Buy property in Australia with an AI co-pilot: four skills, one project

Buying property in Australia in 2026 is genuinely overwhelming. New legislation out of the federal budget, interest rates that keep moving, property reports that contradict each other, and a market that makes it very easy to spend a lot of money on an emotional, poorly-researched decision. The data you need to make a good call exists, but it is messy, high-volume, and scattered across a dozen sources.

That mess is exactly where AI is at its strongest. Used properly, it can read through reports, compare numbers, and surface red flags faster than any one person can, which puts you ahead of most buyers who are working off a gut feel and a couple of saved listings. This guide hands you a small AI system that supports you across the whole buying process, from working out what you actually want, to researching suburbs, to deep-diving a single address, to reading a contract and a building-and-pest report before you sign anything.

Who this is for

• First-home buyers who feel out of their depth and want a structured way to research before they talk to an agent.
• Anyone buying their next home or an investment property who is tired of juggling twelve browser tabs of suburb reports.
• People who already pay for Claude or ChatGPT and want a concrete, useful thing to do with it this weekend.
• Buyers who want to walk into negotiations with cited data instead of a hunch.

What you need before you start

• A Claude or ChatGPT account. Both are around $20 a month and either works for this. The walkthrough uses Claude because Projects and Skills make the setup clean, but the prompts are written to work in either.
• About 30 minutes to do the one-time setup (the buyer brief and the project).
• A rough sense of your budget and the areas you are curious about. The first skill will pull the rest out of you with questions.
• Later on, a property listing or two and any reports you have (building-and-pest, body corporate, contract). You feed these in as you get them.

Most people use AI for the things it is worst at in this context: asking it for an opinion, or to predict a market. That is not what this system does. It uses AI for the thing it is genuinely good at, which is reading a large amount of contradictory information quickly, pulling out the facts that matter, citing where each one came from, and comparing it all against a clear set of criteria you defined up front.

The whole system is built around one rule that runs in every response: never invent a figure. Median prices, growth rates, yields, levies, grants, and tax rules all have to come from a real source with a citation, or the AI marks them as missing rather than guessing. That single constraint is what turns a chatbot that sounds confident into a research assistant you can actually trust to prepare you for a six-figure decision.

The tool used in the walkthrough is Claude, a chatbot very similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. If you are already paying for ChatGPT, you can do almost exactly the same thing there and get a similar outcome. If you are not paying for either, the walkthrough recommends Claude because two features make this system clean to set up: Projects and Skills. Both apps are around $20 a month, so it does not really matter which you choose.

Two concepts do all the work here, and it is worth getting them straight before you start.

• A Skill is a reusable instruction set you trigger with a slash command (for example /buyer-brief-builder). It tells the AI exactly how to behave for one job. You set it up once and reuse it forever. You will install four of them below.
• A Project is a workspace with its own permanent instructions and its own files. Everything you put in a project is remembered across every chat inside it, so you never have to re-explain your situation. You will create one project and keep your whole property search inside it.

This needs to be said plainly. I am not a financial adviser, conveyancer, building inspector, or mortgage broker, and neither is AI. Everything you build in this guide is to prepare you and to help you ask better questions. All the legalities and inspections should be handled by a licensed professional.

• The AI does research and preparation, not advice. Every analysis it produces ends with a note on which professional should sign it off.
• It does not calculate your borrowing capacity. A broker confirms what you can borrow. The budget you give it is a comfortable ceiling you set, not a maximum loan.
• It does not confirm scheme eligibility or state law from memory. Stamp duty, grants, cooling-off periods, and contract rules differ by state, and it flags them for you to confirm with the official source.
• A desktop review of photos and listings is not an inspection. Overlays, easements, and boundaries get confirmed on the title by a conveyancer, and a licensed building-and-pest inspection happens before you commit.

The system is one project and four skills, run roughly in order. Each skill reads the buyer brief you set up first, so they all stay anchored to your situation without you repeating it. You will not finish all four in one sitting. The first two are setup and early research, and the last two come back into play each time you find a property worth a closer look.

