What Features Do You Wish Existed When Searching for Properties Online?

Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 03:58

I've spent dozens of hours trawling through real estate websites for myself and friends/family, and I'm always frustrated at how primitive their map and search functionality feels.

Like how their estimated travel time to work/school is based on the current time and can't be configured, so it's completely worthless if you're browsing the site at night or on the weekend. I always end up with a dozen Google Maps tabs open, copying and pasting addresses to manually check their travel times at peak, especially annoying on a phone. Even a basic query like searching for properties with a 1 hour or less commute during peak times takes hours of manual searching and verifying, despite them having that data already.

I work as a software engineer and have built a few GIS tools over the years, have a bit of time on my hands at the moment for a side project and would like to put something together that other people might find useful. Basically a map view of properties for sale or rent with advanced geospatial filters to remove some of the grunt work involved.

For example:

  • Find properties that are less than an hour from work/school at 8am Monday etc by car/cycling/walking/PT, same with the return trip (isochrone).
  • Find properties within 1km of a train station, parks, hospitals, shopping centers etc.
  • Find properties not within 100m of train station, train tracks, transmission tower, airport etc.
  • Find properties outside of flood zones, bushfire prone area, flight path overlays etc.

What other filters or features do you wish existed when searching for properties?

Financial

Comments

  • geekcohen on 08/07/2025 - 05:48
    +5

    More options about the property features:

    • Any Shedding
    • Number of Living Spaces
    • Single / Double Storey
    • Master with Ensuite
    • Bedrooms with Robes

    Then a "his" and "hers" like/dislike list.

    My wife and are looking at wanting to move and buy a new place, but we are struggling to find something that we both like. There might be a house that ticks her boxes, but not mine or vice versa.

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 09:31
      +1

      Property features are tricky if not in the description already, would have to do post-processing on the floor plan with an LLM, can definitely look into it

      Split filters are a great idea for modelling compromises, I can imagine being happy with a townhouse if <30 mins from work, a 3 bedroom house if <45 minutes or 4 bedroom if <60 minutes

      • ompa-lompa on 10/07/2025 - 13:41
        +2

        Use this free Chrome Extension I built. It's got an AI feature where you can ask it to research all of this info for you:
        https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/property-mate/jjdmj…

        • Jolakot on 10/07/2025 - 17:31

          Funnily enough, I've used your extension a few time to do this research for individual properties, good stuff.

          Imagine if you could run a detailed AI profile for every single property for sale or rent, and then use that mountain of data for complex searching and filtering, would cost a bloody fortune in credits but that would be the dream.

          • ompa-lompa on 10/07/2025 - 21:06

            @Jolakot: I think realestate.com.au are already trialling this. Occasionally I see a “new way to search” pop up where you can search using free text.

            What would be cool - a Perplexity style search engine that uses AI agents to find the property you are looking for, including revealing price data from all the websites like Domain and REA. But it doesn’t need to catalogue every property. The agents just browse the websites using search requirements (in parallel) and come back with 5 to 10 most relevant results. I’ve tried a local version but it’s very slow and very expensive like you said but works well. Each query can end up costing $1-2 so it’s not financially viable.

        • The Wololo Wombat on 10/07/2025 - 18:06

          This extension is great. I pay for the premium version.

        • theguyrules on 11/07/2025 - 09:06

          Is there a Firefox version?

  • elgrande on 08/07/2025 - 07:54
    +11
    • Property has not been sold in X years
    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 09:32
      +1

      Good one! Would it be useful to have the opposite as well, property has been sold in X years?

      • elgrande on 08/07/2025 - 12:53
        +3

        Maybe, for people who are looking for a recently renovated property or a distress/change of plans type sale.

      • tenpercent on 08/07/2025 - 18:19

        It's almost the same thing, except where 'last sold date' is unknown.

    • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 12:56

      The sites I visit have last sold and price. Not sure if that is universal though.

