Methodology

How Propo turns listing history into suburb market intelligence.

How to use Propo

Propo is a suburb-first market intelligence site — not a listings portal. Look up a suburb to see rent, sale, land, yield, and trends together. Explore is a directory of suburbs and land markets; optional filters refine the list when you want them.

The dataset

Propo maintains a continuously updated property market database for Zimbabwe — not a static export. Aggregates listings from Zimbabwe's three largest online property portals. The pipeline refreshes every 24 hours, compounding historical observations over time.

At current scale: ~14,000 active listings, 400k+ historical observations, 378 suburb markets, 310 land markets, and Harare, Bulawayo, and Ruwa.

Suburb medians

Each suburb profile shows median asking rent and median asking sale price from active portal listings in that market. Figures are statistical summaries of what is advertised — not closed transaction prices or valuations of individual homes.

Land metrics

Land uses a separate table from residential medians. Where stand size is available, we report median asking price per square metre and listing counts. Land trends use daily land snapshots the same way residential trends use daily suburb snapshots.

Yield calculation

Gross yield uses median rental income and median sale price for each suburb. It helps compare cash-flow potential across markets, not individual properties.

Confidence score

Confidence reflects listing volume — rental and sale counts contribute separately. Higher scores mean more data supports the suburb medians shown. Explore can optionally hide low-confidence suburbs; by default the directory includes them.

Opportunity score

Opportunity combines yield, listing volume, and market balance (rent + sale coverage) to highlight suburbs that may be useful for investment research alongside other signals on the profile.

Explore directories

Explore has two tabs. Suburbs lists residential markets with rent, sale, and yield at a glance. Land lists priced stand markets by $/sqm. Filters (city, data coverage, optional land budget) start off — open them when you want to narrow the list.

Price & supply trends

Trend charts use daily snapshots of active listings. Each point is the median price and listing count for that suburb on that date. Percent change compares the first and last available snapshot in the selected window (30, 90, or 180 days). Trends reflect what was on the market each day, not closed transactions. Land trends use the same approach on median $/sqm.

Community price reports

Anonymous community rent, sale, or land price reports may appear as a separate range on suburbs with thin portal coverage or low confidence — they do not change headline portal medians or confidence scores. A minimum number of approved reports is required before a range is shown. Contribution entry points may be limited while the feature is in beta.

Data limits

Propo derives medians, yields, and fair-value badges from its property market database — normalized listing text and prices from major online portals. We do not verify title deeds, plot sizes, or off-market transactions.

Listing descriptions are not structured for amenities. We do not capture or score borehole water, swimming pools, backup power, security estates, paved roads, or similar features — even when agents mention them in ad copy.

Type-level segment medians (when opened with a property-type URL filter) require at least three matching active listings. Below that threshold we show suburb-wide medians with a limited-data warning.

Fair-value badges compare a listing to the best available median and appear only when the price differs by at least 5% and enough comparable listings exist.

We track how long listings stay in our listing history, but do not show days-on-market in the product yet — it undercounts listings that were already live before we started tracking.