Hopefully without stirring up too much hate, my girlfriend and I will likely be moving to Sydney in about two years when we graduate (Finance and Nursing). Let’s say $200k gross.

I moved to Australia five years ago, while my girlfriend has lived in Brisbane her entire life, so neither of us has ever lived in Sydney. My parents are planning to gift me around $3 million towards buying a house when I graduate.

Given that I’ll likely be working in finance, with longer hours and a demanding schedule, I’d ideally like to live relatively close to the CBD with good public transport connections. However, we’d really prefer a house over an apartment if possible.

We’d also love to live near the beach, although I’m not sure how realistic that is with our budget and other preferences.

Where would you choose? We’d love somewhere with a good lifestyle, a nice neighbourhood, cafes, parks and a bit of character, rather than just endless rows of houses. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

WA
Looking for a bit of advice.
We’re in a position to buy a property right now, and are looking at our options. Neither of us (my partner and I) have parents to discuss this with so I guess I’m looking for some advice really from the community.

There’s the opportunity to build. The area we like is a new build estate, land is $500k for a 375m2 block, so total house build would be around $900-950k mark. Excluding your small garden set up. Nice area although close(ish) to industrial area. Perth SOR. I struggle with the small garden, being so close to your neighbours, and the houses all looking the same. But it is what it is in a new estate. Spoken to a few builders, with a bit of a custom build we are looking around 2.5 years from settlement to keys, we would be renting during that time. That part scares me a bit.

Or we could ride out these interest rate rises and find an established property in a more established area, hopefully with the house prices dropping/stabilising. Happy to do a bit of renovation.

We are a couple, no kids, healthy chunk of cash savings (200k), on a combined income of around $200k. Partner will complete final highest qualification early 2027 and will get a substantial pay rise.

Again just looking for some advice as we don’t have anyone to discuss this with except a broker in terms of the numbers, but it’s not just about the financials, there’s lot of variables that go into it. We’re not investors, it would be our home.

You may have to spell things out to me like I’m 5. I am no expert.

We had a house overseas about 10 years ago. Rates were like 2 or 3 % if I recall and we had a fixed term, I can’t recall even considering a variable.

Fast forward to now in Australia, we bought a house a couple of years ago. Variable loan, which has seemed to be constantly going up right now. but i dont know if getting a fixed at the time would’ve been a better gamble. Or to consider getting one now.

We have some friends who went fixed and can’t believe that we chose to go variable but i think we’re all just as clueless as each other.

I was just curious on other people’s situations.

I bought at a one bed apartment at the top of the market for 650k in Brisbane prior to the NG/CGT changes. Since the changes two one bed places in my building have gone on the market. The first one has been sitting there for 2 months and the other was only recently listed at 625k. I feel like my deposit has disappeared into thin air. I am not planning on selling but I have certainly overpaid and am now being hammered with repayments that could have been much lower if I had waited.

My partner and I are FHBs and were looking to buy for about 9 months before we finally found a place. We used a buyers agent as we weren’t confident in our ability to seal the deal because, while other suburbs in Sydney seemed to be seeing big price drops, our search area remained fairly consistent and competitive.

We settle in a couple of days and TBH we are pretty extended so the mortgage repayments will be a big change for us and we will require much stricter budgeting and more sacrifices, especially as our rent right now is quite reasonable. We can definitely make it through a few more rises though and have the option to take on a little extra work if needed, so have confidence that we will make it work.

We bought our apartment for less than the average price for 2 bdr apartments in the suburb over the last 6 months and it’s a lovely little spot with some water views. We are really excited to move in and know the lifestyle will be amazing.

My question is, do people think that buying at this time was a mistake? Are we expecting prices to drop a lot or do we think that because this area is in high demand to live, prices won’t move too much? We see ourselves being there for about 8-10 years.

I understand that what’s done is done, so not looking for advice but just keen to hear people’s thoughts.

