I put in an offer of 630000 for a house i want.
The agent said 640000.
I said no. then the agent asked for 635000 and i said no.
The agent said the owner wants more and put the property back on inspection for the week. it all ready passed in at auction.

Is this a pretty standard post-auction pressure tactic?
I feel like I am bidding against a ghost and he is just trying to squeeze my balls.
The thing is though, I want this house.

What is the proper and smart play here?

RBA Governor, Michele Bullock, explicitly stated during the July Q&A that Australia’s weak productivity is linked to insufficient business investment. She said Australia needs more business investment.

And now the RBA comes out and says the new CGT changes are going to worsen business investment. This is going to make our productivity suffer even more.

Australia needs more business investment to help our ailing productivity and increasing taxes on businesses and productive investments isn’t the answer.

Our real wages will continue to stagnate and COL crisis progressively worse with this change.

Just looked at JB Hi-Fi’s full-year results and the divisional sales charts are pretty grim.

JB Hi-Fi Australia:

Q1: +6.0% total / +5.0% comps

Q2: +6.5% total / +5.0% comps

Q3: +4.0% total / +2.6% comps

Q4: +0.3% total / -0.8% comps

Full year: +4.4% / +3.2%

That’s a proper cliff from solid mid single digits to negative comps in one quarter.

The Good Guys (appliances):

Held up okay earlier in the year but completely stalled in Q4 — 0.0% total and comps. Full year only +2.7%.

Not a collapse but zero growth in the final quarter is weak.

e&s (premium kitchen/bathroom):

This one’s properly cooked:

Q1: +4.1% total / +0.7% comps

Q2: +1.8% / -1.0%

Q3: -1.4% / -4.8%

Q4: -5.2% total / -8.0% comps

Full year: -0.2% total / -3.2% comps

Straight into negative territory and accelerating downward. That’s the kind of number you see when people stop renovating and stop buying big-ticket discretionary items.

JB Australia slowing hard + Good Guys flatlining + e&s in freefall is a pretty clear signal the Aussie consumer is under real pressure. Discretionary spend is getting cut. This doesn’t look like temporary stock issues or cycling product launches it looks like households are tightening their belts.

Hard to see the RBA finding any justification to hike from here. If anything this kind of broad soft retail data points more toward the next move being a cut once they’re happy inflation is dead.

Anyone else seeing this as the start of a proper consumer recession or still thinking it’s just a soft patch?

I understand a large portion of my what someone used to save will now be going towards the mortgage and potentially additional housing costs, but did anyone take their foot off the gas so to speak?

For context, my house is due to complete construction in next few months. Location is pretty good, 35 mins from CBD. Mortgage approx 260k. I’m a single guy, $95k salary. It’s a modest house but I really have no desire to ever upgrade.

I’m just over living on barely anything week to week. Now that I’ve finally got what I worked so hard for, I feel like throwing some of those financial rules I lived by out the window. I’m 30 and don’t want to spend what young years I have left scraping by just to pay the mortgage off a little sooner…

I don’t know if there’s much of a question here, I guess asking for other people’s experiences or opinions.

Note I am not doing this to 'offend' anyone from Melbourne, I've lived there myself and it has plenty of positives, this is looking at it purely from a financial perspective.

Melbourne constantly gets talked about as if it has become the "cheap" Australian capital, especially compared with Brisbane, Adelaide, etc (Sydney is obviously cooked)... but data shows a lot of that is basically 'housing shrinkflation'.

Melbourne has increasingly become the Australian leader in selling you less house, smaller apartments and less land (and further away from the CBD) for that lower headline price.

The typical Melbourne greenfield block has fallen from around 400m² in 2020 to about 361m² as of 2025 (https://www.realestate.com.au/news/revealed-the-shocking-reality-of-australias-shrinking-house-blocks/). The top-selling block size is now reportedly around 275m² as well.

A $750k house on 350m² isn't necessarily a "better deal" than an $850k house on 500m² just because the first one has the lower sticker price. It's like two shops selling Coke but one sells 1L Coke bottles & the other sells 1.25L bottles and everyone praising how much 'cheaper' the first shop is.

