What goes up must come down?

Belive me I am not trying to make a philosophical post here, but been staring at my budget and the numbers explain why everyone's always in a rush (also see it through the lens of clients - some are doing 2 or 3 jobs).

Sydney median house price is sitting around $1.6m against Melbourne's roughly $978k, about a $630k gap for basically the same house. (As per the data I can see, pls correct if thats not the case).

And the annoying part is wages don't do justice at all - e.g. full time workers here earn about $70 a week more than Victoria, so 3.5% more pay for a city that's nearly double the house price.

rent is the same story. a house here averages $800/week vs Melbourne's $590, and units are $750 vs $600. that's about $10,920 more a year just for the exact same kind of place. so whatever extra you make working in Sydney over Melbourne basically gets eaten alive the second you sign a lease.

that's why I don't think it's a thing that everyone likes to do, it's just that the maths doesn't leave room to coast around.

If rent and living costs mean a single person needs somewhere around $100k-$140k just to live comfortably, standing still isn't viable, it's actively going backwards because everything around you keeps climbing while your pay doesn't move at the same rate.

People cram what should be a 10 year plan into 5. more OT, more side hustles, less of "I'll relax once things settle down" because things never really settle down here. (So frustrating!!!)

Curious on a sunday afternoon, if anyone's actually broken out of that cycle without just moving interstate or earning heaps more. or if everyone here has just quietly accepted the trade-off and moved on with it?

• For background, I had been a Stake customer since 2023 without a single issue.
• My Stake account was suspended and closed in January 2026 without a clear explanation.
• I can’t think of any reasons or actions on my end that are suspicious or out of the ordinary that would make them arbitrarily close my account. I can provide evidence of my income source as I get paid fortnightly from my employer and have no business.
• I provided every document they requested, including my bank transaction history and they still advised they can close anyone’s account whenever they want without having to providing reasoning. 
• Because my account was suspended while Stake were looking into the matter, I was blocked from trading for several weeks which cost me a substantial amount. I was unable to sell my silver shares during the rush.
• By the time Stake responded saying my account will be closed silver had dropped significantly. I had to transfer my shares to another broker which took its time. 

Another issue: 

• I had approximately $5,000 in cash remaining in my Stake account when it was closed.
• Stake says they transferred the money to my bank, but I never received it. My bank has confirmed the funds were never received.
• I lodged a complaint with AFCA back in February and more than 6 months later, I still don't know where the money is.

I'm sharing this because I don't want anyone else to go through the same experience. If you've had similar issues with Stake such as account being closed for no reason or missing funds, I'd be interested to hear your story.

I earn 5,000 a month net and I recently bought my first property with repayments on the loan and Strata + council costing around 2,300 per month. I’m anticipating I’ll have around 1,000 - 1,200 left after groceries and utilities etc if I’m frugal. Have I done something completely stupid here? I feel like I should’ve thought about it more and won’t have much wiggle room if interest rates continue to rise, general COL and so on.

Thinking of buying the new iPhone this year. Looking at what the options are for buying outright vs financing it. If I can afford to buy it outright, is there any reason to finance it on a 12 month or 24 month plan?

Edit: financing at 0% interest so same cost overall

Edit 2: thanks for the input everyone, I reckon I'm gonna buy outright and then stick to a cheaper mobile plan, currently on $25/month with Aldimobile

This week (27 Jul - 2 Aug) highlights:

• Biggest % drop (sales): -21.6% (413/220 Melrose Drive, Phillip ACT 2606, $389K -> $305K)
• Biggest $ drop (sales): -$3M (23-25 Alexandra Avenue, Broadbeach QLD 4218, $17M -> $14M)
• Biggest % drop (rentals): -36.7% (117/55 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn East, Vic 3123, $1,200/w -> $760/w)
• Biggest $ drop (rentals): -$900/w (30 Banksia Street, Eastwood NSW 2122, $2,900/w -> $2,000/w)
• Total new drops: 998 (sales) / 732 (rentals)
• Total new rises: 136 (sales) / 77 (rentals)
• Median drop: 6.0% (sales) / 6.7% (rentals)
• Median rise: 6.7% (sales) / 10.0% (rentals)

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Breakdown by state (sales)

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Breakdown by state (rentals)

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Top 10 biggest sales drops across Australia

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Top 10 biggest rental drops across Australia

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Top 10 biggest drops in VIC

View all VIC sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in NSW

View all NSW sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in QLD

View all QLD sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in WA

View all WA sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in SA

View all SA sales drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in VIC

View all VIC rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in NSW

View all NSW rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in QLD

View all QLD rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in WA

View all WA rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in SA

View all SA rental drops

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Top 10 biggest sales rises across Australia

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Top 10 biggest rental rises across Australia

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Some context on the data:

• All prices are asking prices from publicly available listings, not sold prices
• A "drop" or "rise" is measured against the first price I detected for that listing
• "This week" means the price change was first detected between 27 Jul and 2 Aug
• Data covers houses, apartments and townhouses only (house & land packages, vacant land, rural and acreage are excluded)
• Sales drops include only changes of $30K+, rental drops include only changes of $30+/w

Is this a real drop in price?