SA (adl)
quoted $4450 to remove old rotted posts/rail and rusty sheets and fit new posts + rail + 2.1m corro fence 18m straight run.

does this seem about right? ive done smaller side fence sections myself but just cant be assed doing 18m
neighbour knows im getting quotes including new tin as i dont see much point replacing posts and rails and reusing corro sheets that are rusting out on the bottom

Hi folks,
I am looking to bid on this house in Sydney, I was hoping to get some general advice on these cracks i saw.
Does this look very serious?
1.) crack on exterior of house wall (white)
2.) crack found on garden wall (brown wall)

Looking at a place there as it’d be really close to work and family but have heard 15th Avenue is an absolute nightmare at peak times - wondering if it’s really that bad or if it’s just noise? Can you get out via Qantas Blvd easily?

I’ll generally be leaving 7:30am back around 4pm.

Mind you we’d be coming from Box Hill so Windsor / Richmond Roads are daily’s for us.

Hello everyone!

I am thinking of purchasing a 2 unit bedroom apartment in Lower North Shore for PPOR purpose.

Few places in mind- Chatswood, Artarmon or St Leonards.

Any thoughts or experiences living in these suburbs would be helpful!

Thank you.

Getting to a point of buyers fatigue… has anyone had any good results from buyers agent? Or should I jst suck it up and keep looking!

FHB from Brisbane, QLD

There have been too many topics on the local property bubble on the verge of bursting. But if it is the reality, i think Aussies stand no chance to own a home.

I am not even talking about the difficulty of getting home loans or resulted job losses. The top 0.01% of foreign investors and big hedge funds will swoop in to speculate local properties with cash. Yes cash. There are people from China, India, Vietnam who have 10, 20 mils in the bank ready to take over good stocks of Aussie homes.

Do you think you can compete with them?

We're in a global economic downturn. House prices are dropping EVERYWHERE. Why is everyone acting like it's the fault of the last fed budget?? If anyone is interested, I did NOT use AI to pull this information together. I'm genuinely just an interested person who has been trying to understand what's happening.

UK: Home sellers cut asking prices on 3000 properties a day https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c84g13z6xx4eo

US: America's home sellers now outnumber buyers by 63% - the biggest gap since the housing crash https://nypost.com/2026/10/15/real-estate/us-home-sellers-outnumber-buyers-by-record-63/

NZ: Zealand house prices crash back to 2017 https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2026/10/new-zealand-house-prices-crash-back-to-2017

Canada: Canada's deflating housing bubble stymies wealth effect of booming stock market https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-deflating-housing-bubble-stymies-wealth-effect-booming-stock-market-2026-04-28/

France: Why are property prices falling in France? https://www.connexionfrance.com/property/why-are-property-prices-falling-in-france/817005

Sweden: Is Sweden property market bubble bursting? https://investropa.com/blogs/news/sweden-property-market-bubble-bursting

And so on, and so on, and so on. It's happening EVERYWHERE. This is the hangover from the years and years of cheap debt. Let's stop telling ourselves it's Chalmers' fault.

Me and my sibling own a house together for the last couple of years, we have had a couple of things happen and they are going to sign the house over to me would I have to pay stamp duty on a house that I already paid the stamp duty on when we initially bought it

Hi All,

I live in a strata townhouse complex in NSW. Generally well maintained and the committee looks to be running the scheme well enough, so no real complaints from the organisational side. I haven’t applied to be on the committee as our next AGM is a few months away and i’ve just moved into the complex.

My issue lies with a couple of tenants in the complex, that allow their children to play in the complex driveway as their own personal playground. Skateboarding, riding bicycles, motorised scooters and drift karts, to name a few. This occurs at all hours of the day on weekends and generally most afternoons after school is finished.

Not only is this a major safety concern as cars are constantly driving up and down the driveway, but the sheer noise of the kids screaming, yelling and carrying on is annoying and disturbing the ‘reasonable peace a lot owner should enjoy’ as outlined in the bylaws.

I’ve raised my concerns many times with strata via email and lodging by law complaints, however, the strata manager has come back on my occasions stating that the committee won’t pursue this further as they view it as ‘community living’ which is a load of BS personally.

Not only are there a dozen amazing free playgrounds (trampolines, flying foxes, climbing walls) and some of the most beautiful beaches around the area within 500m-1.5kms of the complex, the unsupervised children causing a nuisance in the complex driveway treating it as a personal playground, shouldn’t be tolerated by the other lot owners.