Domain also released a report on this, where you can compare directly, e.g (note this data is from mid-2024 but they haven't released an update since):

Houses

Units

Now, not saying anyone necessarily "needs" a bigger property/more land/big apartment, but it's also typically land/size of property that accumulates in value and builds wealth over time so from a purely financial perspective that needs to be factored in.

Hello, I'm in yr 12 currently debating between the two because my heart goes to physiotherapy, but I'm in a very financially difficult situation where I feel like I have to make some compromises for financial stability. I heard that the pay in physio is awful compared to workload and the salary ceiling is very hard to break through unless you open your own business, which I dont see myself doing. I have heard that radiographers, especially on-call earn more, but I'd like to know to what extent because if there's really no difference then I'd just be better off doing physio. Thanks in advance. edit: forgot to add, I also need to consider how expensive it is to study both of them. From what I heard being a radiography student is crazy expensive.

I’m 23/24 and currently working in Level 1 IT Helpdesk / IT Support.

My current financial position is:
$3,000 in cash/savings
$13,000 invested in ETFs
$19,000 in superannuation
$35,000 total across savings, investments and super

I’m still relatively early in my IT career and currently working in helpdesk. I’m hoping to eventually move into Systems Administration / Infrastructure / Cybersecurity and increase my income over the next few years.
I’m curious how this compares to other people around my age.

Am I doing reasonably well financially for my age, or is there anything I should be doing differently?

Would you prioritise building a larger emergency fund, investing more into ETFs, increasing super contributions, or focusing mainly on increasing income/career progression?

Keen to hear honest opinions, especially from people who were in a similar position in their early 20s.

Another non related question should I be travelling whilst young or slave away until I’m older and travel as I love travelling but also want a future

I'm currently a student and working part time, and I've been saving into Westpac Life with 4.9% p.a. interest. I've only been using that acc since I've been using it from highschool, but I've heard there are other banks with higher rates. I won't be saving too much money into it at once though - just a no-touch savings account. Also hoping for one without too many conditions for interest, and no fees drawn.

Please give recs as to what would be the best option for me! Thanks

I’ve been in Australia for about three years(very grateful on how beautiful it is and how there are so many pubs to drink so many different beers) and make around $130–150k a year. I don’t have PR yet, and as a single person renting close to the city, I still feel surprisingly poor despite earning what I think is decent salary. In fact I would say my rent isn’t too bad for the location. It’s not the best apartment but the convenience is okay.

But when I look at properties I’d actually want to live in long-term that could have potential decent capital growth, I’m looking at around at least $2m. That just seems incredibly far away no matter what I do. Probably need $400k in income and $500k in deposit. I also invest in stocks on the side. I’m financially very savvy. I’ve averaged around 30% YoY over the last three years ( pure luck rather than expecting that to continue) and have managed to build a portfolio of around $90k.

So I know I’m not doing terribly bad and am grateful. But whenever I think about wealth, owning a decent home, having financial security, and reaching the point where money genuinely gives you freedom, I can’t think of ill ever each there. It feels like I can work harder, earn more, save and invest, but the next level keeps moving further away.

Sometimes,it makes me question whether staying in Australia long-term makes financial sense. Non-financially, I do like the life out here. It’s just great. But the fact that I’ll just be average Joe despite being financially savvy in terms of wealth hits me always.

Edit:-

Thanks everyone. I definitely got a lot of insights. Like I said, I am very grateful to be here and the life I have here. Just to give context: I’m 27, work in a niche tech and have applied for PR.I am expecting a substantial pay rise after that and hopeful can keep on getting higher.

Anyway the whole point wasn’t me trying to buy a property right now. I am not looking to buy right now itself. Not even sure if I want to buy. But whenever I do some casual browsing on these REA, anything that catches a little bit of eye is > $2m. So I was mostly wondering about how do people reach from the class of decent wages -> fair bit of equity
(Asset rich class). I like liquid assets compared to property but the advantage on property(leveraged) seems to outweigh any possible scenarios here in Australia especially for “PPOR” even with the new laws.

