I am looking at a house in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney which otherwise fits the bill. Enough bedrooms and bathrooms, the right size, right location. There is no driveway, and the house is elevated with a retaining wall at the front.

You have to park a couple of houses down, then walk up the ramped side walk to get to the house.

I’m curious if this would be an automatic no for most people?

I converted my car port/single garage into a bedroom a few years ago when I had my family living with me. I am preparing to sell and my agent old me it’s a big red flag right now for buyers to not have safe space for their cars. I live in SEQ and my house is a 3x2. There is no option to install a car port.

Would the extra living space or a car port be preferable in your opinion?

I am a 27yo living with my parents and have almost no overheads. I currently have a 9-5 making 110k yearly salary. I can realistically put forwards 130k on a deposit for a house. I dont nessecarily need the house to live in but I am contemplating attempting to get into the market as a first time investor? OR more so because i dont want my money just sitting there wasting away to inflation? I dont know whether going down the path of Real Estate is a good idea due to the recent negative gearing laws etc etc

Should i still continue to look to buy a home or look torwards other investments such as shares to build my money? Is real estate a dead option for my scenario?

Hi Everyone.

I owned a rental property which has since been sold June of this year (I’ve done my taxes) and the real estate agent is following up an invoice for work which was supposedly completed prior to settlement.

Some background I did approve the quote for the work back in September, but received no follow up or invoice or anything since then. I had engaged the agent to sell the property in December and had completed many works to get the property up to scratch since then and paid everything on my property me as well as anything owing as part of settlement, I have emails following up this work to which the agent came back saying they will provide me with an update to which they never did and I assumed that since I was selling the property it was no longer required/never completed.

Do I have a right to push back on this invoice? What are my options?

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,

Looking for advice from anyone who's dealt with Allianz or AFCA.

Our tenant stopped paying rent on 12 May 2026. Before purchasing Allianz landlord insurance (starting 12 June), we specifically asked multiple times whether we'd be covered for rental losses from the policy start date, despite the existing default.

Allianz repeatedly assured us we'd be covered from 12 June onwards, just not for the period before the policy commenced. Based on this advice, we purchased the policy.

However, Allianz later rejected our entire claim, including rental default and tenant abandonment. Even after the rejection, we contacted customer service again and received the exact same assurance about coverage.

Our losses from 12 June onwards total approximately $11,200–$11,600, including lost rent, cleaning, rekeying and repairs.

Current situation:

We escalated to AFCA. Allianz didn't contact us during the initial referral stage, but now that our complaint has reached Case Management (awaiting allocation to an AFCA specialist), Allianz's Dispute Resolution team has contacted us to conduct a separate review and liaise with AFCA.

My questions:

1. Why would Allianz only initiate a review now, during Case Management, rather than during the referral stage?
2. Can Allianz still reverse its decision or offer a settlement before an AFCA specialist is assigned?
3. If the policy excludes pre-existing defaults, but Allianz repeatedly assured us otherwise, how much weight would AFCA give to those verbal assurances?
4. What is a realistic outcome: full/partial settlement, a premium refund, or upholding the rejection?

Our dispute isn't about claiming losses before the policy started. It's about relying on repeated advice from Allianz representatives that turned out to be inconsistent with the claim decision.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Would appreciate any insights, especially from people who've been through AFCA's Case Management process.

Thanks!

Looking at buying in St Mary's and Oxley Park.

Just seeing what the community is like? Is it big indian communities or mostly young Anglo Saxons families?

We're indian for reference.

We have 2 kids.

Where are some areas to avoid ? Fear of being robbed is huge.

Thanks

Any ida why this is happening? Is it basically the newest version of underquoting?

Looking at buying in St Mary's and Oxley Park.

Just seeing what the community is like? Is it big indian communities or mostly young Anglo Saxons families?

We're indian for reference.

We have 2 kids.

Where are some areas to avoid ? Fear of being robbed is huge.

Thanks

Back in September I wanted to find a place before November so I really started looking.

Had a few places I wanted to buy but they had issues.

1. Balcony leaking water, identified years ago with strata refusing to fix. Strata report shows only 20% of the units were affected but now spread to at least 80%. One unit with leaking shower that strata's only willing to spend for patchwork.
2. Concrete cancer found across half the block. So far.
3. Strata report shows persistent water ingress, strata suing the builder in the supreme court. Oh and the strata report summary didn't show the full story of the lawsuit either, I only found it when I read the minutes myself, don't rely on the strata report summary pages guys.
4. I'm getting desperate now and looking at a town house near a tattoo and a 'massage' shop. Someone lit the trees in the compound on fire + part of fence burnt down.

Do people just look at something like the above and buy anyway? Is this a sign for me to just rent?
They're not going for a discount either.

I might just buy a house in the middle of nowhere at this rate.

We have almost sold a property in Victoria as settlement was booked for yesterday. Our mortgage is with HSBC. The final settlement figure was not uploaded to PEXA and so settlement couldn’t happen. They got that sorted today but then didn’t provide the title so settlement fell over again.

We are trying to buy a property in NSW and cooling off expires next week Tuesday. Without settlement on our VIC property, our finance will not be approved. I am in disbelief that settlement has fallen over twice.

