Two Sydney mums, Tori Huxtable and Tamsin Lapointe, have introduced Auction Snitch, an app designed to empower Australian home buyers and simplify the challenging property-buying process.
The app, combining real estate expertise from Huxtable and tech project experience from Lapointe, relies on crowdsourcing to break the secretive practices associated with underquoting.
Auction Snitch allows users to anonymously contribute real-time sales information, offering house hunters the ability to make informed decisions about the affordability of properties before investing time and money in the bidding process, Yahoo Finance reported.
The app is a response to the frustration faced by home buyers navigating the Sydney property market, providing them with insights often concealed by sellers and real estate agents, including price guides, sale prices, and auction results.
“Navigating the Sydney property market can be a nightmare,” Lapointe told Yahoo Finance. “People spend an average of nine months searching for the right property, often viewing over 300 listings and attending numerous inspections.
“A major frustration for buyers is encountering listings without prices. Our app addresses this pain point by leveraging community crowdsourcing to enhance market transparency.”
The “snitched” information may cover details such as the duration a property has been available, whether it was passed in at auction, or its eventual selling price. This provides prospective home buyers with insights into property and suburb prices, enabling them to make informed decisions before investing in costly pest and building reports or engaging in conveyancing procedures.
Huxtable shared the app’s origin story, mentioning that the idea came to her when she was rushing to attend a property auction. Unable to make it on time, she asked Lapointe to “auction snitch” by attending the event and informing her of the result. This experience led the duo, both from Sydney’s North Shore, to create Auction Snitch with the goal of providing a level playing field for buyers.
Huxtable said that Auction Snitch offers a unique solution, based on listings provided by Domain, particularly beneficial for those new to certain suburbs or the buying process.
The app is free to download, allowing unlimited searches by suburb or postcode. Snitched information shared by users is available for up to 60 days, and a more comprehensive version is accessible through a paid subscription.
With an upvote or downvote system to validate the accuracy of contributed data, Auction Snitch has received a positive response since its soft launch in August, with 42,000 snitches contributing information, Yahoo Finance reported.
To read the Yahoo Finance report, click here.
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