Separating what I did from what happened
Five months passed between offer accepted and contract. This was an unusual process, and it took patience and a genuinely good relationship with the agent to see it out without walking away.
I had an offer accepted on a property in February. Delays in finalising the contract meant it wasn't signed until June, and the deal settled in August. On the day of settlement, a Cotality estimate on the same property came back at $700,000, against the $655,000 agreed back in February.
The delay itself came with a real cost along the way. Negative gearing changes passed while this deal was moving through approvals, and the timing meant this purchase missed out on the old settings. That change made my own serviceability a bit tighter. It was never going to be the reason I walked away from a property I rated this highly, and I was always going to end up at the same lender either way.
A desktop estimate isn't a sale, and it isn't instant usable equity, but it isn't nothing either. It suggests the price agreed in February was a fair one for what the property and the market was at that time. The gap to today's estimate reflects how the market has moved since, not anything I engineered by waiting. Staying patient through the delay was a choice. How far the market moved while I did wasn't.
The risk worth naming is the opposite mistake, assuming a number like this protects you from anything. It doesn't remove risk. What it does is give you more room to absorb one, if conditions turn. A fair entry price is a buffer, not a guarantee, and the difference matters if the market moves against you rather than with you.