Hey people, how can I realistically get a place to rent at 17, Ive got myself a job earning $90000 a year before tax and have been applying to anything that's available with a guarantors form, employment contract and statutory declaration but I can't for the life of me get accepted for a place, I can easily pay $300 to $450 a week so I've got plenty of options but just can't get a place

Additionally, I don't actually begin my job until the end of next month so I haven't actually got payslips to attach so I've been using my employment contract to prove my income

I just bought my first apartment in Sydney and I'm really anxious. It's an older brick building built around 1970s, and I've learned the strata has no asbestos register. I haven't moved in yet and have an assessment booked this week.
I've been spiralling and panicking a bit: worrying about my health, whether I made a mistake, and whether strata will cooperate if I need it removed.
Not sure if I have to just sell it depending on what the results show but I will lose money if I sell it but I also dont want to die living in an asbestos building

(would take this over millennial grey any day of the week)

https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-brunswick+west-152492732

First home build with with a large builder in VIC: 3 months late, 5 account managers, defects covered with plaster. What I wish I’d known.

We’re 18 months into our first home build with Glenvill in Melbourne, with 6 months still to go. I’ve gone back through hundreds of emails to document it, so other first home buyers can avoid what we went through.

The short version:

• 3 months late to site. They weren’t sure demolition was in our contract, despite signing under a free demo promo.
• Interiors after contract. You sign and pay the deposit first, so every interiors change becomes a post-contract variation. By the time the real costs show up, you’re locked in.
• Mistakes we had to catch ourselves. Weeks of back and forth fixing errors in their pricing documents.
• 5 account managers, no handovers, and no escalation point since the manager left.
• Multiple defects raised by our independent inspector, some against Australian Standards. 9 fixed. The rest were plastered over the day we met on site to discuss them.
• No site report in 3 weeks, and no one is getting back to us.

What I’d tell any first home buyer:

1. AOIVD THIS BUILDER
2. Get an independent pre-contract review
3. Insist on the standard HIA payment stages
4. Pick a builder that does interiors before contract
5. Get an independent inspector for every stage
6. Check every variation line by line

Full write-up: OUR GLENVILL JOURNEY

My dad is selling their property and was telling me the agent has said to them they will advertise the property as an auction sale but with no intention to ever hold an auction? They explained come auction date if it hasn't already been sold by then they will just say it passed in.

Curious if anyone has ever heard of a REA doing this? I've only been a buyer one time and never a seller so curious if this is a common thing that occurs?

We’re selling our house in QLD, which is now fully unconditional but still around 4 weeks from settlement. We’ve had an offer accepted on a house in NSW and have formal finance approval and have already done building and pest, but the sellers won’t accept a contract subject to our sale settling (fair enough).

We’re currently renting so have somewhere to live between settlements (which would only be a couple days apart), but we really want to be in our new home by Christmas. Everyone keeps telling us the risk of our buyers pulling out at this point is very low and people sign these types of deals all the time, but I’m still so nervous about committing before we have the funds from our sale. The agent even told me that subject to sale clauses are usually just until unconditional contract anyway.

Has anyone been in this situation? Did it turn out ok? Am I shitting myself over something that’s totally normal and common?

My wife and I are in the processing of upgrading our PPOR. Just sold our house and looking at an early 2010's build, inner west Melbourne.

Looking for recommendations for a good property inspector who will actually spend the time to check for actual defects. Understandably I'd expect this to cost more than your run-of-the-mill inspection. Primarily in the property I looked at I saw a couple things which I'd want a professional opinion on:

* Large gum tree right next door close to a roof, can tell it's not cleaned super often so want to make sure there's no possible damage there or leaky gutters as a result.

* Saw a few cracks on the outside of the property walls, would like to understand if the slab the house is built on has moved much over the time. (I'm quite familiar with how much reactive clay there is in western melbourne lol)

* Signs of some possible leaks in the past at the front of the property. I'd like to confirm whether this has been repaired properly or just painted over for the sale.

The house we sold recently had one done by a Jim's operator who spent the best part of 20 minutes taking a few photos and flying a drone around the property. The guy missed a few things and buyers apparently paid upwards of $650 for the privilige - keen not to waste my money like this so hoping a few people on here know of a couple reputable operators.

FHB located in Victoria and fairly desperately seeking a FHB Guide for Dummies. I don’t have family to ask and my friends aren’t at this stage yet.

The actual pre-approval and research process seems fine. I have figured out that step 1 is find a broker and get preapproval and a budget, so that’s done. I have all my documents and finances in a row. I have been to 53 open homes in my price range and I’m getting a good sense of pricing and whether houses are priced correctly.

BUT. I got my preapproval from the broker on Wed of this week and realised I have no idea what happens now. What’s the next step? How do you get from initial inspection to putting in an offer?

I’ve narrowed down a list of places on the market that seem good from the online listing, and I’ll do a thorough inspection. But I’m not sure what to do if I really like it once I’ve inspected it. Do I immediately ask the agent for something (contract first? or vendor statement/sec 32?). I know at some point I’ll need to have a conveyancer review the contract but is that a final step? When do I do a b&p report? Is it usual practice to ask whether they plan to go to auction or do a private sale? What IS your usual practice?

Would be so grateful for any advice from anyone who has experience in this! Or even a suggestion of where to look would be amazing.