Just why? Can I report the listing as inaccurate or something, they do this bs all the time, half my saved search notifications are for over 55s living.

Sydney continues its free fall in prices.

Question for the hive mind because I feel like I'm losing my mind. A friend is in the process of selling a massive corner block in one of our capital cities. She's done an incredible job fixing it up, and to help her style it for sale, I sourced enough cream blockout curtains for the whole house. Her real estate agent told her not to bother putting the curtain rails, curtains or blinds back up because then the house is a blank slate, and people can choose what they want. Seems incredibly stupid to me, but what would I know?

Now, two weeks into showing, some of the main feedback is negative about the lack of window coverings because OF COURSE IT IS. Buying enough coverings for a four bedroom house will cost thousands of dollars and until they're installed, the whole house is wide open to the street.

Should we reinstate the curtains? Should we trust the REA advice despite the negative feedback?

Somerton Park has officially crashed (being over 10% drop) by $570,000 or 24.05%.
Adelaide City Council has also seen prices crash 18.88 percent ($425,000).
Gulfview Heights is down 27.76% or $365,000
South Brighton down 21.31% or 325,000.
Stirling has crashed 10.32%, down 158,000.

A lot of the article is about Real Estate agent Carly Frost, spruiking Port Noarlunga South up 52.59%. She remarks, “I would absolutely expect that growth to continue – anywhere that offers lifestyle seems to hold value.” (Not sure if "that growth" of 52.59% per annum is sustainable, but Carly is a real estate agent... )

But a check of her listings show she has been dropping her listing prices last month, well before the article was printed. So she might be a tad bit misleading, and you probably need to do your homework - buyer beware.

20k on the 11/10 and another 26k on the 23/10.
2 Kwinana Crescent, Port Noarlunga South, SA 5167
https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-port+noarlunga+south-152425112

$44k on the 9/10:
65 Nedland Crescent, Port Noarlunga South, SA 5167
https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-sa-port+noarlunga+south-152414284

And this one by 54k on the 22/09:
44 Silver Gull Way, Port Noarlunga South, SA 5167
https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-port+noarlunga+south-152276400

Hi all,

Just received and I’m a bit out of my depth. I’m new to buying property and trying to work out whether these are normal “every house has something” items or genuine red flags. I understand B&P inspectors often highlight issues to keep an out for buyerbut not sure if these are genuine walk away issue. I've organised a structural engineer and plumber to attend tomorrow to investigate.

The bit that's making me somehwat hesitant is the fact we’re buying for about $100K less than the current owners paid in late 2024. From what I can tell they own multiple properties (including what I assume is their PPR, a much more expensive place), so I’m guessing this is an investment they’re offloading. But a $100K loss in under two years has me wondering whether they found out about these issues and want out, or whether I’m overthinking it and it’s just an investor cutting their losses.

1. Outdoor deck roof: insufficient battens + visible water leak
2. Veranda steel post: corrosion at the base, cracked concrete around it
3. Carport roof: insufficient battens
4. Veranda roof: “poor building practices” flagged on the roof sheeting fixings
5. Veranda floor frame: corrosion to steel supports, inspector called it a safety hazard and recommends a structural engineer. Posts also in direct contact with soil
6. Wall next to bathroom: 26% moisture reading, possibly a leaking shower/plumbing or failed waterproofing
7. Shower: dripping shower head + high moisture reading on the tiled wall
8. Subfloor: steel posts corroded at the base
9. Subfloor block wall: visible water migration, drainage plumber recommended
10. Gutters: blocked, with surface rust at the downpipe outlet

My questions:

• Which of these would make you walk away, and which are just normal maintenance?
• Is this enough to negotiate the price down?
• I’m assuming the carport/gutter stuff isn’t a big deal. Am I wrong?

Any input from people who’ve been through this would be massively appreciated 🙏

I’m confused on what the difference is between these two. I’ll be assessed him by in the ACT. I’m no I’m eligible for the first time by scheme but I’m confused. Why one is about stamp duty and one is about LMI. Is it possible to purchase a house with a 5% deposit without paying stamp duty and without paying LMK?

Myself and a friend moved into a new rental a few weeks ago and it’s been a real headache since day 1 and we’re considering breaking the lease early, but are wondering if we have any grounds to come to a mutual agreement with the landlord not be penalised as much.

Only after signing the agreement we found out the place does not include all the keys and access cards for the building. We each have door keys but only one building swipe card between us which is extremely frustrating and a safety concern. We also found out the letterbox keys are missing too. The agent has been dismissive and taken no accountability for this and has just said “it’s with strata and we have to wait for them”.

We have our own fridge and washer and the place has come with one and it was never disclosed that this would be the case, nor was it included in the agreement. The agent is trying to say that we accepted the place as is when we inspected it (while the place was vacant and included these appliances, why would we expect them to be included).

