I purchased my first home in 2022 in the Outer Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne for 730k. It was at an auction and I probably overpaid and have regretted it since. I was getting blasted out of the water on bids every time by 100k over reserve and was sick of it. It is a small house, 3 bed, 1 bath, but enough for one person. I have done alot of work to the house and garden myself over the last few years and it is much tidier.

My insurance has skyrocketed to 13k per year from 2-3k due to bushfire and landslide risk and I want to upgrade to a nicer forever home that will be better for me long term. I have since paid off my mortgage with the help of a small inheritance and sale of some investments and am thinking about upgrading my house. I had a few real estate agents appraise my house and they estimate 700-750k which means selling at a loss.

Do I upgrade to a forever home now which I can afford with a small loan or wait until property prices start increasing again, which will mean the forever house I am buying will be more expensive too. I am thinking at since we are in a decline, a forever home will be alot cheaper and offset the loss on my current home

Thoughts?

We moved into our house about a month ago.

The kitchen sink’s silicone has worn out / turned black and there is no caulk between the where the splashback meets the kitchen counter, meaning the water splashing onto that area seeps in underneath (been meaning to get it fixed but as mentioned just moved in)

What can I do to fix the issue? I can try caulking myself but not sure how to re-silicone the areas around the sink. More importantly, has the wood underneath the sink rotted?

If so, how much will this cost to fix?

How to fix? No obvious water stains.

Hi! My partner and I just discovered that the ceiling skirting has a large crack and is caving inwards. We are young renters living in a old character home so we are unsure of whether this constitutes as an emergency repair since its unclear whether the ceiling is impacted or if its just the skirting. Nevertheless we have already contacted the emergency hotline and emailed the property agent but are just looking for second opinions!

Edit: to include that there is also asbestos in the walls 🥲

Edit 2: Fell down at 10pm AWST (2 hrs after post was made) managed to get all valuables out in time luckily!!! Repair team will be coming on Monday at the earliest 💀

So am thinking about upsizing from
a 3BR/2BTH/2Car villa to:
Same as above but lowset house with study,shed,yard access and fenced.
And near a railway stn on the inside of BNE.
Is it better to give a broker a list of your wants rather than traipsing door to door to numerous REA’s.[Which is want I did with first marriage and its house],and it was a long drawn out process.
Anyone recommend a northside broker or explain their experiences in doing so?
Thank you.

I am planning to place an offer for a property on Rosanna Road (Heidelberg) pocket. The agent am dealing with has given an hint that the offer might be accepted (which is 100k less than the advertised price, and 200k less than the suburb median) and I am having a good feeling about it.
I understand Rosanna Road is busy af, but given the north east link is nearing completion, am hoping that all those heavy truck traffic will be banned along Rosanna Road and there will be significantly less noise.
The property ticks all our boxes except the traffic and noise being a main transport road, on the high side of Rosanna Road, great condition, good land area and I honestly don’t want to miss this one.
I would like to have some comments/ feedback/ suggestions from people who have lived on the road, pros and cons etc.

Hey Im a real estate agent and honestly I think most people have no idea how the industry actually works.

Our job is to sell properties, not spend months trying to get every last dollar for the vendor. I’ve had vendors reject perfectly reasonable offers because they think they can get another $30-40k. Sometimes you just have to bring their expectations back to reality and convince them to take the offer.

Same with buyers. If someone really wants a property and can afford to pay more, obviously I’m going to encourage them to put in a stronger offer. It’s their money and ultimately their decision.

And people love complaining about our commissions, but there’s a lot more work involved than just opening doors on Saturdays. Sure some properties practically sell themselves, but that’s just how the business works. At the end of the day we’re trying to make a living too! Spending another month negotiating an extra $20k for the vendor doesn’t really benefit anyone when you consider the time involved.

I genuinely don’t understand why people have such a problem with this??

Any of you catch a whiff of the new changes the govt quietly gazetted 2 days ago in Victoria before they go into caretaker mode?

I work in the industry so I had heard on the grapevine that this would be happening but it was just emails floating around at the point in time. Good to see they actually made a change!

Curious what you all think of it? For anyone that was considering a GF for themselves, having the ability to build up to 80m2 without a planning permit - does this change do much for you or nah?

Any red tape that disappears and requires you not to have to go through council to me is always a win!

