Whether I’m working as a buyer advocate or seller advocate, valuing a property is one of my favourite parts of the job. It’s also one of the key reasons I’m engaged — to help make sense of the numbers and apply them to real homes.

So how do I value a property — and in particular, how do I approach the value of an A-grade Toorak home in 2025?

Let’s start with a few basic guidelines.

Price and value are not the same thing.

• Value is what we think something is worth.
• Price is what it actually sells for.

Think of the recent election: we all had a view on the value of the Liberal Party. But the real price wasn’t revealed until the votes were in.

Or think about suits.

You could buy a bespoke Huntsman suit on Savile Row for $10,000, a Hugo Boss suit online for $1,200, or a Peter Jackson off-the-rack for $600. All are made from wool. All roughly the same size. But they’re not interchangeable — and more importantly, the buyers for each aren’t browsing the same rack. So what’s the real market value of a suit?

Same goes for homes.

If you’re in the market for a $10 million home in Toorak, you’re not comparing it to a $3 million home in Malvern. And vice versa. They sit in different segments — and come with different expectations and definitions of value, depending on who you are.

Legally speaking, the value of a home (in a court case) is defined as: what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller, assuming both are reasonable people with full knowledge of the market. That last part — full knowledge — almost never exists. But let’s move on.

In many markets — cars, shares — price is often aligned to value. There’s a sticker, or a live trading feed. In real estate? Especially Melbourne’s top end? There is no live chart, no uniform rule book. Just interpretation, negotiation, and gut instinct — guided by experience.