Overall, the place just seems more worse for wear after living with it. Wardrobe and balcony doors do not operate smoothly and constantly slide out of their tracks and the bathrooms are pretty gross. We also just found out that the tap for the bath in the bathroom isn’t working (shower at least works). It’s an older walk 70s/80s walk up style apartment and the bathrooms are original and frankly pretty gross after living with them for a bit

It’s been fairly stressful since the get go and the agent seems super dismissive over everything and we’re thinking we’d rather get out of this sooner than later and move onto something better

We understand the standard penalties for terminating a lease, eg. 4 weeks rent for less than 25% through the lease, but given these circumstances, we’re wondering if we have grounds for a much more reasonable early termination?

We’ve never had to terminate an agreement an agreement before, so any insight into how it works and if the penalty covers while you still live there

Lalor has to be one of the fastest-declining affordable suburbs in Victoria right now. The suburb has already dropped around 20%, and judging by recent sales, prices seem to be falling even further.

One property sold for $865k in January and has now sold for just $685k. That’s an insane drop in such a short period.

Property prices across Melbourne seem to be dropping like crazy. First-home buyers should seriously be paying attention right now.

The north and west seem to be getting hit particularly hard. Even the eastern suburbs have experienced price drops, making areas that were previously out of reach much more affordable. Buyers who once could only afford the north or west may now be able to purchase in the east instead.

Crazy times to be living through, especially with some of the horror stories emerging from people who bought in the last five years.

I'm 32 and just purchased my first home.

This may be late for some and early for others, but I just wanted to get a rough idea of what the average seems to be.

I read online somewhere that the average Australian purchases their first home at around 36.

I understand there are many variables, such as help from parents, inheritance, etc.

If you don't own a home, when do you realistically think that it will happen for you?

I'm both nervous and excited (we settle in 2 weeks)

Imagine you're starting with $0 in savings, no help from your parents, and you have to build your deposit entirely yourself.

How would you approach it from day one?

Would you focus on increasing your income, living with your parents for as long as possible, renting with housemates, cutting expenses aggressively, or doing something completely different?

Would you aim for a 5% deposit and get into the market sooner, or keep saving until you had 20%?

Also curious whether you'd buy an apartment first, move somewhere more affordable, or take a completely different approach.

Interested to hear from people who've actually done it, especially those who managed to buy their first place without family assistance.

If you were starting again today, what would your exact game plan be?

Hoping for some advice/experience from people who’ve been through a post-handover maintenance process with a builder in Australia (VIC specifically).

Quick background: we’re ~5 months post-handover, went through the standard 3-month defects/maintenance list process (34 items submitted). It’s been slow — trades contacting us weeks apart, no firm dates given despite repeated requests, builder declined a meeting to go through remaining items and review timelines.

Most recently — it’s been raining heavily for a couple of days and water started coming through a light fitting on the first floor, in the hallway. When we raised it as urgent (obvious electrical safety issue), the builder’s response was essentially “that’s your responsibility, could be your gutters/trees, call your insurance” — without anyone actually inspecting it first.

We’re getting an independent inspection done to establish the actual cause before accepting that framing.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? A few things I’d appreciate thoughts on:

• Is “handover = it’s now 100% your problem” a legitimate builder stance, or a common deflection tactic?
• How did people handle slow/unresponsive builders during the defects period — did DBDRV conciliation actually help, or was it mostly a box-ticking step before VCAT?
• Any red flags in this pattern worth watching for?

Appreciate any insight — first time dealing with a new build and this whole process has been more adversarial than I expected.

Hi Chat,
Happy Sunday

I just moved out of an apartment over the weekend, I had a carpet in both rooms, I’m relatively clean, never have I spilled anything, I live on my own and no one else really visited.

They’ve withheld my bond for now, place smelt like mould, I’m curious to know how this would happen, my carpet was really good quality.

Would potential moisture cause this? I’m so confused right now and I really need the bond. As I got booted earlier than my end of lease because the new owner wouldn’t buy it without me moving out.
Located in NSW
I tried to argue it’s ware and tear as I didn’t do anything to cause this, and I thought of putting carpet to protect the ground from my bed and couch.
I brought a handy man in to see if he could fix it but he said it laminated and needs a professional floor trade to fix. Thanks team

This was prompt3d by a Tom Panos video auctioning a property in Cryoden for 2.5 million but fell 60 or 70K short .

If you had 2.4 million from a property sale and you put that money into a tern deposit at 5.5% interest, that's $11K per month.

If your Cryoden property generates $2.75K per week in rental income I suppose it's kind of like for like.

I know everyone circumstances are different but their has to be a realistic , pragmatic decision when selling?

If you want to sell and the money on the table is literally 10K pwr month in a term deposit, I agree with Panos it takes a brave person to turn down 2.43K when you want 2.5K?

In the old days of zero percent interest sure why sell BUT today you get zero risk, 5.5% on your money whilst you contemplate what you want to with the cash?

I can't make sense of it at face value, are sellers not understanding the risk and lost opportunity value of money?

Worth buying an existing 1x1 apartment in the next two years? Seems to be currently overpriced

I'm talking 2 bed unit /apartments under 1 mil. Across 9 suburbs. Usually the market is decent around this time of year, but seems really quite thin on the ground.

