Honestly, I don't know exactly where QV get their data from - I've never really thought about it, but I've always just considered it one of those state-supported monopolies like Plates.co.nz - meaning it would be pretty much unbreakable and able to screw the NZ public in just whatever way it feels. Mind you I could also be wrong. I'm surprised that Stats NZ doesn't offer NZ property sale information - surely some government department collects this information, in which case it ought to be publicly available.

If you can find where this data is collected, and they don't offer it publicly, you should be able to get the data through an Official Information Request. I see no reason why the data would be particularly sensitive, so they would be required to release it. These requests are controlled by an ombudsman who does an excellent job at ensuring our rights to information are upheld. I've made a few OIRs recently, and most departments get the information to me as required, though not usually within the timeframes as legally mandated.

As for building a business around valuations - it's an interesting concept. QV collect property sale values and estimate the value of a property based on sales near it, land size, etc. It's not a particularly accurate way of valuing a property - it would be interesting to see some sort of crowd sourcing, though it would probably fail as property owners are going to do whatever they can to inflate the value of their own property, and will likely become litigious if anything (even legitimately) damages the value of their property.

What sort of OIR? if you don't want to say then don't; never met someone who has done such a thing, that's all.

I lodged a few OIRs just out of interest - not really interest in the data, more the process. I had the Tauranga council tell me about their downtown parking revenue and parking officer remuneration (though that's not a OIR, it's a Local Government Official Information Request, LGOIR, same thing basically). I also asked the council for a breakdown on the costs involved in replacing a manhole cover after an article in the local rag which quoted something like $5,000 to replace one. I asked the IRD for details on the number of tax payers identifying themselves as sex workers and their average taxable income for the last five years. I also made a request for some information from DoC, but I can't remember what.

Interesting.

Did the manhole costs end up around 5k?

No, it was egregious misreporting by the newspaper.

Well I am officially confused,

Quotable Value is owned by none other than Bill English and Simon Power (50% each), the data is owned by PropertyIQ which is a joint venture between Quotable Value and RP Data New Zealand, does this mean the Government owns it?

Addendum: After a little more perusing the two also "officially" own New Zealand Post and Solid Energy, so I guess that pretty much means the aforementioned are all Government owned, and they are proxy shareholders. Interesting that COYs.co.nz lists those guys as 50% shareholders and not the Government, why would that be?

NZGOVT 1 - 0 Cameron

Yeah that's quite bizzare. They must be sole trustees of government trusts I guess, there's no way they personally own those shares. Note that one each election day there's a change in shareholding - the last one being from joint ownership between Michael Cullen, Simon Power and Bill English to just Bill English for a parcel of 2,300,000 (see Companies Office search).

Anyway, I guess that answers this question - obviously QV is government owned, and quite a cash cow too. I guess this rules out using an OIR to get the information. Which bothers me a lot TBH - using tax payer money to gather information, then charging us to access it.

edit: Now I'm totally confused - on their website they seem to refer to themselves as a private company with commercial interests, and don't mention anything about being government owned. Either I'm missing something obvious, or there's something fishy here.

Hmmm, I used coys.co.nz - purely a better interface than companies.govt.nz, which fails - badly.

Assuming we believe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotable_Value_Limited wikipedia - your first assumption is correct.

Interesting that the Gov't requires MP's to be sole trustees of State-Owned Enterprises, whats the point behind that?

Ahh... well here is a list of the business that are State-Owned

http://www.comu.govt.nz/companies-we-monitor.html

Interesting that we pay to lodge sales forms - then get charged a feck load to access this data. I assume that realtors get charged comparative fees to private consumers - unless they have an equivalent system.

Sorry, I could have helped if I'd seen this sooner.

QV is government owned - the two shareholding ministers, as Chris correctly points out, are Bill English (as Minister of Finance) and Simon Power (as Assc. Minister of Finance). They get their information from the property sales notices completed whenever a property is sold and forwarded to them by the purchasor's solicitor.

In terms of using taxpayer money to gather information - their practice is "cost recovery". You pay for the cost of retrieving the info, plus a little bit for their Christmas Club no doubt. I also think QV during its corporatisation was instructed to profit from such enquiries to "manage" growth "going forward", or some such bull.

In my opinion the costs for information are way beyond reasonable for recovering cost. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is further milking of tax payers who pay for the information to be gathered in the first place.

Agreed.