  • jjjaar on 08/07/2025 - 08:02
    +8

    Not a spatial filter but the inability of these search functions to differentiate between apartments and units baffles me. (/ the underlying application of a “type” to a property. Though I guess it doesn’t baffle me from the website owners perspective, it forces people to see more properties)

    Apartments are dwellings in one building, with one (or a few) shared entrance to the building for all dwellings.

    Units are dwellings on one block, sometimes technically it’s a single building, but each dwelling has their own direct entrance to the outside.

    Edit: ok, thought of a spatial filter - property shading throughout the year as a result of nearby trees, other buildings, etc. Useful to know how much sunlight you’ll get whether it be for just access to light or solar panels.

    • Massive Flog on 08/07/2025 - 10:00

      I always assumed the lumping-all-properties-together thing was intentional. I was looking for a house a couple of years ago, yet kept getting shown results for units, townhouses, etc. As you suggest, more eyeballs looking at each property.

      • jjjaar on 10/07/2025 - 17:34

        Oh yeah it’s as intentional as under quoting, for sure.

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 12:13

      The noise-to-signal ratio on these sites is awful, especially when trying to find cheap houses. I've reported dozens of properties for being in the wrong category (apartments showing up as houses) and nothing is ever done about it, they rake in millions each year with massive engineering teams but can't figure out how to auto-flag mislabeled properties, maybe it is intentional.

      property shading throughout the year as a result of nearby trees, other buildings, etc. Useful to know how much sunlight you’ll get whether it be for just access to light or solar panels.

      It should be possible to estimate shading from topography and canopy data, with a rough estimate from nearby buildings. How would you quantify this for a filter?

      • Zephyrus on 09/07/2025 - 14:08

        You could look through plans to get the number of seperate titles at each address. Might get a bit funny in some places where the carparks are on a seperate title, but should be close.

      • jjjaar on 10/07/2025 - 17:45

        Oh not sure how to quantify it. It could be split into roof/non-roof, but then the latter could be split into private open space/other.

        I mean, for someone who cares about this data, the best outcome would be like a % of shading at the four most recent* equinoxes/solstices, at solar noon, but also even an hour after sunrise/before sunset. The minimum would probably be winter solstice. The “typical” would be spring equinox, often used when showing new builds won’t impact neighbours.

        *most recent because trees grow and new buildings are built, so rarely is this metric static.

        As someone that works with GIS a lot, I appreciate the complexities in the above, so my ramblings are merely just thoughts, not something I think you should actually do.

        Maybe it’s not a filter, but rather a heat map that shows the % of shading at the times above (or another variety of times).

        Come to think of it, I think Nearmap has this feature in an expensive package.

    • ForkSnorter on 08/07/2025 - 13:17
      +4

      Apartments are dwellings in one building, with one (or a few) shared entrance to the building for all dwellings.
      Units are dwellings on one block, sometimes technically it’s a single building, but each dwelling has their own direct entrance to the outside.

      I don't know that there is any such official definition. Maybe some people define them like that, but not everyone.

      Personally, I think more specific categories would be useful:

      1. High-rise apartment
      2. Mid-rise apartment
      3. Low-rise/flat (e.g. 3 storey building with separate entrances)
      4. Villa
      5. Retirement complex (e.g. luxury lifestyle village, or caravan park)
      6. Townhouse
      7. Townhouse complex (e.g. gated community)
      8. Duplex (I don't think these should be grouped under "House", I find it annoying when heaps of these come up in a house search).
      • jjjaar on 10/07/2025 - 17:34

        I like these.

        What is your definition of duplex? I’ve seen many.

        • chriskq on 11/07/2025 - 15:44

          agreed

          in my opinion Duplex / semi are basically the same thing aren't they? IE shared wall…. semis have a single story frontage (but doesnt mean they are only single level) and duplex are two-story frontage

    • Hangryuman on 10/07/2025 - 13:25
      +1

      'Units are dwellings on one block, sometimes technically it’s a single building, but each dwelling has their own direct entrance to the outside.'

      nah - we live in a unit and it has a shared common entrance to a stairwell serving 8 units

      I heard a different definition yesterday - apartments are for rich people, units are for middle-class, and flats are for housos/poor people.

