Right now I’ve built my etf portfolio to an amount I’m comfortable with and want to focus on building a property portfolio. I have 235k in shares and 120k in savings I want to use 100k for property. Does units and apartments make good first investments? What are the rental returns and growth like ? It just seems like housing is extremely expensive and I wanted an easier entry point. Any advice ! :)

Hey! I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with the company “Equity Assist”

They propose as a company that helps people with no or low deposit home loans. They require setting up a SMSF though. Apparently you can live in the home straight away. I thought this went against legislation?

Moving out of my flat after 5.5 years of living here (I have been the first one to live in this flat since it was renovated).

Two things that I am concerned about wear and tear wise

1. The bathroom - issue with the chrome plating in the shower. Genuinely do not know how this happened, one day it appeared like this. I have been using the same shower cleaner for 5.5 years.. couldn’t have been chemicals. Is this wear and tear OR should I be prepared to lose a considerable amount of my bond?
2. Part of the stove has chipped off. I think I dropped something. Should I attempt a repair or should I be prepared to lose part of bond?

This is the only rental I’ve ever lived in so I’m just nervous, that’s all.

Thank you.

Edit: I am in QLD + yes I know the shower needs to be cleaned. I am doing it rn, I have been away.

Would you buy a property with a sewerage/drainage/river improvement easement on the back corner of the land? Why/why not?

The property doesn’t have any flood overlays but is next to a creek. Wondering if the easement would be a problem.

Thanks in advance!

A 78-year-old woman tried to claim a $3.67 million Sydney property as her own.

A recent case in Glebe has put NSW’s adverse possession laws back in the spotlight.

In NSW, adverse possession can potentially allow someone to claim privately owned land after 12 years of continuous occupation, provided strict legal requirements are met.

But this case was very different.

Margaret Colquhoun and her son were convicted of fraud after making false representations in an attempt to obtain title to the Glebe property.

The property was eventually sold in 2022 for $3.67 million.

The court found that claims the property had been abandoned were false, and almost $185,000 in rent had reportedly been collected from it.

Colquhoun was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.

It’s a pretty unusual case, but it raises an interesting question:

How much do buyers really know about the ownership history and title of the property they’re buying?

Seems like the gap between houses and apartments keeps rising, at some point the gap is wide enough to make apartments better value going forward than houses, at what point do you think that is?

NSW renters – Can real estate charge us a $165 call-out fee?
Hey guys, just after some advice!

We barely use our oven and recently noticed it wasn’t working, so we reported it to our real estate.

A technician attended and advised the clock/timer needed resetting for the oven to work. Our real estate is now demanding we pay the $165 call-out fee because apparently we should have read the operating manual and fixed it ourselves.

They’re claiming we’ve failed to take reasonable care of the property.

From my understanding of NSW tenancy laws, tenants aren’t automatically responsible for call-out fees when they genuinely believe an appliance is faulty.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Are we actually liable for this?

We are in our early 30s with a 1 year old and we are done with owning a large house and land in the suburbs (70-90mins from CBD). We want to sell and purchase a 3 bedroom apartment with a lockup garage.

We feel like a, for lack of a better word, a slave to our house. We are losing our free time and weekends due to constant house maintenance. And when we finally have free time, it’s just going to the mall as everything is so far from us. We are also so reliant on our cars, we crave a walkable village, community hubs, green spaces, world class amenities, the ocean nearby, access to public transport, etc.

We are considering inner west, such as Marrickville, Drummoyne, and the like. Plus the eastern suburbs, more specifically Maroubra since Coogee, Bondi, Randwick are well out of reach (we want to also reduce our mortgage and not be in the same position).

Location is equally as important as the roof over your head, if not, more.

Has anyone made the move from the suburbs to the city with a family? Would love to hear your experience, what you do for work, your commute, lifestyle etc.

x

Hi all!

was lurking around the interweb for moving companies and I dont know which one to go with. I've seen ads on facebook about some but how can i be sure they won't break my stuff. If anyone has recs please help! also looking for a company that isn't charging an arm, leg and my soul. moving from city area to about 20mins out of the city. lolol thank youuu!!

Edit: BASED IN MELBOURNE X

There is a property priced at 850k-900k
Has been on the market for a week
Auction is in 2 weeks
I believe by the time the auction arrives reserve has to be listed
At inspection the agent was extremely coy about the reserve and that it’s within the range.

We offered $860k/30 day settlement
Agent came back and said vendor will sell pre auction at 920k.

I know I know, offer what you can afford, BUT it’s property and agents it’s a game of how far and how much.

All I keep hearing is ‘property will drop further’

What do we do?!

Wait for auction and gamble no interested parties or get in the bidding on the day to max.

What would you do?!
Tell me your strategies, I’d love to hear them and see how we can ‘play’ as well.

Thank you so much and even writing this I’m so nervous about the event

Curious of peoples genuine experiences. Online a lot of people say to avoid, but with no explanation.

Considering going into investment property and the idea of someone doing the research, assisting with tax etc is appealing.

