Market evidence — what standard to set
Design premium evidence report
Which design choices does the top of the market consistently pay for?
The problem
Which design choices does the top of the market consistently pay for?
Two homes of similar size, in the same suburb, can settle a long way apart. Some of that gap is location, timing and how the campaign was run. Some of it is design — and design is the part usually defended with taste rather than evidence.
Arguing about whether a void earns its cost is unresolvable in the abstract. Counting how often a void appears among the homes that achieved the highest rate per square metre, and how often it appears among the lowest, is not.
How it is produced
How this report is produced
We rank nearby sales by price per square metre of building, take the top and bottom thirds, and survey each home against 37 design elements — street presence, volume, plan function, landscape, finish. The output is two lists: the common recipe of the high group, the common gaps of the low group.
Rank by rate, not by total price
Sorting by total price would rediscover that big houses cost more, which is not a design finding. Ranking by price per square metre of building strips out the largest confounder first.
Take the top and bottom thirds
A median split would put two homes separated by a few thousand dollars into opposing camps. Discarding the middle third costs sample size and buys contrast.
Survey each home against 37 elements
Street presence, spatial experience, plan function, landscape and outdoor, quality of finish — recorded per property, with photographs where they support the call.
Report the two recipes
What the high group has in common, and what the low group is missing. Only homes actually surveyed for an element count in that element's denominator.
What arrives
Inside the report
High-versus-low comparison across 37 elements
Each element's incidence in both groups, with the sample size it rests on.
Per-property survey records
The underlying observations, photo-evidenced, so any conclusion can be traced back.
The high group's common recipe
The elements that recur at the top of the market in this catchment.
The low group's common gaps
What is consistently absent where prices lagged.
Custom elements
Anything specific to your scheme, analysed on the same footing as the built-in set.
What it will not claim
The boundary, stated
Correlation, not causation — and an element common among high-priced homes is not proof it earns back its build cost. Both boundaries are stated in the report.
Who needs it
When this report earns its keep
Deciding the spec level
Will the market hand that extra spend back to you.
Read more for your situation →
Before you enquire
Questions we get asked about this report
Does this tell me a feature is worth its build cost?
No, and the report says so in its own words. It measures association with price, not return on the spend. An element common among high-priced homes may be a marker of a certain kind of project rather than a cause of the price.
How many sales do you need?
Enough that the thirds are meaningful. Where a catchment is thin, the sample size travels with every number so you can weigh it yourself.
Is this the same as our architect's advice?
It is evidence that can sit alongside an architect's judgement. The report does not design anything; it changes what the design conversation is about.
Enquire about the design premium evidence report
Every report is scoped to your site. Tell us the address and what you are deciding, and we will confirm scope and fees before anything starts — including if a different report should come first.