      I wonder if you are assuming the term I've seen 'villa unit' to describe places with individual entrances ?

      • jjjaar on 10/07/2025 - 17:33

        nah - we live in a unit and it has a shared common entrance to a stairwell serving 8 units

        That’s a flat IMO.

        I’ve never heard of defining them by socioeconomic status, but I don’t think it’s apt at all because I know of two buildings side by side that are exactly as you describe where you live, both built in the 70s, and one is definitely poorer people and the other is a mix of all three, but more middle class.

        I tend to think of apartments as having a lift, and flats as being walk up. Also somewhat age related, apartments are newer (and therefore their age lends themselves to having a lift), flats are older.

        I wonder if you are assuming the term I've seen 'villa unit' to describe places with individual entrances ?

        Yes, this works, but rarely used on the websites, as they will often put what I’m talking about in the apartments/flats/units category, not the “villa” one.

        I genuinely don’t care what the terminology is, would just love the websites to split them and be clear about what goes where.

  • capslock on 08/07/2025 - 08:14
    +1

    Must be nice to have such a big budget that you can afford to be picky enough to have that many criteria.

    • JIMB0 on 08/07/2025 - 08:25
      +4

      It would be nice to have a filter to exclude properties surrounded by feral renters that have barking dogs and front yards that look like a scrap yard.

      • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 10:23
        -2

        Reasonable idea, but it sounds more like local govt should have a nuisance neighbour register, where no street address is given, but the street is named. Repeat offenders would go on that list. But that's kind of horse has bolted?
        Problem is local govt are parasites so they require rate payers they can gouge while they line their admins pockets.So they don't want to scare ppl off. And they have too much power to suppress such info. In a perfect world councils would just do their job and prosecute AHs who make life difficult for others. Me, I'd rather just abolish local govt and put the money into employing ppl who want to and can do their job (properly and with a fit for purpose work ethic). In QLD one regional council just announced a 25% price hike.They justified it by saying locals wanted (wait for it) improved service delivery. FMD

      • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 10:33
        +1

        It should be possible to filter by adjacent properties, it's something I look at manually when evaluating a house, if several of the neighbors are paying significantly below-market rent (e.g. paying $450/week for a 3 bedroom house in an area where the average is $700/week) then that usually signals an undesirable spot for whatever reason

        How else do you usually check for feral neighbors when looking at a property?

        • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 10:37
          -2

          Yes, pensioners are the worst. s/

        • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 13:18

          Can't you just do a search on the entire street for recent transactions?

          • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 14:01

            @rumblytangara: If you've narrowed down where you want to live to one street, then absolutely. But if you're considering dozens of streets in multiple suburbs, then it becomes a real pain to do that research manually.

            • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 14:17

              @Jolakot: There won't be dozens of options across multiple suburbs which are on the market, within budget, has the right number of rooms and layout, located according to preferences.

              When I was looking, there would literally be maybe 3-5 places a week max that would warrant serious attention (currently zero- there's sweet FA happening right now). And this was across 4 suburbs. 3-5 streets was easy to look up.

              And over time, they were the same or similar streets anyway. So I didn't have to keep looking up new streets. I learned to recognise "oh that's the really quiet street that ends in a retirement village- very quiet, not much traffic" or "that's the cluster of streets where the only way out is via a dangerous intersection where there's a car accident twice a month"

              • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 15:46
                +2

                @rumblytangara: Go to Tarneit, filter for houses with 3+ bedrooms and 2+ bathrooms under $800k, not including surrounding suburbs, and there are 459 properties in over 100 streets: https://www.realestate.com.au/buy/property-house-with-3-bedr…

                Imagine you work at Vic Uni Weribee, you're happy to drive up to 20 minutes and have a ceiling of $800k. That's 700+ properties that meet your criteria for being on the market, within budget, general location, right number of rooms, and I'm sure most layouts will be fine.