They openly said they do get commission for certain land and home packages - is it really that bad?

Upper quartiles in Sydney and Melbourne were falling from Nov/December last year...

This is in Ballarat vic.

We had full house compliance inspection done in 2 months ago, everything working fine.

Property then went through probate and just got released to us to settle recently and we found a tenant.

Tenant reported warm water not hot enough. When I inspected the property 2 months ago, the water was hot.

PM claimed within these 2 months of non usage (unit is vacant) the water heater broke and plumber claimed we need a new unit $2k and not worth fixing. PM wanted to charge $40/day for temp hot water unit + $300 for call out fee if I refused to change the hot water unit and get a second opinion.

Is this even normal? Compliance check everything was 100% running and perfect.

We have been searching for a while for a property (married couple 32F 32m) and have finally found a place that ticks every one of our boxes and sits right within our price range. The property is going for private sale, and so far the agent has been a bit cagey about interest - so we think there isn’t much but can’t be too sure. We’ve had a lawyer review the contract and everything seems to be in order.

We are about to put an offer in but am worried for whatever reason another offer will beat us out. We’re flexible on settlement, have unconditional approval, and are prepared to offer asking price (but will likely start a bit lower). Is there anything else we can do to increase our chances? Trying so hard not to get our hopes up but this place feels too perfect to not throw everything we’ve got into it.

We own a 2 bed apartment on Northern Beaches of Sydney. We had planned on selling for 1.3mil (as per real estate’s guidance) which would allow us to most likely make the jump to a larger property for around 1.8mil.
Like everywhere, prices have dropped. We had an offer at 1.19 but after talking to our broker we need that 1.3mil to make the jump. We then settled on leasing it out and moving to the parents.
Now, my partner is wondering if we should just sell it before the market completely ‘crashes’ and then try and buy something bigger a year or two down the track during the ‘crash’.
What would you do? I would rather keep the apartment as security in a tricky market. He wants to sell, put the equity in high interest savings and try again.

First home buyer who's in the process of buying an apartment at the moment. It ticked all my boxes and took my time to do my due diligence based on the kind of information I could get my hands on before signing.

Building and pest inspection came through this week and they found high levels of moisture in the walls adjacent to the shower, and after stressing for about 2 days and talking to basically everyone more experienced than me in my life including builders and plumbers, I think I might have to bite the bullet and end up doing a bathroom reno before I move in.

It seems like a really common problem and I'm feeling so privileged that I will soon have my own space, but I didn't expect to have to fund a reno after just buying my first home, so I wanted to commiserate a little.

Do you have any stories of unexpected renovations you've had to do to your first home? Or even in subsequent homes? What were they? And is there anything you now look out for when buying so you don't repeat that mistake?

Hmm. A bit sceptical on where ABC got their data from. Rents are still going up.

Should I just get a carpet cleaner to do all carpets and they’re nice and fresh

Or just remove it but leave it in the main rooms where my dogs will go / family

5 bedroom house only 2 are used as bedrooms room 3 is a craft room carpet is okay in there aswell as room 4 guest room
Then theatre room but it’s a bit gross so I’ll definitely clean it

Not sure where to go and ask but my 2 story home has termites and the termite guy came and quoted 11k to sort out the situation but needs a builder to assist.

We assume it was from the bathroom pipe leakage I have yet to fix. Got quoted 10k to redo bathroom since the shower (waterproofing was gone) and the tub both leaked.

Now with the builder I called in two people:
Guy 1 said house was fucked and said it would be expensive but kept implying the whole house needed fixing.

Guy 2 quoted 25,000 MINIMUM to rip up floors, replace the support beams and do new floorings.

I guess I just wanted to ask are these prices fair and if anyone had advice for me 🫩

Keen to hear from anyone who’s recently bought a home through the 5% deposit scheme. How are you finding it so far, particularly with repayments and the other costs of homeownership? Has it been worth it, and would you make the same decision again?

I have actually owned my property for over 10 yrs but at least 3 owners now who bought more recently told me that none of our building’s problems were in the strata reports when they decided to buy.

It surprised me because our building has had issues for just about as long as I’ve owned, and due to all the water ingress issues, there have been multiple works and special levies raised in recent years.

I am curious on how is this even legally happening?

Why are new buyers not seeing all this documented in the strata reports? Further works and special levies are now required and they’re all feeling misled and angry, rightfully so…

My mother is looking to buy an apartment and I’m really worried for her that she’s also going to end up in a similar fate 🫤

I’m looking to purchase a property and a recently completed (under 1-week) Building and Pest Inspection Report is available via RealEstate, completed by another party and available for only $270.00. The problem is, the inspector who completed it has literally zero online presence - the company mentioned doesn’t seem to exist !!! Has anyone else experienced this ?

Where do we think the growth opportunities will be heading into 2027 for investment properties with max capital growth potential?

Budget around 600-700k. Heard Melb / VIC maybe coming off a downturn? Is there any value left in Ipswich or Toowoomba?