Olivia — Café Location Researcher

The situation

You've found the "perfect" location.

The rent seems fair. The foot traffic looks right. Your gut says yes. But before you sign anything, you know you should look harder — at what's been approved to build nearby, whether the lease market supports the asking rent, what comparable businesses actually sold for, whether the suburb's demographics match your concept.

You just don't know where to look. And even if you did — who has time to dig through council DA portals, ABS data, commercial listing databases, and going concern brokers before a decision that could cost you six figures?

↓

What Olivia does

Your research partner, before you sign anything.

Tell Olivia what you're looking at — a suburb, a listing, an address, or no fixed idea yet. She asks a few pointed questions first (the questions determine what to search for and how to read what comes back). Then she searches the sources that actually matter: ABS, commercial lease databases, Bsale, council DA portals, going concern listings.

She comes back with findings, not answers. What the data shows. Where sources conflict. What she couldn't close. What you need to verify on the ground yourself. The decision stays yours — she just makes sure you're making it with the right information.

Four types of investigation

🏘️

Suburb hypothesis

Testing a suburb you have in mind — demographics, lease market, DA pipeline, café density.

📋

Specific listing

A going concern for sale — what the broker pack shows, what it omits, comparable market data.

📝

Pre-signing check

Location chosen, lease about to be signed — DA pipeline and clause exposure for that address.

🔍

Open scan

No location yet — calibrated criteria to scope where opportunity actually exists.

Every investigation returns the same structure

What the sources show

Synthesised across sources, not listed one by one

Where sources conflict

Named explicitly — not buried in the summary

Open questions

What the investigation raised but couldn't close

What Olivia cannot tell you

Specific steps for what to verify on the ground

Sources log

Every source used, when accessed, and its reliability limitation

See Olivia in action

A specific listing investigation — café for sale on Bsale, Newtown Sydney, $175k asking price.

Claude · Olivia — Café Location Researcher

There's a café for sale on Bsale in Newtown, Sydney. $175k asking price, says strong turnover and good lease, 4 years remaining. Is it worth looking at?

I've got a one-page summary. $480k stated turnover, "profitable," lease has 4 years left. That's all I have.

Searching...

🔍 Searched: Bsale café for sale Newtown Sydney 🔍 Searched: CommercialRealEstate King St Newtown commercial lease 🔍 Searched: PlanningAlerts.org.au King St Newtown 2042

Investigation question

What does publicly available data show about the $175k asking price against the Newtown café market — and what is the information this listing has not provided that would materially change any assessment?

What the sources show

Bsale currently lists 5–7 café and food businesses for sale in Newtown and the inner west at $95k–$240k. At $480k stated turnover, a $175k asking price implies a goodwill multiple of approximately 0.36× annual revenue. The typical range for a café with a solid lease and provable turnover is 0.5–1.5×. A below-range multiple signals a motivated seller, a thin net margin, a lease issue, or some combination. CommercialRealEstate.com.au shows current commercial leases on King St at $38,000–$68,000 per annum for café-sized spaces.

Where sources conflict

"Profitable" and a below-typical goodwill multiple are in tension. A genuinely profitable café with $480k turnover and 4 years of lease security in Newtown would typically attract a higher multiple — unless the net margin is thin when owner wages are added back, the lease has an unfavourable review mechanism approaching, or the exit reason is something the broker isn't leading with.

Open questions

What is the current rent — and what is the review mechanism for years 2–4? A market review clause in year 2 on King St could substantially change the effective rent. Is there a demolition clause?

What this investigation cannot tell you

"Profitable" means nothing without a P&L with owner wages, depreciation, and super added back — a café doing $480k gross can net $20k or $80k depending on cost structure
Why this business is for sale — the most important question cannot be answered from any public source
Actual comparable sale prices — Bsale shows asking prices only; completed transaction prices are not publicly disclosed in Australia

The most important unresolved question

Request the full P&L for at least two years and the complete lease document before progressing. Without both, the asking price cannot be evaluated against anything that matters.

Sources

Source	Used for	Reliability note
Bsale.com.au Newtown	Comparable asking prices	Asking prices only — sold prices not disclosed
CommercialRealEstate.com.au King St	Lease rate context	Asking prices only — not transaction data
PlanningAlerts.org.au	Development pipeline	No active DAs found at time of search

Demo uses a built-in example. Web search is live when running inside a Claude project.

Use Olivia yourself

Three steps. Works in any Claude project.

Enable web search in your Claude project

Settings → Project Settings → enable Web Search. Olivia uses live data sources and cannot investigate without it.

Download and upload the folder

Get the files from GitHub and upload them into a Claude project. Claude uses them as operating context for every conversation.

Tell Olivia what you're investigating

"I'm looking at a suburb." "There's a listing on Bsale." "I'm about to sign a lease." She asks a few questions, then searches.

Download from GitHub →

Meet Olivia.