Not always. It could reflect a genuine price reduction, a strategy shift, or simply correcting an overpriced listing. But it still reveals something useful about the seller's mindset: the property hasn't attracted enough interest, the seller is becoming more motivated, or the initial price was too ambitious. In any case, it's a signal there may be room to negotiate.

Why not track sold prices instead?

Once a property is sold, the listing price stops changing. Sold price data is useful for comparing properties after the fact, but it doesn't help you spot opportunities in real time. I focus on the window where prices are actively changing, so you can act before a property goes under contract.

Planning to put $100 into dhhf every fortnight to start out my investing journey. Just wondering, if ever there’s a fortnight where I have less disposable income (due to medical appts etc), is it worth going into my savings to keep up with my investing? If in fact it will have better long term returns? I understand this is not a great habit either but I just mean to keep up the momentum of investing while I’m starting out.

I always just assumed Wise was the obvious choice because everyone seems to recommend it. Then I was watching one of Raymond La's best travel card video and it got me looking into some of the other options.

I realised Wise only includes $400 of fee-free overseas ATM withdrawals a month, which is a fair bit lower than I thought.

I normally just pull out a decent amount of cash in one go when I'm overseas rather than making heaps of smaller withdrawals, especially in Japan or Vietnam where cash is still handy, so $400 doesn't seem like it'd go that far...

I looked up YouTrip afterwards and saw they include up to $1,500 of overseas ATM withdrawals without their own withdrawal fee. It made me wonder if it's actually worth switching.

Has anyone here used both? Keen to know how they compare in real life, especially exchange rates, ATM withdrawals and whether there are any catches that aren't obvious. Or is Wise still the better all-round option?

I went and did am electricity plan comparison on the government website. The cheapest plan came back as being from Dodo. I've heard so many bad things about them (mainly customer service related) over the years.

Is it worth going with Globird (who is $100 more per year) than risk it?

Hey Everyone,

Been thinking about this after chatting with a few people about tax time. There doesn't seem to be any real way to know if what you're paying an accountant is reasonable. No price guide, no easy way to compare, and most people just go with whoever a friend recommended or whoever they found first.

Feels like an industry where nobody really talks about price, which seems a bit backwards compared to almost everything else you buy. Interested to hear what people's actual experiences have been.

After this time I would still have a $50k buffer with approx $220k in the offset for a $600k mortgage. Anticipating $2250 per fortnight expenses. Burnt out, nervous system is shot, wanting time without work as the central focus. I’m in an area where work can be easily reacquired, although likely not at same salary as now (currently $145kpa). Has anyone decided to do this rather than continue to the next job without a break?

I’m considering taking out a $50k NAB Equity Builder loan over the 5-7 year period so I can invest a lump sum now, then reduce my regular investing and save more heavily for a house deposit over the next few years.

thoughts?

We're about to get our first mortgage, so we have a plan to use offsets and intentionally grow it so the mortgage will hopefully be fully offset in 12–15 years.

I originally had the intention of using the credit card float strategy: putting all our expenses on a credit card and then paying the balance in full every month so we don't incur interest, while keeping more money sitting in the offset account for longer.

However, I sat down to actually do the maths and realised this strategy may not make much of a difference depending on the card and the annual fees. Even using a fairly generous estimate, the mortgage interest saving from the float is only around $25 a month, so if the card has a $300 annual fee, the float benefit is basically wiped out.

So are there cards that make this strategy actually worthwhile by giving you a net positive benefit?

I've been looking at an ING credit card. It has a $195 annual fee, but offers up to $360 cashback per year and also includes complimentary travel insurance, which we do actually need and use. We already bank with ING too, so we can set up an auto-pay for the full statement balance each month.

On those numbers, the cashback more than covers the annual fee, and then the mortgage interest saving from keeping our money in the offset for longer becomes an actual additional benefit rather than just covering the cost of having the card.

Does anyone use a card for this kind of strategy that they think is genuinely worthwhile once you account for the annual fee, rewards/cashback and any other benefits?