                Now you need to narrow it down to 4-5 houses, which is manual and tedious effort. Especially if your wife works in the CBD so you need to find the sweet spots, you want to be walking distance to parks for your dog, your kid is going to high school in 2 years etc. This is where these sites let you down.

                You've already done the hard yards to work out where you want to live that maximizes the aspects you value the most, down to a handful of pockets, I'm sure you've spent many hours doing so. Can you do the same for a friend wanting to move to Lilydale or Epping without starting from scratch?

                • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 16:04

                  @Jolakot: Why are there so many houses for sale in that area- is this one of those fairly recent suburbs full of new builds?

                  At first glance it looks like it's a suburb which will be totally dependent on car commuting, and my experiences with bus transport is that sometimes it's okay and a lot of time time it sucks so personally I only place credence on trains (and TBH Sydney trains also suck, just not as hard as busses).

                  Walking distance to park- that's on the map. Buses? I recognise the bus routes in my areas (but wrote them off because see above).

                  To me, anyone looking in the area you've linked looks spoiled for choice!

                  • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 17:35
                    +1

                    @rumblytangara: It's not a new suburb, been around for 20 years, but it's exploded in population recently with new estates and huge government investment in services. Decent primary and secondary schools, a train station, several shopping centers and supermarkets, very much a young family area with a large number of recent immigrants.

                    For what it's worth, Tarneit to Melbourne CBD is only 30 minutes on the train. Can walk to it in 10-15 mins if you live near the shopping center, or there's ample parking (or at least there used to be) at the station carpark with services every 20 mins at peak.

                    You can't hide properties that don't match your criteria (at least not on the web version), and you can't see more than 200 properties at once on the map, so you'll miss properties that might be perfect for you behind the sheer volume of properties that you've confirmed aren't. Even worse when looking for rentals, you have to zoom in to street level just to see them all.

                    Absolutely spoiled for choice, but you still want to make the best and most informed choice possible considering how important it is, not just throw a dart at the map and hope for the best.

                    • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 18:26

                      @Jolakot: I know it's a lot to look at, but buying a house being the single biggest financial decision that most of us make… I would want to be clicking into most of those listings if they were in the right set of streets and checking out the floorplan.

                      With that much choice, I would definitely be a lot pickier about streets, proximity to bus routers or major noisy roads, or whatever. But I always click into floorplans at the very least, even if it's in a location I am unlikely to be interested in.

                      I agree that things could be streamlined with search, but clicking into floorplans I regard as mandatory.

        • tenpercent on 08/07/2025 - 18:30

          How do you find out what the neighbours are paying in rent?

          • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 18:36
            -1

            @tenpercent: Ask their neighbours?

          • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 20:44
            +1

            @tenpercent: Same place you find out how much their house sold for, historical property data. My neighbour is paying $570/week, the last family that lived in that house paid $510/week. Not possible for all properties, but enough of them.

      • baldur on 11/07/2025 - 12:05

        Lol. What utopia is this?

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 09:37
      +5

      Even rich people have to make compromises, if you only have $4 million to work with then getting both an indoor and outdoor pool is a tough ask!

      Less about getting everything, more about getting as much as you can for your budget, which unfortunately is getting less and less these days with traffic, prices increasing and crap building standards for new houses

      • JIMB0 on 08/07/2025 - 11:01

        Tell me about it. I was hoping for a clifftop mansion with 360° ocean views and private beach access. Ended up with a place barely half the size of a mansion and worst of all, it’s a 30 minute dawdle to the beach. Brutal.

    • ScribbleSass on 10/07/2025 - 04:46

      Not necessarily. The criteria could be used to find smaller housing options too, which may tick many other boxes. Such as an apartment or duplex that fit in a set of criteria.

  • theHMASfriendship on 08/07/2025 - 08:18
    +9
    • Whether the house is haunted
    • If the neighbours have been previously investigated by A Current Affair (bonus points for being cornered by Tracy Grimshaw herself)
    • Does the living room have waterproofing or not
    • An option to display the sale price in number of plates of Smashed Avocado on Toast
    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 09:12

      Whether the house is haunted

      Ectoplasm leaking from the walls is a great source of natural cooling during the summer!

    • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 18:38
      -1

      Tracy is a shadow of her former self ( and several of her friends combined)

    • Poor Ass on 10/07/2025 - 10:31

      Tracy Grimshaw hasn't been there for awhile hehe

  • SYLTB on 08/07/2025 - 08:27
    +2

    Safety complaining report: How many bogans, rednecks, ozimangrols around who are honking and revving, banging popping their cars at nights, littering, dumping and speeding, leaving rubbish bins overflown and open lids scattering all rubbish into the street etc i.e. how many criminal and noise complaints lodged within the last 3 months.
    Council rates, land tax rates
    Elevation and flat or slop land
    Whether seller accepts weekly installment e.g. if already tenanted by rent w/o interest for some percentage of the sale.
    Property traditional building, or kit, modular, prefab, container home?

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 11:16
      +1

      Safety complaining report: How many bogans, rednecks, ozimangrols around who are honking and revving, banging popping their cars at nights, littering, dumping and speeding, leaving rubbish bins overflown and open lids scattering all rubbish into the street etc i.e. how many criminal and noise complaints lodged within the last 3 months.

      I really wish councils and police were mandated to provide that info, even the better councils typically have stale data and are rarely more granular than suburb or LGA. Might be able to get some granular data from scraping and processing council meeting minutes with an LLM, might look into it.

      Although I did find a cool Graffiti map for City of Casey, could potentially have geo-fenced filters when that data is available: https://data.casey.vic.gov.au/explore/dataset/graffiti-locat…

      Council rates, land tax rates

      Easy enough to find the 'rate in the dollar' for each council and applying that to the asking price for a half-decent estimate, but land tax might be tricky given it's based on the land value, which seems pretty expensive to obtain.

      Elevation and flat or slop land

      Should be possible with a few short-cuts like using rectangular bounding boxes rather than exact boundaries, and measuring the height difference between highest and lowest corner. How many meters difference would you consider to be flat or sloped?

      Whether seller accepts weekly installment e.g. if already tenanted by rent w/o interest for some percentage of the sale.

      Property traditional building, or kit, modular, prefab, container home?

      Can't really get more data than what's already available in the listing unfortunately, I know CoreLogic has this data but that's very exxy even for a single property

  • Wiadro on 08/07/2025 - 09:08
    +4

    indoor temp in winter
    indoor temp in summer

    • rumblytangara on 10/07/2025 - 23:07
      +1

      Don't even need to ask.

      Too cold.
      Too hot.

  • Dollar General on 08/07/2025 - 09:55
    +1

    Any registered sex offenders in the area

    • scrambledeggs on 08/07/2025 - 11:44
      +4

      There are zero properties that match your search criteria

    • meowbert on 09/07/2025 - 15:56
      +1

      Be the change you want.

  • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 10:08
    -1

    What Features Do You Wish Existed When Searching for Properties Online?

    Free downloaded money, to buy the ones I like.

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 12:46

      Have you tried asking your parents for a small loan of $5 million dollars?

      • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 13:05
        -1

        Can I ask yours, like you did?
        Mine hate dealing in petty cash.

        • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 17:07

          Hey now, I worked hard for my money, do you know how many couch cushions I had to search to find a deposit? 5!

          • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 18:09
            -1

            @Jolakot: We have no couch.Just broken milk crates and inverted metal buckets.

            • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 18:22
              +2

              @Protractor: At least you have metal buckets, back in my day they'd charge you by the hour to sit on a dirt floor! Two pence an hour for standing and three pence for sitting, the landlord said it put more wear and tear on the soil.

  • star-ggg on 08/07/2025 - 10:13
    +6

    Realistic photos of the present state of the property. Even better would be an unedited high def video walkthrough.

    • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 19:55
      -1

      Truth in advertising? It'll never catch on.