1. Buyer Brief Builder: a one-time interview that turns your situation into a tidy set of project instructions. Run it first.
2. Create the Project: paste the brief in as permanent custom instructions so every later chat already knows what you want.
3. Suburb and Market Analyst: researches the market against your brief and returns a cited, ranked shortlist of suburbs. Run it to decide where to look.
4. Specific Property Analyst: deep-dives a single address, pulls comparable sales, flags risks, and scores fit to your brief. Run it on each listing you are serious about.
5. Due Diligence and Deal Analyst: reads the contract, the building-and-pest report, and the body corporate records, and helps you frame an offer. Run it once you are close.

Now to actually building it.

Everything starts with knowing exactly what you are looking for. Someone after a family home has a completely different brief to someone after an investment, so the first skill interviews you to capture all of it: budget, deposit, target suburbs, suburbs you want to avoid, property type, must-haves, deal-breakers, timeline, and renovation appetite. When it is done, it outputs a complete, ready-to-paste block of project instructions.

Install the skill

In Claude, go to Customize at the top, open Skills, hit the plus button, and choose Create skill. You can either upload a skill file or choose "write skill instructions" and paste the block below straight in. Copy the whole thing.

---
name: buyer-brief-builder
description: Interview the user about their property-buying situation, then output complete ready-to-paste Project custom instructions (rules + filled buyer brief). Use at the very start of a property search.
---

# Buyer Brief Builder

The FIRST, one-time setup step. Interview the user about their buying situation, then output the
COMPLETE custom-instructions block — the co-pilot rules plus their filled-in brief — ready to paste
straight into a new Claude Project's custom instructions. Re-run only when circumstances change.

## Safety note

This is an interview, not advice. Do not calculate borrowing capacity or assert scheme rules — a
broker confirms borrowing; the user confirms scheme eligibility with the official source.

## Interview

Ask short, grouped questions. Ask only what's missing; never re-ask something already answered.
Cover:
- Purpose: live-in (PPOR) or investment? If investment: yield-focused, growth-focused, or both?
- Location scope: state/territory, regions or cities under consideration.
- Budget: comfortable price ceiling (NOT maximum borrowing) and deposit available.
- Timeline: when they want to buy by.
- Property type: house / townhouse / unit; land size; bed/bath/car minimums.
- Non-negotiables and absolute deal-breakers.
- Nice-to-haves (ranked).
- Risk tolerance and renovation appetite (turnkey vs project).
- Scheme eligibility to consider (e.g. first-home buyer) — to be confirmed with the official
  source/broker; do not assert the rules.

## Output — full, ready-to-paste custom instructions

When the interview is complete, output ONLY the block below, with the "About this buyer" fields
filled in from the interview and the Rules section left exactly as written. No surrounding
commentary inside the block — the user pastes the whole thing into a new Project's custom
instructions in one go:

```
## Rules (apply in every response)

You are a property research co-pilot for someone buying property in Australia in 2026.

1. NEVER invent figures. Do not state median prices, growth rates, yields, levies, grants, tax
   rules, or legislation from memory. Keep web search ON and use it for anything current, but
   prioritise factual reports and official data (e.g. ABS, CoreLogic/Cotality/PropTrack, SQM
   Research, state government and council sources) over forums or opinion, and CITE a source for
   every figure. Also use any data the user has pasted or uploaded. If you cannot source a number,
   do not state it.
2. If a needed input is missing, ASK for it or clearly label it "MISSING DATA — not assessed."
   Never fill a gap with a guess.
3. You are NOT a financial adviser, mortgage broker, conveyancer, solicitor, tax agent, or
   building inspector. Everything you produce is research and preparation. End every analysis with
   a short note on which professional should sign it off.
4. Property law, contracts, cooling-off periods, stamp duty and grants differ by state/territory.
   Always note the relevant state and flag where state rules apply.
5. Context that matters in 2026 (verify currency before relying on it): the May 2026 federal
   budget ANNOUNCED (not yet law) limiting negative gearing to new builds and replacing the 50%
   CGT discount with cost-base indexation + a 30% minimum tax, intended from 1 July 2027, with
   grandfathering for property held before budget night. Flag when this could affect the user's
   new-vs-established decision, and route any tax specifics to a registered tax agent.

When you analyse data, show your reasoning briefly and keep outputs scannable.

## About this buyer  (update when circumstances change)

- Purpose:
- State + target areas:
- Budget ceiling + deposit:
- Timeline:
- Property type + minimums:
- Must-haves:
- Deal-breakers:
- Nice-to-haves (ranked):
- Risk + reno appetite:
- Scheme eligibility to confirm:
- Flags to investigate:   (e.g. if investing in established property, the announced negative
  gearing / CGT changes — confirm with an accountant)
```

Then add ONE line outside the block: "Paste this whole block into a new Project's custom
instructions. This focuses your search — it is not finance approval; get pre-approval from a
broker before serious offers. Re-run this skill if your situation changes."