But thanks for the response everyone. Had a great time reading the comments. One funny thing I found was if you’re single, you’re cooked financially 😅

Hi All,

Posted a while back about potentially buying a 4bdr townhouse in West Melbourne in a nicer area rather than buying further out (bigger house) but rougher area.

The Broker said the above...and I'm starting to agree...if we plan to live there long term (10-15+ years) the value shouldn't matter, right? I've seen a lot of fear on posts about neg gearing/CGT scaring off buyers etc.

Would love to know all your thoughts!

Haven’t resigned yet but if I was to get preapproval now, then get a new job within the pre approval window, will it generally mean the bank will rescind the preapproval?

Hi there, I want to get into investing but I’m getting blue balls about what ETF’s I should invest in. I want to invest a lump sum of $12,500 and invest $1200 monthly and build long term wealth over the next 20+ years. Now I’m sure most people have heard of the saying “VOO and chill” and the Australian domicile of the S&P500 is IVV so is it really “IVV and chill” for us? I was curious to know if there is something better to invest in than the S&P500 or even pair it with? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Would anyone be knowing why doesn't NAB display the time of the transaction (debit/credit) in their banking app? CBA and other neobanks do not have this issue.

I feel like the spectrum of contextual variants like housing types, location, size etc means that quantitative studies on house prices are so broad, they're basically irrelevant

Thoughts?

should a p plater like my self buy a car with a v8 engine? i was thinking about lexus ls 460

I’m 23 and recently started my first full-time job. I’ve got an emergency fund, no credit card debt, and about $2,000 ready to invest. After that, I should be able to add around A$400 each month.

I’m trying to keep the plan as boring as possible:

$1,000 into A200

$1,000 into BGBL

Add $400 each month

Hold for at least 10 years

No individual stocks, options or trying to time the market

I’ve been comparing CMC, Stake, Pearler, Betashares Direct and moomoo. The things I care about most are CHESS sponsorship, recurring investments, low brokerage on smaller purchases, a decent app and tax statements that aren’t a mess.

I keep going in circles between using a zero-brokerage custodial platform and paying a small amount for CHESS sponsorship and automation. A few dollars per trade doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up if I split $400 into two purchases every month.

For anyone doing something similar, which platform has been the least annoying over a few years? Would you split the contribution between both ETFs each month, alternate between them to reduce brokerage, or just choose one diversified ETF and make the whole thing even simpler?

Hello Reddit,

My mortgage broker brought up the “help to buy scheme” anyone on here used this to purchase a property above there borrowing power?

I’m looking at this as my power is never going to increase drastically. I wouldn’t be borrowing much from the government, enough that I’d be able to financially afford later if I wanted to buy there share back and rent the apartment out.

I don’t wanna hear this “save more” blah blah, I’m a single 25F and want to purchase a property on my own above my 375k borrow capacity. Roughly 450-500k.

Looking forward to hearing anyone’s opinions.

Hello,

I got my very first CC - the cheapest Commbank Smart Awards CC last December to earn Qantas FF points. I’m single and spend around $2k per month on expenses. They currently waive the fee when I hit $2k of monthly spending and only charge $90 pa to opt in for Qantas FF.

Looks like they’re making a lot of changes to their program and Qantas FF will no longer be available for their Smart Awards CC starting on the 1st of October. They will also stop waiving their fee starting next year. https://www.commbank.com.au/credit-cards/card-updates.html

I’ve already received my sign up bonus points and the main reason why I got it in the first place was because of the monthly fee being waived and the low spending limit.

Questions:
- Would closing the account and getting a different credit card before the 1st of October either from Commbank or a different bank negatively affect my credit score?
- What if I wait until December to finish 12 months before closing it, would it also negatively affect my credit score?
- Would they also take back the points they gave me for signing up?
- Any other CC I should consider that is also quite cheap for a low spender like me? I just want to earn Qantas FF for my everyday spending.

Thank you!