About nestfinder

What this is

Nestfinder is an Australian-only tool for ranking postcodes against your priorities. Tell us what you care about — commute, schools, crime, affordability, amenities — and we score every postcode using public datasets, then plot the result on a map. We do not list individual properties, we do not show you "agent picks", and we do not sell your contact details. When you want to see a specific home, we deeplink out to RealEstate.com.au or Domain — they're built for that, we're not.

Who builds it

The methodology and product direction are led by @peepercat, whose buyer's guide to Melbourne started this project — same spreadsheet, more data, less time. Cain runs the build out. We're a small team writing this in the open; the source is on GitHub.

What the model does

We compute a composite score per postcode across six dimensions: transport, schools, crime, affluence, amenities, and an intent-aware affordability metric. Each component is percent-ranked across all Australian postcodes so the numbers stay comparable between very different regions. Component scores are combined with the weights you set — none of the weighting is hidden. The full methodology, formulae, and default weights live on the methodology page.

What the model deliberately doesn't do

• No agent spin. We don't take listings money, we don't surface "featured agents", and the rank doesn't move because a brokerage paid for placement.
• No listings firehose. We don't try to be RealEstate.com.au or Domain. Our job stops at "which postcode" — they do "which house".
• No climate-risk overlays. Climate risk is mostly a house-specific question (elevation, build standard, vegetation buffer) and we're a suburb-level tool. For that, get a specialist house-level climate assessment.

How we make money

The free tier is the engine. When you click through to a listing, we earn a small referral fee from RealEstate.com.au or Domain — that's our primary revenue. A paid tier exists for power users (saved profiles, more alerts), but it's side-revenue, not the business model. We may sell anonymised, aggregated cohort statistics to research partners (e.g. "what buyer cohorts care most about schools in 2026") — never individual user data, never your contact details. See our privacy policy for the long version.

Data freshness

Every numeric cell in the results has a tooltip showing the data source and the last refresh date.