and any other specifics.
Forecasting to find opportunities
Looking at data in a time series, as you can do inside Market Analytics, is also one of the useful resources for putting together a real estate market study (see our step-by-step guide to performing a market analysis). It will allow you to understand the behaviour of trends, indicating what to expect from the near future.
Focus on information like recent property sales, price movements and volume of transactions to identify which are the up and coming neighbourhoods.
It’s also quite relevant to stay updated with migration patterns, whether they’re internal or from foreigners. The real estate professional should pay attention to the news and to what’s going on in the areas of the city they work in.
The idea here is to understand things like: is there a new technology hub or the opening of new companies that might attract employers? Is this region becoming famous internationally? This could foster the growth of the hospitality industry, attracting new people to live there.
Taking all these factors into account will help an estate agent to produce a thorough and actionable market study, providing valuable insights for pricing, marketing, and selling strategies.
And, of course, CASAFARI will help you every step of the way to ensure you get all the data you need for accurate market insights.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main elements of a real estate market study?
A comprehensive real estate market study covers four core pillars: current market conditions and trends (supply and demand, average asking and closing prices per square metre, price segmentation, and time on market), a competition analysis of active, sold and delisted properties, property-specific physical and location factors, and time-series forecasting combined with economic and migration trends. Developers can also integrate market data directly via the Area Insights API documentation.
Why should estate agents compare asking prices and closing prices in a market study?
Comparing average asking prices from indexed listings with actual closing prices from public registries, notaries and client-reported transactions reveals the average negotiation margin in a specific neighbourhood. This enables estate agents to accurately assess buyer leverage and strategise whether to anticipate price reductions or increases during negotiations.
How do comparable and delisted properties improve a competition analysis?
Reviewing active listings and closing-price comparables filtered by property type, size, condition and location helps establish true market value. Additionally, examining delisted properties highlights why similar homes failed to sell, allowing agents to emphasize unique competitive advantages such as plot size, custom architecture or higher rental yield.
Which property-specific factors affect a home’s valuation in a market study?
Beyond macro-market trends, property value depends heavily on micro-location and physical characteristics. Estate agents evaluate proximity to local amenities, transit options and neighbourhood desirability using location tools on property pages, while also gathering key physical attributes directly from the owner such as building age, property condition, lift access and parking.
How can estate agents use time-series data to forecast property market opportunities?
By analysing historical time-series data on transaction volumes, recent sales and asking price movements per square metre, estate agents can track market direction over time. Combining these numerical trends with local insights into employment hubs and migration patterns allows agents to spot up-and-coming neighbourhoods early and guide clients on optimal pricing and timing.