My husband (33M) and I (27F) are looking at purchasing a beautiful 1970s home in outer Melbourne that recently entered the market. It’s going for auction at a (potentially) reasonable price. We’re very interested; however, we noticed the bedroom floor upstairs is pretty obviously sloping into the middle. We obtained a building and pest inspection but the inspector didn’t include any mention of this in the report (super odd), and when I called up asking about it, he mentioned that he DID in fact see it, and there is also sloping in the room directly downstairs (laundry - didn’t notice it at first before he said anything) and it’s likely because of the stumps shifting due to the type of soil many of the houses in our town are built on. We’ve obviously requested that this information be added to the report.

This is something we now have to heavily consider when deciding if we will make an offer at the auction. However, I’d love to ask if anyone has any experiences with restumping a home and how much it cost if it was just partial/under one specific area. Would also be happy to get some thoughts on whether anyone thinks this issue might outweigh the benefits for purchasing the property.

Thanks!

Hi there, my partners and I are looking to rent a unit/granny flats/studio for long term (6-12months) in North West Tasmania (Devonport Surrounding area) we work down at Sassafras and are looking to live anywhere near there.

Both of us are backpackers and have been living here for 2 years and have got a steady job. We’re planning to settle down for a bit since it looks like we have a chance to stay longer in Australia.

PM me or leave a comment, I’ll get back to you ASAP.
(Looking to move in by 30th of this month)

Compare apple to apple, I've found middle class neighbourhoods in the US generally look better than rich suburbs in Australia, and Australian middle class suburbs look like rundown ghettos in America.

One particular thing is the pavement looks dirty everywhere even in Toorak but it's so clean in America, I doubt the concrete is different.

Hi Everyone, we are going through our first apartment buying experience and feel very overwhelming. Would like to clarify a few doubts we have.

1. Do we need separate insurance for apartments? I think the insurance is already covered by strata and we don’t want to take contents insurance.

2. We bought the apartment as a private treaty, when exactly do we arrange for building and pest inspection? Our REA says after the building valuation is completed by the bank, we can arrange for the building and pest inspection. How would we know when that happens?

3. Also we received the exchanged contracts, meaning we got the signed contract from the owners and they received our signed contracts. We never received a contract where we all signed. Is it expected?

4. Anything else to be done in the contract once the cooling off period is over or at the settlement?

5. We know there is a final inspection to be done before settlement, anything else do we need to do?

We have got our conveyancer and mortgage broker, but I think we have already irritated them by asking som many s

Hey everyone,

Looking for some advice and experiences from people who’ve been through something similar.

We’re a family with two kids and a dog, living in Melbourne’s west. We’ve been in our current home for around 15 years. It’s a fairly standard 4-bed, 2-bath, 2-car investor-grade house. It’s served us well, but we’re at the stage where we’d like to upgrade to something bigger, more modern and hopefully our long-term family home.
We’ve been going back and forth between two options, and I’m curious what others would do in our situation.

Option 1 – Sell our current home first, then buy
This is probably the more traditional and financially sensible approach.

Pros:
We can properly prepare the house for sale — fresh paint, minor touch-ups, styling, etc.
Once sold, we’ll have access to the equity and can put down a substantial deposit on the new home.
Smaller mortgage, lower repayments and access to more competitive rates with a major lender.
Less financial pressure compared to carrying two homes.

Cons:
The biggest headache is what happens between selling and buying.
We’d ideally need somewhere to rent for 4–6 months while we look for the right property. But how realistic is finding a short-term rental in Melbourne’s west? Would landlords even consider a 4–6 month lease?

Add two kids, a dog, school routines and moving twice into the equation, and it starts sounding like a nightmare.

The other possibility is to prepare and stage our current house while we’re still living in it, sell with a long settlement and hopefully find our next home before settlement.
But realistically, keeping a staged house inspection-ready with kids and a dog sounds challenging. And even with a 90–120 day settlement, there’s no guarantee we’ll find a house we actually love within that timeframe.

Has anyone successfully managed this without needing temporary accommodation?

Option 2 – Buy first, move out, then sell
I’ve explored borrowing options, and a second-tier lender may allow us to purchase our next home while retaining our current one.

The strategy would be:
Arrange the additional deposit funds needed (potentially with temporary help from family).

Purchase the new home using a second-tier lender, accepting a higher interest rate and larger loan initially.

Move into the new home.

With the old house vacant, properly prepare it for sale — paint, tidy up, stage and list.