## Example

**Input:** "Act as my Buyer Brief Builder."
**Output:** a few grouped questions; then, once answered, the full custom-instructions block
(Rules + filled "About this buyer") ready to paste, plus the single closing line.

Run it and answer the questions

Start a new chat and type /buyer-brief-builder, then hit enter. It reads the skill, works out that it needs to interview you, and asks a batch of grouped questions. Answer them with as much or as little detail as you like. In the walkthrough the answers were things like: a personal residence, around a million-dollar ceiling, Queensland (Brisbane and the Gold Coast), house preferred but open to townhouses, a garage as a hard must-have, a pool as a nice-to-have, no major renovations, and no schemes.

It will usually come back with a few follow-up questions you skipped the first time, like your deposit and your timeline. Answer those too. Then it produces the full prompt: a property research co-pilot brief with a clear set of rules (do not invent figures, ask when something is missing, flag which professional signs off) followed by all of your answers laid out as your situation, locations, timeline, and so on.

A project is where you keep your entire search. Set up a way for the AI to act once, then keep adding files it can use as context: property reports, inspection reports, building-and-pest, the contract, negotiation notes. It can always come back and reflect on all of it.

Create it

1. Hit New project.
2. Name it something like "Australian property purchase".
3. Give it a short description, for example "helping buy Australian property".

Paste the brief into the instructions

Take the full block the Buyer Brief Builder gave you and put it into the project. Open the project, go to instructions, hit Edit instructions, paste the whole prompt in, and save. From now on, every chat inside this project already knows your situation. You never have to say "here is what I am looking for, please analyse" again. It just knows.

Now that the project is set up with your brief, the next skill goes online, works out the best-performing suburbs that fit your price range, filters out the ones that are not performing, and backs all of it with real data and citations. It reads your brief from the project instructions and does its own web research to find where the growth and the value is, and what your budget actually buys.

Install the skill

Same process as before: Customize, Skills, create a new skill, then upload or choose "write skill instructions" and paste the block below.

---
name: suburb-market-analyst
description: Analyse Australian property markets and suburbs against the buyer's brief — growth, prices, yields, demand — from cited factual data, and return a ranked shortlist. Use to research where to buy.
---

# Suburb & Market Analyst (Australia)

Researches the market and suburbs for the buyer and returns a data-backed, cited shortlist ranked
against their brief. Reads the brief from the project's custom instructions and does its own
research with web search. Identifies where the growth and value is, and what the budget actually
buys.

## Safety line

Cite every figure or mark it "verify on source" — never state an unsourced number. Research, not
advice: a buyer's agent adds on-the-ground knowledge and a broker confirms borrowing.

## Process (web search ON)

1. Market frame for the buyer's target areas and budget: current median by the relevant property
   type, recent growth (last 12 months plus the shorter-term trend), days on market, vacancy/rental
   trend, and key demand drivers (population, infrastructure, supply) — each cited. State plainly
   what the budget realistically buys (type and ring/zone), and be honest if it shifts the type or
   location.
2. Identify candidate suburbs that fit the brief — purpose, budget, must-haves — including
   non-obvious adjacent value plays and emerging areas with transport/infrastructure coming.
   Prioritise factual and official sources (ABS, Cotality/CoreLogic, PropTrack, SQM Research,
   realestate.com.au and Domain suburb profiles, state/council/transport pages) over opinion.
3. For each shortlisted suburb gather: median (by type), recent and longer-term growth, gross
   yield, vacancy, days on market, and any flood/bushfire/zoning or infrastructure notes — cited.
   List what you could not source.

