How Nostoi keeps property guidance evidence-based
General South African property-buyer literacy only. This page is not legal, financial, tax, valuation, investment, property-condition or contract-interpretation advice, and it is not advice about your particular situation.
Most property guidance is written by someone who benefits from the sale. Nostoi is built the other way round, and this page states plainly how — so that the rest of the guidance on this site can be judged against a standard rather than taken on trust.
What does “evidence or omit” actually mean in practice?
It is the rule that decides what Nostoi will say about a property. If a fact was not supplied by the agency that listed the home, Nostoi does not estimate it, infer it from photographs, or fill the gap with what is typical. It says the information is not available.
- What confirms it:
- Every factual claim on a Nostoi listing traces to a field the listing agency supplied. Where a field is absent, the page says so rather than showing a plausible number.
- Who to ask:
- The listing agent can usually confirm a missing detail directly, and is the correct person to ask.
- What Nostoi cannot decide:
- Nostoi cannot tell you a fact that nobody supplied. An honest gap is more useful than a confident guess.
Why does Nostoi never put a value on a home?
Estimating what a property is worth is a regulated activity in South Africa and a genuinely difficult one. A number produced by software, presented next to a home a buyer already likes, carries far more weight than its accuracy deserves.
- What confirms it:
- Nostoi publishes no estimated values, no price predictions and no “worth” figures anywhere on the platform. Where it shows a price per square metre, it is arithmetic on two declared numbers and is labelled as such.
- Who to ask:
- A registered valuer for a formal valuation; your bank, which will value the property itself before lending.
- What Nostoi cannot decide:
- Nostoi cannot tell you whether a price is fair, high or low. It can help you assemble the facts you would need to form your own view.
Can a seller or agent pay to change what Nostoi says?
This is the question that decides whether any of the rest is worth reading. Advice that can be bought is advertising.
- What confirms it:
- Nostoi's ranking and advisory logic cannot read commercial state — the separation is enforced in the software itself and checked automatically, not left to policy. Paid promotion, where it exists, is labelled and sits outside the advice.
- Who to ask:
- Nobody — this is Nostoi's own commitment, and it is stated here so it can be held against us.
- What Nostoi cannot decide:
- Nostoi cannot prove its own integrity to you in a single sentence. What it can do is state the rule plainly and make it checkable.
Where does the guidance on this site come from?
Knowing how something was written tells you how much weight to give it.
- What confirms it:
- Nostoi runs its own research programme covering how South Africans actually buy homes. The public guides on this site are written from that research and checked against the primary sources listed at the foot of each page — the statutes and official bodies themselves, not secondary commentary.
- Who to ask:
- Each guide names the professional who can answer for your situation.
- What Nostoi cannot decide:
- Nostoi is not a law firm, a financial adviser or a valuer, and none of these pages is advice about your circumstances.
What this page cannot tell you
- Nostoi cannot tell you whether a particular property suits you.
- Nostoi does not estimate what a home is worth, now or later.
- Nostoi cannot tell you what you can afford; that depends on your finances and a lender's assessment.
- Nostoi cannot interpret a contract, rule or title condition for your case.
Primary sources
- Property Practitioners Act 22 of 2019 — Governs property practitioners in South Africa, administered by the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA).
- Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act 37 of 2002 (FAIS) — Governs financial advice; the boundary Nostoi stays behind by giving general literacy only.
- Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) — Governs how Nostoi may handle personal information; see the privacy page.