Sell the old house and use the proceeds to substantially reduce the new mortgage.
Refinance the remaining loan to a major bank at a more competitive rate, assuming servicing and lending criteria are met.

Pros:
We can take our time finding the right home without the pressure of an approaching settlement deadline.

Only need to move once.

No short-term rentals, storage or disruption to the kids and dog.

Can properly prepare and stage the old home once it’s vacant.

Potentially end up in the same financial position as Option 1 once the old house sells and the new mortgage is reduced.

Cons:
Need to arrange additional deposit funds upfront.

Higher interest rate and repayments while holding both properties.

Carrying two mortgages temporarily, which obviously comes with risk.

If the old house takes longer to sell or doesn’t achieve the expected price, we could be carrying a fairly significant debt for longer than planned.

Refinancing later isn’t guaranteed, and we’d need to factor in lender fees and other costs.

What would you do?
I’m leaning towards Option 2 purely for the convenience of moving once and being able to properly prepare our existing home for sale without living in it.

But I also appreciate that convenience comes at a financial cost and additional risk.

For those who’ve upgraded their family homes:

- Did you sell first and rent? How did you manage finding a short-term rental, especially with pets?

- Did anyone sell with a long settlement and manage to buy their next home in time?

- Has anyone bought first using a second-tier lender, sold their previous home and then refinanced successfully?

- Would you take on the temporary higher borrowing costs for the convenience, assuming you could comfortably service both loans for a reasonable period?

- Not looking for financial advice as such, more interested in hearing how others navigated this and whether there’s a better option I haven’t considered.

Honestly, never realised how stressful selling one house and buying another could be until we started looking into it. 😂 Thought upgrading would be the exciting part, but the logistics are doing my head in already lol.

Cheers!

I'm feeling trapped in an older house that needs repairs. All the things that originally made it affordable for my family are now the same things that will make it difficult to sell; stumps in need of repair, cosmetic damage to the roof, a leaning fence and general cosmetic issues inside the house. I've chipped away at some issues and improved it in other ways but we're outgrowing the space.

It's easy for me to feel like we won't find a buyer in the new market, or that we will have to accept a bad price. We'd be seeking a simultaneous settlement so that we can move smoothly into our next house but I fear the difficulty in selling this one won't make that easy.

In saying this, it does present reasonably well for first home buyers and it's on a relatively large block size within 25 mins of a capital city centre. Its just the building and pest which may drive buyers away.

Im looking for advice on how to sell a place like this, or positive testimonials about how it may not be as impossible as I'm making it out to be in my head.

Hi everyone,

I’m based in Melbourne and will be moving out of my rental apartment at the end of October.

On Wednesday night, my property manager emailed me about an open inspection scheduled for this Saturday from 12:30 pm to 12:45 pm.

The email didn’t ask whether the time suited me or whether I would be available. Instead, they simply sent me a Google Calendar invitation stating that an open inspection had been scheduled.

I replied straight away, saying they were welcome to conduct the inspection during that time, but I wouldn’t be home as I already had plans for Saturday.

I didn’t hear anything back from them all day today. Then, at 6:07 pm, I received another email titled “Friendly Reminder”, asking me to either contact their office immediately or drop off my keys at their office by 9:15 am tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I can’t do either. Their office had already closed at 6 pm, and I have to work tomorrow.

Since they specifically asked me to drop off my keys, I’m assuming they don’t have a spare set at the office? Nobody has actually confirmed this, so I’m just guessing based on their email.

My question is: Am I legally required to make myself available or provide my keys to the agent for an open inspection?

I’m genuinely not trying to make anyone’s life difficult. I understand they need to arrange inspections for prospective tenants, and I’m happy to cooperate where reasonably possible.

However, nobody contacted me beforehand to discuss whether the inspection time was suitable, and nobody mentioned that they didn’t have spare keys. I had already told them I wouldn’t be home, but they didn’t respond until the following evening, after their office had closed.

I work full-time and have a pretty demanding job. Weekends are really the only time I have to take care of personal matters. On top of that, we’re in the middle of moving, so we’re using our weekends to move our belongings to the new house.

I’m just a bit frustrated by the lack of communication and the expectation that I should rearrange my schedule at such short notice.

Has anyone in Victoria dealt with something similar? Am I legally required to provide access in this situation, even though I’ve already told them I won’t be available?

Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

Searched subreddits for historical experiences but keen to know any recent dealings/experiences with them please? Thanks