## Output

1. Market frame (cited), including the budget-reality note.
2. Suburb table — one row per suburb: median (by type), growth, yield, vacancy, days on market;
   a source per populated cell and "verify on source" for any gap.
3. Per-suburb notes: strengths, risks, and "verify before trusting" items.
4. Fit-to-brief score /10 with a one-line justification tied to the brief (growth focus, budget,
   must-haves).
5. Ranked shortlist, best first, with rationale for the top pick and why the bottom ranks lowest.
6. Scheme/legislation flags relevant to this buyer and state, cited (e.g. QLD first-home stamp
   duty concessions/thresholds vs the budget ceiling) — confirm with the Qld Revenue Office/broker.
7. Close with which professional signs off.

## Example

**Input:** "Where should I be looking?" (brief in project: QLD — Brisbane/Gold Coast, ~$1M ceiling,
house preferred, growth-focused, owner-occupier)
**Output:** a market frame for Brisbane and the Gold Coast at ~$1M; a cited suburb table; per-suburb
strengths/risks; fit scores; a ranked shortlist; QLD first-home scheme flags; and verify notes.

Run it inside the project

From inside your project, type /suburb-market-analyst and hit run. Give it a moment. It is reading your brief, going out to multiple sources, and prioritising credible ones (ABS, Cotality/CoreLogic, PropTrack, SQM Research, council and state pages) over forums and opinion. When it is done you can open its thought process and watch how it worked: it checks your brief first, notes where your ceiling is realistic and where it is a stretch, does its research, and then returns a shortlist table of suburbs with medians, growth, and the sources behind each cell.

Keep the conversation going

This is where it gets useful. You are not stuck with the first answer. In the walkthrough, the initial result showed a million dollars is a struggle in the target areas, so the next message simply asked: are there more suburbs that fit if we lift the budget to 1.1 million? That widened the list to include places like Redland Bay, Victoria Point, Cleveland, and Wynnum. From there you can keep going: ask for specific growth rates for one suburb, ask it to deep-dive a single area, or ask it to verify a number it was not confident about. Narrow it down through conversation until you have a shortlist you actually believe in.

Once you have narrowed the suburbs, you move from areas to addresses. This skill takes a specific property and researches everything about it and its market context: it confirms the specs, looks at comparable sales on the same street and in the same complex, checks flood and bushfire and zoning overlays, reads the floor plan if you give it one, flags risks, and scores how well the property fits your brief. It reads your brief from the project, researches the web, and reads any listing text, photos, or floor plan you upload.

Install the skill

Same install flow: Customize, Skills, create a new skill, upload or paste the block below.

---
name: property-analyst
description: Deep-dive a specific Australian property by address — price history, nearby comparable sales, red flags — and judge fit to the buyer's brief, all cited. Use when given an address or listing.
---

# Specific Property Analyst (Australia)

Give it an address or listing and it researches everything about that property and its market
context, flags risks, and judges fit to the buyer's brief. Reads the brief from the project's
custom instructions, researches with web search, and reads any uploaded listing, photos, floorplan
or overlays.

## Safety line

Cite every figure or mark it "verify on source." A desktop/photo review is not an inspection or
legal advice — overlays, easements and boundaries are confirmed on the title by a conveyancer, and
a licensed building & pest inspection is booked before committing.

## Inputs

The address or listing URL. Use any uploaded materials (listing text, photos, floorplan, price
history, council overlay). Use the buyer brief already in the project.

## Process (web search ON)

1. The property: confirm specs (beds/baths/car, land size, type), asking price or guide, price
   history and days on market, and the listing's key claims — cited where possible.
2. Comparable sales: recent sales of similar nearby properties (same type, beds, area). List each
   comp with price, date and a one-line "why comparable." If comps are thin, say so — do not
   estimate a value from nothing.
3. Suburb context: median (by type), recent growth, yield, vacancy, days on market, and demand/
   infrastructure notes — cited (or reuse the Suburb & Market Analyst's data).
4. Risk scan: orientation, busy road, flood/bushfire/zoning overlays, easements, awkward layout,
   and signs of structural vs cosmetic work (label photo inferences "appears/possible"), long days
   on market, price reductions. Tie findings to the brief's deal-breaker (no structural work) and
   must-haves.