  • Oofy Doofy on 08/07/2025 - 10:22
    +1

    A dangerous materials register and locations of materials used (where known or assumed based on age and visual inspection).

    Drug and chemical residue test results.

    Foundational drainage and possible mould issues (in roof space, anywhere possible).

    Radon gas test results.

    PM <2.5um (particulate matter) measured and reported using averages, specifically mean annual concentrations or 24-hour averages. And the trend (is it going up in the area? likely).

    People forget houses are literal garbage processing plants, and a property itself suffers from entropy. Jerry Seinfeld has a funny take on this.

    I could keep going, but I'll leave it there.

    Oh btw, there's a historical drug lab location map that is updated every so often. I'm not sure it's available in every state, but I know there's one for QLD.

    • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 10:50

      PM <2.5um (particulate matter)

      If you have prescribed burn or other similar smoke haze you are likely soaking in it, as are your lungs. The state and fed authorities were called out (by a uni study interview on ABC radio) about the community being exposed to carcinogenic smoke particles. Each capital city and some rural locations have public air quality monitoring stations. These stations have been know to conveniently go offline at handy times. Govts are in flux between denial and ???? over harm from bushfire and prescribed burn smoke particulates and long term harm, thereof.

      (circa May 2021)
      "Dr Sajni Gudka, an adjunct research fellow at the University of Western Australia's school of population and global health, is concerned not enough was done to warn the two million residents about the health risks of the smoke.
      She said the levels of particulate matter (PM) — essentially tiny fragments of ash —- recorded by air quality monitoring stations were alarming."
      etc

      • Oofy Doofy on 08/07/2025 - 14:53

        I dunno, in winter my local PM via typical weather updates, invariably shows the PM to be as bad as living somewhere in China.

        • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 15:07

          Inversions + Residential wood fires (small % issue) and smoke drifts from public & private fuel reduction ,vehicle emissions (lions share%) .

  • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 10:49
    +4

    I honestly don't have much issue with the current sites.

    I look at location on their shitty map (which gives an idea of travel times, how bad the roads will be at peak hour, neighborhood), then floorplan, then photos.

    The issues that I have is with shitty agents giving bad info gaming listings or being general knobs. The tech platform is a secondary consideration.

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 13:52

      They're good enough if you already know where you want to live, especially if you drive to work, school and shops.

      These platforms were built for the use-case where location is the core priority, and they do a decent job of it.

      But if travel time to work or lifestyle factors like walking distance to shops/cafes/parks is your core priority, then they really fall short.

      I used to work near the Paramount center in Melbourne CBD, had a coworker from Richmond (~5km away) and a coworker from Doncaster (~16km away), and they both left home at the same time each morning to get in by 9:30am. Because there is a direct bus from Mitcham that takes you basically outside the building in 35 minutes, while the tram from Richmond required a fair bit of walking. Would be great to have that info when searching for properties to get the best bang for buck, if you're not set on a specific area.

  • Protractor on 08/07/2025 - 10:54
    +2

    I think if OP got his dream website property prices would go up even more, better properties would be 'locked down' in speculation, and some properties would plummet in value.

    I feel for residents in search of a home, ending up with a less than desirable outcome, but equally the rewards for investors are already more than there, so the associated risk is a part of the reward matrix.

  • pernunz on 08/07/2025 - 11:04
    +4

    I'd love photos to have a little overlay of the floor plan to show where the photo was being taken from to work out which room/angle instead of having to do guess work based on other things in the photo.

    • Luminous on 09/07/2025 - 15:57

      That is actually an incredibly good idea. And it should be relatively simple if any of these sites actually cared to implement it.

  • Drakesy on 08/07/2025 - 11:04
    +6

    A system that doesn't allow you to post a property without posting its reserve price/the price they'll accept. No more "offers" or "EOI" bullshit.

    Oh also on rentals they should show the property manager's rating along with comments about how they perform.

    • payton on 08/07/2025 - 11:08
      +2

      Oh also on rentals they should show the property manager's rating along with comments about how they perform.

