Compare two homes

What this tool is for

Use it at one specific moment: two homes are both genuinely possible, you have seen both, and the decision has stalled. That is when a weighted comparison helps, because the problem at that point is rarely a lack of information. It is that the two properties are strong in different ways and the mind keeps switching between them.

What the calculation does is force you to say, in advance and in numbers, how much each of the three priorities matters. Then it applies those weights to both homes identically. The value is in the discipline rather than in the arithmetic, which is simple enough to do on paper.

It is a poor tool for a long list of properties, and a worse one for a home you have not visited. With more than two options the scores bunch together, and with an unvisited home you are rating photographs.

Set the weights before you rate the homes

The order matters more than anything else on this page. Decide how much each priority is worth to you before you score either property, and do it without a specific house in mind.

If you set the weights after looking at the homes, you will set them to produce the answer you already prefer. Everyone does this, and the result looks objective afterwards, which is what makes it worse than having no score at all.

A useful test for a weight: would you still call this priority a four if the home that scores well on it was the one you liked less? If the honest answer is no, the weight belongs to the house rather than to your life, and it should come down.

What sits inside each of the three priorities

The headings are broad on purpose, and rating them well means deciding what you are actually putting inside each one.

Location and daily travel covers the trips you make every week, timed at the hour you make them. It also covers the things about a location you cannot change: the street, what backs onto the property, the noise, the walk to a station or a bus, and the services you use regularly. School catchments belong here too, confirmed for the specific address with the district rather than assumed from the neighbourhood.

Space and layout covers whether the rooms work for the people who live there, rather than the total floor area. A home with more square metres arranged badly scores lower than a smaller one arranged well. Include storage, whether bedrooms are separated from living space, where the bathrooms are, and stairs if they matter to you now or will in fifteen years.

Upkeep and responsibilities covers what you will be doing and paying for after you move in. For a detached house that means the roof, the systems, the yard and the exterior. For a strata it means the monthly fee, what the fee covers, the state of the contingency reserve fund, and any building work being discussed in the minutes. A low rating here is often the honest answer for a home that looks attractive in every other respect.

• Location: regular trips at the real hour, street, noise, transit walk, services, catchment confirmed with the district
• Space: how rooms work rather than total area, storage, separation, bathroom locations, stairs
• Upkeep: roof and systems for a house, fee and reserve fund and minutes for a strata

Where scoring goes wrong

Three failure modes account for most misleading results, and all three are easy to spot once you know to look.

The first is rating a recent viewing higher than an earlier one. Memory favours whatever you saw last, in detail, which is why homes seen a week apart are almost impossible to compare. Rate both on the same day if you can.

The second is scoring presentation rather than property. Staging, paint, lighting and a clean house all move a rating on space and layout when they belong to none of the three priorities. Ask whether a point you are awarding survives the seller taking their furniture away.

The third is letting one strong feature carry a whole category. A property with an excellent kitchen and an awkward floor plan is not a four on space and layout. Break the category into its parts, rate each part, and then decide the number for the heading.

• Rate both homes the same day, or accept that recency has distorted the result
• Discount anything that leaves with the seller's furniture
• Split a category into parts before giving it one number
• Set weights before viewing, and leave them alone afterwards

What the number does not tell you

The result reflects your own ratings against your own weights. It carries no information about what either property is worth, what condition it is in, whether you can finance it, or what obligations come with it.

None of those are available from a comparison of preferences, and each has its own source. Value comes from completed sales evidence, and where a lender needs a figure it comes from an appraisal. Condition comes from an inspection. Financing comes from a lender's assessment of the specific property. Obligations come from the title search, and from the strata documents where there is a strata.

Treat a close result as information in itself. Where two homes score within a few tenths of each other on weights you set honestly, the properties genuinely are similar for your purposes, and the decision should turn on the things this tool cannot see: what the documents say, what an inspection finds, and which one you can complete on without difficulty.

After the comparison

Take the two or three lowest ratings and turn each one into a question. A low score on upkeep for a strata unit becomes a request for the minutes, the depreciation report and the reserve fund balance. A low score on location becomes a second visit at a different hour. A low score on space becomes a measurement of the rooms you were unsure about.

That conversion is the point. A score records what you thought at the time, and a question can change the answer before you are committed to it.