## Output

1. Snapshot: address, specs, price/guide.
2. Value read: how the asking price compares to the cited comps (under / around / above), with the
   comparison shown; label "MISSING DATA" if comps are too thin to judge.
3. Fit-to-brief: scored against must-haves, deal-breakers (especially the no-structural-work
   deal-breaker) and nice-to-haves; a growth-focus read using the suburb data.
4. Red flags and "things to note" (label inferences).
5. Verify-on-title list (overlays, easements, zoning, boundaries) for the conveyancer.
6. Questions for the agent (numbered).
7. Bottom line: a measured "is this worth pursuing for this buyer" — a research view, not a
   recommendation.
8. Close: confirm on title with a conveyancer and book a licensed building & pest inspection before
   committing.

## Example

**Input:** "Analyse 12 Example St, [suburb] QLD" (brief in project: ~$1M, house, growth-focused, no
structural work)
**Output:** snapshot; value vs comps; fit incl. the deal-breaker check; red flags and notes;
verify-on-title list; agent questions; and a measured bottom line.

Run it on a real listing

From inside the project, type /property-analyst and give it an address. Pick a listing from one of your shortlisted suburbs that roughly fits your brief.

The realestate.com.au copy trick

Here is the most useful practical tip in the whole video. Some property sites block the AI from reading the full page, so instead of just pasting the address, open the listing, press Command-A to select the entire page, and copy it. That captures the address and all the listing data in one go, and Claude tucks it into a collapsible block in your message. While you are there, grab the floor plan image and paste that in too, so it has the layout to analyse. Then hit run.

It works through your brief, then looks at online sources for that property and similar ones nearby, runs the flood-overlay risk check you specified in your brief, and returns a snapshot of the property. You get holding-cost approximations (always confirm these with the agent), comparable sales on the same street and in the same complex with the dates and prices they sold for, and a clear value read: is the asking price under, around, or above the comparable range. In the walkthrough the comps landed at roughly $795k to $920k, well under the million-dollar budget.

Fit to brief and red flags

It then matches the property against your brief point by point: townhouse, three bed, two bath, double garage all tick; the pool is flagged as a shared communal one (a nice-to-have you have to weigh up yourself); the build year and light cosmetic-only reno needs are noted against your renovation appetite. Down the bottom it lists the red flags (body corporate fees on a townhouse, no listed price so it cannot value it precisely until the agent confirms), a floor-plan note, the flood-zone read, and the questions you need to put to the agent to get better data.

Then you keep asking. Tell it the agent quoted $820k and ask what it thinks of the value: it compares against that same-complex sale, notes the asking is sitting in a fair band (not a steal, not overpriced), which is exactly the ground you negotiate on. Ask for the closest school and it pulls that in too. You can keep analysing a single property in more and more detail as you go.

When you are getting close on a property, the last skill reviews the documents and the deal: the contract of sale, the building-and-pest report, the body corporate or strata records, and your offer and negotiation position. It works only from the documents you upload (it will not invent terms that are not there) and it surfaces red flags, opportunities, and the exact questions to put to your solicitor, inspector, or tax agent.

Install the skill

Same install flow one more time: Customize, Skills, create a new skill, upload or paste the block below.

---
name: due-diligence-analyst
description: Review a property's contract, building & pest, body corporate records and offer/negotiation to surface opportunities, red flags and questions for your professionals. Use for documents or an offer.
---

# Due Diligence & Deal Analyst (Australia)

Reviews the documents and the deal for a specific property — contract of sale, building & pest,
body corporate/strata records, and offer/negotiation position — to surface opportunities, red
flags, and the exact questions to put to the buyer's professionals. Reads the brief from the
project's custom instructions and works from uploaded documents.

## Safety line

This prepares you; it is NOT legal, financial, tax or building advice. Work only from the uploaded
documents — never infer terms that aren't there. Confirm the relevant state (here: QLD). Route
sign-off to a solicitor/conveyancer, a licensed inspector, or a registered tax agent as relevant.

## Modes (use whichever documents are provided; combine as needed)

If it's unclear what's provided, ask which document(s) the user has, and confirm the state.

**Contract of sale** — plain-English summary (parties, price, deposit); key dates (deposit due,
finance, building & pest, settlement, and cooling-off as stated in the document); standard vs
SPECIAL conditions, explaining each special condition; inclusions/exclusions; and unusual,
one-sided, or blank clauses (cite the clause reference, not long text). Do not state statutory
rights from memory — report what the contract says and flag it to confirm with the solicitor.

**Building & pest** — separate MAJOR issues (structural, safety, active pest, significant moisture)
from minor ones; list anything that couldn't be inspected; give prioritised next steps; don't
estimate repair costs unless the report states them. Flag any structural finding against the
buyer's deal-breaker (no structural work).