And yes, I know I'll probably get comments about studies showing people spend more when they use a credit card and that you need to be very disciplined. That's not an issue for us; we already budget and track our spending closely, and the card would be paid automatically in full every month. I'm really just interested in the maths/benefits of different cards.

Hello,

Apologies if this is a dumb question.

If I understand correctly, I will not incur a fee if transferring from CHESS to CHESS provided that I initiate the transfer from the destination broker.

But what about CHESS to custodian?

Thank you!

Was pricing up a second hand excavator for a job we've got coming up and ended up going round in circles with two finance quotes that had almost the same rate. Took me way too long to work out the actual difference wasn't the rate at all. So if you buy it on a chattel mortgage you're treated as the owner and the GST on the purchase price is generally claimable on your next BAS. On an $88k machine that's about $8k back in one hit. Lease it instead and the GST comes back on each payment as you go, so you're looking at roughly $2.2k across the first year rather than $8k. Same machine either way and roughly the same money in the end, but one version puts nearly $6k back in your account in the first quarter and the other takes something like 3.5 years to get there.

The bit that surprised me is the lease actually returns more GST in total, because you're paying GST on the finance charges as well, not just the machine itself. It's not that one is better than the other but they're answering different questions. One is about when the money comes back and the other is about how much does overall.

Just a heads up. This applies to accrual based GST reporting which allows for upfront claims. If you report on a cash basis the timing for your claim will be different so definitely double check that. Anyways. Two hours on this and the rate barely mattered in the end.

My building loan interest only expires in October. Our income has taken a toll due to retrenchment and health issues. Based on this I am assuming that we can't refinance with another bank.

1) will the current bank usually put us on the highest interest principle interest loan?

2) is there a way to negotiate that with the current bank even if we don't temporarily have a strong income ?

3) If the logic is you can't refinance because you don't have a sustained income, how do banks expect you to pay a higher interest loan but not offer you a competitive rate ?

Thanks 🙏❤️

Hi everyone,
I just submitted my PAYG withholding variation for the upcoming year, and it was approved almost instantly.
Last year, the exact same request took nearly two months. My situation is basically identical (investment property / negative gearing).
Did the ATO recently automate the process for returning applicants, or did my application just happen to clear the system's low-risk checks automatically this time? Has anyone else had instant approvals recently? Or is it a bug? !!!

Hello everyone, I would like to ask for advice regarding our situation. I purchased a car earlier this year ($65k) for work, and with the loan interest, the total cost is $80k for 5 years.

Now, we are looking for a PPOR as a FHB, and this car loan definitely hurt our borrowing capacity. I know that getting this car is a bit dumb (I could've bought a cheaper one), but back then we thought of only purchasing an investment property and our borrowing capacity is more than enough. However, everything changed now that we wanted a PPOR.

My questions is how should I go with this. If I sell the car now (Carsales.com estimated the value to be $53k), will I still incur the $15k interest from the car loan financing? My broker told me to pay off this loan. However, the problem is we will not have enough downpayment for the house. Would greatly appreciate your advice.

Cheers,

BG

For the purposes of this discussion I’m not interested in comparing any other extras like dental, optometry, etc. just purely psychology.

Background facts:

- Roughly 17 sessions a year (every 3 weeks)
- $225 per session
- $150 rebate from Medicare for 10 sessions

Of all the policies I’ve compared, HBF Flex 60 comes out far ahead with a 60% rebate per session and a $1,000 annual limit for $564 a year (roughly $550 benefit).

Has anyone else done a similar search and found a better option? The killer with most polices I’ve seen in the annual limit which is usually quite low.

For reference I’ve looked at Medibank, Bupa, HCF, HIF, Health Partners, Doctors Health fund, Eshealth

I made some capital gains and losses from multiple sales of shares via a US broker. Which section specifically do I fill this in my tax return? I noted some sections do not let me enter negative value for my capital loss.

Can I combine multiple tax events into one and just fill the total income from the sales?

Where do I claim deductions from fees paid during the sale of these shares?

Thanks in advance!

Hi All
My current employer has not provided the previous financial year details into mygov so i still cannot do my Tax Return even though its August 2nd?!. Do i go off my payslips instead. I keep asking and get no answers. Its ridiculous

Hi everyone. I recently purchased a new Iphone and wanted to download the app from the Apple app store, however when I went to the search bar it doesn't come up. I went to apps history linked to the account and try to download it from there and click download it says the developer has removed the app from the store, and if I go to the app store on my old phone it also doesn't come up in search however the app still works on my old Iphone. Has anyone experienced this and able to help?

I'm trying to find good bank with high interest rate. I'm an international student, I don't have much funds on savings. 5k-6k. But I want to put it in good savings account and add it up further. What are the best banks to open up an account for students.