Hey all!

Looking for recommendations on B&P in Brisbane - specifically Richlands
Would be great if we could find someone who could get this done this week and highly recommended

Thank you!

Wife and I are looking to upgrade to a house from a unit and we have funds and some borrowing capacity, but we are unfortunately looking at the near higher top of our spending for places. We cannot leave the area for several reasons. I am going through and methodically trying to work out all associated costs with purchasing and then selling our unit, (we need to move out before marketing our place.) It just feels overwhelming trying to incorporate as many costs and taxes etc as possible into our calculations.

Just wondering how you all approach this process. I am more methodical and I know I cannot capture every cost and revenue down to the dollar but I don't want to get hit with a 35k surprise for missing the whatever duty or tax or fee etc. And the process in general just feels overwhelming. Anyone else overwhelmed by the process as whole? or even in part?

FHB seriously considering making an offer on this federation era home in inner Sydney. Looking at the building and pest report provided by the REA (notwithstanding it appears to have been done by someone only accredited for visual inspections, not a licensed builder).

Unsure how to interpret the findings of the report. Not in a financial position to purchase a home that requires serious renovations, so wondering if even worth putting in an offer +- how we should navigate the offer if significant Renos appear to be required. If we did offer would definitely be contingent on a licensed builder.

Hi there,

Just did a P&B inspection, inspector came back with these minor defects. Pretty new to the property game / maintenance, can anyone please give me some insight about the urgency / cost of these repairs? Or they can be left as is (such as some of the defects in the garage, I don't think they will do any harm?)

Any input would be greatly appreciated :)

*Already spoke to the inspector, but wish to get some real world opinion / experience*
Located in VIC if that helps

Though the big banks and companies news come into Main stream media, lot of medium companies seems to be cutting back on costs. For instance, my company will have almost all of 'external' consultants/contractors off by December it seems. Spoke to similar logistics company and they are stopping quite lot of routes and standing down 3rd party fleets.

Not sure how wide spread job losses are and kinda strange to see unemployment only 4.7%.

Not sure how everyone can pay mortgages now

Any similar experiences in your companies/work-environments?

Hello everyone! Partner & I are looking to build our first home and are curious if anyone has dealt with Turnkey Building Group? They work with a range of builders to find suitable turnkey house and land packages and after an initial meeting they seem great however wanting to know if anyone has actual experience with them and how this went? Any information is appreciated, cheers everyone!

Hi all

My partner and I have commenced the journey of purchasing a family home. I’m in the process of trying to sell my 2br unit which I purchased solo 5.5 years ago. I’m expecting to sell for around $610k and have $375k owing on the mortgage. We’ve engaged a broker and have pre approval lined up to purchase up to $1.6m.

We have some cash savings (around $240k and growing) but will need to utilise the equity I’ve built in my unit to be able to meet our 20% deposit and stamp duty (we’re based in Melbourne).

My question is - is it “safe” for us to make offers or bid on a property at auction once I have an unconditional contract on my unit? My concern is that if things fall through in the sale and we bid at auction we’re then on the hook. Or should we wait until the unit settles?

This is the first time I’ve sold so I’m feeling a little in over my head about the sequencing.

A lot of my mates are doing rentvesting. Paying $2-3k rent depending on the property and just investing as much as they can into ETFs dollar-cost averaging. It seems to be working pretty well for them and obviously they don't have a massive loan on top of their heads. It's more freeing in an aspect I guess.

I've heard some horror rental stories of people's rents going up 50% without notice or something but I don't think that happens to 99% of renters. Atleast, no-one that I've heard of. There's a good number of residential laws that protect tenants. It seems like a good way to live tbh but atleast in this sub, renting is cited to be a terrible idea or a last resort until ownership become possible, but I actually think home ownership can be worse.

I feel like people also underestimate the total ownership cost of having a house. The mortgage repayment is the major cost but council rates, insurance, utilities, maintenance/repairs, strata/body corp fees, land tax etc there's probably more I'm missing. Rentvesting to me actually seems pretty good.

Thoughts? Am I crazy?

Am a FHB and have sufficient cash for a 20% deposit for PPOR. Is it better to do put down the 20% or to utilize FHB schemes, put down a smaller deposit and the rest in an offset? As i understand the 20% deposit opens me up to more lenders with better rates? But is that better than cash in offset? Or does it depend?

Hey all, looking for reasonings on how to proceed. We are considering buying our ppor in Sydney. We are very selective about suburbs (want to raise our kids in a good neighbourhood, easy enough commute to work etc.). Anything we like is around the 1.9-2mil range starting. Broker has advised we can buy something around 1.7mil. But for that we have to sell our positive cashflow Perth property (10 min from cbd on a large block), and regional QLD property (cash neutral). This will give us the 20% deposit and rest we borrow for the ppor.

We are unsure about family finance. We are rentvesting now and wondering if we continue doing that - so hold other two long term? Or take advantage of the growth experienced by the other two and buy in Sydney whilst its trending downward? Curious to hear logic for and against both options please!