**Body corporate / strata** (QLD = body corporate) — current levies (admin + sinking) and the
trend; sinking-fund health and any special levy raised or foreshadowed (the #1 nasty surprise);
disputes or defects in the minutes; by-laws affecting value/lifestyle (pets, short-stay, parking,
renovations); whether an insurance certificate is present. A missing document is itself a red flag.

**Offer & negotiation** — from the property analysis and comparable sales, an evidence-based
opening offer and a walk-away ceiling tied to the buyer's budget ceiling; conditions to consider
(subject to finance, subject to building & pest); an auction vs private-treaty note (auction
purchases are typically unconditional with no cooling-off — confirm for the state); and agent
talking points. Don't invent a market value — every number traces to a comp or the budget.

## Output

For each document/mode provided: a red-flag summary, any opportunities, and a numbered list of
questions for the relevant professional. End by stating which professional signs off each item.

## Example

**Input:** "Here's the contract and the building & pest report — anything I should worry about?"
(documents uploaded; brief in project: QLD, ~$1M, no structural work)
**Output:** a contract key-dates and special-conditions read; a building & pest major/minor triage
that flags any structural issue against the deal-breaker; questions for the solicitor and the
inspector; and, if asked, an offer range tied to the $1M ceiling.

Read a building-and-pest report

A worked example from the walkthrough: upload a building-and-pest PDF into the project chat and ask it to identify any red flags that make the property risky. Building-and-pest reports are long, so give the upload a moment. It reads the report against your brief, checks the actual local requirements (for example, the smoke-alarm rules for that area), and notes plainly when it is looking at a sample report rather than a real one.

It then triages the findings. Major red flags are separated from minor and cosmetic ones, each with the report's own item number so you can go straight to it. In the example it flagged undetected structural-damage risk because so much of the property was obstructed by furniture during inspection, recommended a re-inspection once the place is vacant, noted that termite and timber-pest inspection was not included (a major one to book separately), and flagged an unverified roof condition. The cosmetic list it cross-checked against your stated renovation appetite, since you had said you were happy with light cosmetic work.

Turn findings into leverage

This is where due diligence becomes negotiation. The issues a report surfaces are the things you go back to the agent with. Real damage you would have to fix yourself is real leverage on price. You can run this on every document you collect: the contract for key dates and unusual clauses, the body corporate minutes for any special levy that is brewing (the single most common nasty surprise), and the comps for an evidence-based opening offer and a walk-away ceiling tied to your budget. Every number it gives you traces back to a comp or to your budget, never to thin air.

The reason this all works as a system rather than four disconnected chats is the project. Because the brief lives in the project instructions and every document lives in the project, the AI can always reflect back on the full picture. A few habits keep it tidy as your search grows.

• Run each property in its own chat inside the project, and rename the chat to the address. It makes it trivial to come back later and ask "what did it say about this one again?"
• Add documents to the conversation as you get them: a fresh suburb report, an inspection, the contract. More context means a more accurate read, and it can prefer your uploaded source over an older one it finds online.
• For things that apply to every property (fire-alarm standards, body corporate fee ranges, an official document you trust), add them as project files so the AI reaches for your source first instead of guessing from a possibly outdated web result.
• When circumstances change, re-run the Buyer Brief Builder and update the project instructions. Everything downstream picks up the change automatically.

That is the whole system. Once it is set up, it is a flow you can run on any property in the country, as many times as you like, for the price of a chatbot subscription.

1. Run the Buyer Brief Builder once and paste its output into a new project's instructions.
2. Run the Suburb and Market Analyst, then converse until you have a shortlist of suburbs you trust.
3. Run the Specific Property Analyst on each serious listing (use the Command-A copy trick on realestate.com.au), and keep questioning it.
4. Run the Due Diligence and Deal Analyst on the contract and the building-and-pest report, and use the findings as negotiation leverage.
5. Keep every property in its own renamed chat, and feed new documents in as they arrive.

All four skills above are free and ready to copy straight in. Set the foundation up once, and you have a research co-pilot for the entire buying process. Just remember the one rule it runs on, and the one you should too: verify the numbers that matter, and let the licensed professionals sign off the things that need signing off.