Has anyone experienced something similar? What’s the best course of action to tackle this?

It seems absurd to me that it should just be accepted and that the remainder of the complex ‘deals with it’ as a couple of tenants are inconsiderate of their neighbours and surroundings.

Hey guys :) ,

Just seeing if anyone has recent experience building around the Hunter region area in NSW. We are looking to build a 4 bed 2 bath. We have asked around but are still definitely in the early stages of building. Am I being delusional or is a 4 bed with decent/okay inclusions doable for the low 500,000s. (We already have land sorted). Any advice is welcome I am new to this!

House prices are not included in CPI, real inflation is way above 4% as peoples wages and saving have not kept up with housing inflation why are people not aware of this?

what happens if the sale contract is not ready before auction? my partner and I are hoping to attend the auction of a property on sat oct 24th but I've been chasing up the sale contract for two weeks with nothing to show so far. apparently the vendor submitted the sale documents needed to their solicitor last wednesday. at that point the property had already been listed on realestate.com for like 20 days. if the contract isnt ready in time do they just reschedule the auction? we are still waiting on building inspection results to come tomorrow regardless but it feels a bit unfair that someone can have a propery up for sale for so long without it even being ready to go. we would have considered a private offer but there just isnt time before the auction

Hi I have rented out a property through a real estate agent. It is becoming a headache asking lots of simple things to fix using their contractors. How can I remove the exciting agent and replace it with a new one?

Found the most beautiful double brick walk up unit I have seen in my life. Built in the 60s, in an old rich suburb. Strata is 1,500 a quarter but you can tell that everything including the garden is taken care of professionally. Easily over a million dollars just a year ago. But it's on the market for 850,000 right now.

Apparently three units were found with magnesite concrete cancer. There are also two units listed on the market, which have not been identified to have concrete cancer. I am not sure if they have been checked at all.

Does anyone have experience with concrete cancer and can give me a ballpark figure on what it might cost to fix?

Full Article - Sydney houses under $1m to vanish in 2030s as $2m prices become norm - realestate.com.au

was planning on buying a property couple days ago - then read AI doom n gloom and thought who will pay mortgages if AI takes jobs.

AI is causing people to loose jobs so wont it hurt the mortgage market ? but then people will always need a place to live regardless.

also, AI is causing inflation due to data centre build but eventually will it not drive inflation lower with machine work taking over ? - just like IT boom lowered interest rates over last few decades !

Over the weekend, I attended an auction for a four-bedroom, two-bathroom, double-garage house in South Australia, and to my surprise, I was the only bidder there. No one else turned up, and no one else had even registered. Because of this, the agent spoke with me directly, and I put forward an offer below the asking price. The vendors refused to budge and wouldn't even come to the negotiating table, so I left the auction empty-handed. Is this a common experience?

Was hoping to negotiate but didnt happen

Mid 40s. Steady income. Restarting life. Child support. ACT based. Researching property. The market. Loan structures.

I don't want to just work the next 20 years JUST trying to pay off a mortgage before I retire. Though I don't think it's possible ATM, I want a home where the kids can run around in a safe, enclosed backyard. I feel like there may be a few potential strategies. I have a broker I like, but I don't think he's very "forward thinking." I'm seeing a lot of ads along the lines of "do what we say and you can build wealth, not just get stuck in the first place you buy." I expect it involves selective property choice, offset accounts and debt recycling, and I'm open to all that, but I want proper advice and to be confident I'm making good choices.

Who should I speak to? A mortgage broker? A financial advisor? Someone else?

Hi all.

I’m seeking recommendations for an affordable removalist company to assist with a relocation from Sydney to Melbourne.

I recently obtained a quote from Chess Moving for just under $10k for 29 cubic metres (approx. 2 bed home).

When we moved up to Sydney from Melbourne four years ago, we paid $4800 and will have the same amount of furniture / belongings.

I appreciate that costs have increased since then, but the quote we obtained from Chess seems a bit steep.

Would greatly appreciate any recommendations!