      Wonder if https://www.shitrentals.org/ has an API

      • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 15:47

        They do not unfortunately, nor do they allow CSV exports of the data. A shame, as the latter is completely free with Airtable.

    • rumblytangara on 08/07/2025 - 11:31
      +4

      "EOI" bullshit.

      Yeah, this one is total BS. It's the agent's job to know the value of the property.

      Maybe one good feature that would only take effect once pricing was published- how far above guide in 10% terms the sale price went for. Cut out so much of the bullshit "10% variance" rubbish.

  • Ryanek on 08/07/2025 - 11:21
    +4

    If there are any hot older singles in the area

  • payton on 08/07/2025 - 12:15
    +3

    Pins for supermarkets (Coles, IGA, Aldi, Woolworths) and shopping centres on the map would be great.

    • john_conner on 09/07/2025 - 20:01
      +3

      Also important if the loading dock is physically connected to the property

      • payton on 10/07/2025 - 09:46

        can't miss out on the weekly catalogue specials if the loading dock is just next door!

  • ihbh on 08/07/2025 - 15:15

    What other filters or features do you wish existed when searching for properties?

    The exact price the property will sell for in 5, 10, 15, 20, years, etc.

    • Jolakot on 08/07/2025 - 16:12

      My Magic 8 ball program says "Error 425: Too Early"

  • tenpercent on 08/07/2025 - 18:25
    +1

    Granny flats need their own category so they can be filtered out of results.
    No I don't want to live in a donga you put up your back yard.

  • SYLTB on 08/07/2025 - 19:26

    Current residential land, property prices are unreal. Better to wait 4-5 years at least to get back normal.

  • jakentta on 09/07/2025 - 00:06
    +2

    I haven't had the time to read through all the comments, but coming from a different culture, it has not seized to amaze me that the two most prevalent facts of a property consistently keep missing from local real estate ads, being the year of construction and the floor area. Where I'm from, they are the most important things to sort any search by.

  • saul rosenberg on 09/07/2025 - 12:45

    internal floor area automatically calculated using the provided floor plan and then used to calculate price per sqm

  • Nalar on 09/07/2025 - 16:10

    I would like a light shade over a property if it's a rental vs owner/occupier. It's nice to buy into street that is all Owners.

    1 step further would be darker colour the longer the rental has stayed there.

  • AEKaBeer on 09/07/2025 - 16:50
    +2

    A built in time machine.

  • OzzyOzbourne on 09/07/2025 - 17:00

    Being able to filter out properties with rentals next door as mentioned above would be good, but it seems that more and more houses are being given out to let's say… Disadvantaged recent arrivals, without the property being advertised for sale or rent. The property is then transformed to look like the place they were escaping from.

  • Luminous on 09/07/2025 - 17:31
    +1

    As well as the search improvements @Jolakot mentioned in the examples, I'd love the ability to basically draw a region on a map and search in that area. It could be an actual circle, or something a bit more free-form in shape. Basically, I want to be able to say I want to see properties in 'this' region without having to know the names of the suburbs, etc. I'm bad enough with suburb names in the city I live in, much less if I wanted to move to somewhere I've never been before.

    • cloudy on 10/07/2025 - 12:54

      I'd love the ability to basically draw a region on a map and search in that area. It could be an actual circle, or something a bit more free-form in shape.

      domain had this feature im pretty sure.

    • Jolakot on 10/07/2025 - 15:39

      This is definitely possible, I'm already working on polygonal searches for suburbs, can easily add shapes or free-draw to that

  • EBC on 09/07/2025 - 17:45

    The ability to put your main destinations of interest (each partner's work, family's houses, etc) and criteria for travel time to that location using a specified transport type (e.g. work commute less than 30 minutes each by public transport, combined commute less than 40 minutes, and greater than 20 minutes drive from nearest relative) and have it spit out a map of locations that fit that criteria (and properties, but really I'm more interested in the areas. Then I can watch those areas moving forward).

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join