Hi guys,

My rental lease just ended. Rental agent sent through a quote for $1,210 to repair the benchtop burn mark. Is this price reasonable? It appears to be engineered benchtop.

They said it would take 6 hours to complete. The repair info provided by the repair company is attached as well.

Thanks.

I have an investment property that is currently rented out. I live overseas (bought the property 10 years ago and moved overseas 3). With the new CGT rules coming into play next july is now a good time to sell or should i just ride the wave and hope that eventual equity growth will out perform the tax implications?

The lease is up for renewal now and the tenant has asked for another 12 months. There are some drainage issues at the property which will cost thousands to repair (tenant putting oils and fats down the drain for the last 4 years causing major plumbing issues) which has prompted the question.

I'm looking for some opinions on my situation.

My wife and I have been trying to sell the house we've lived in for the last 10 years so we can upgrade to a home in the low-$1 million range. Our current house has been on the market for over 5 weeks and hasn't sold. It's currently listed at $849,000, which is already $50,000 lower than our original asking price.

We haven't had a huge amount of interest, and looking at other properties coming onto the market nearby, it feels like we may need to reduce the price even further to stay competitive.

Because of that, we're starting to wonder whether it makes more sense to keep the house as an investment property and rent it out instead of selling at a price we're unhappy with. We could then buy another home, even if it means moving a bit further away.

Our financial situation is roughly:

* Remaining mortgage on current home: about $130,000

* Available redraw: about $210,000

* Maximum budget for a new home would probably be around $850,000 if we really stretched ourselves

* Current home would likely rent for around $650-$700 per week

One thing is that we're planning to have children soon. There's a good chance my wife will stop working for a period of time after having a baby, which makes me a bit nervous about taking on too much debt.

I've also never been a landlord before, so the idea of managing a rental property comes with a lot of uncertainty and risk in my mind.

If you were in my position, would you keep the current property as a rental and buy another home, or would you play it safe, sell the current house, and then move into the new place?

I'd be interested to hear from people who have faced a similar decision.

Hi everyone,

My partner and I recently migrated to Melbourne, and we're looking to buy our first home. Since we're still new to Victoria, we'd really appreciate advice from people who know these areas well.

Our main priorities are:

- A safe and secure neighbourhood.

- A reasonable commute to the Melbourne CBD (I'll be travelling to the city 4 days a week).

- Good amenities nearby, such as supermarkets, cafés, gyms, parks, and other everyday conveniences.

- A welcoming community where newcomers can feel comfortable.

This weekend, we have house inspections in:

- Macleod

- Ringwood East

- Ringwood North

- Forest Hill

- Mitcham

- Oak Park

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these suburbs, especially regarding:

1. Safety and overall neighbourhood feel.

2. Any challenges or things migrants should be aware of.

3. Peak-hour traffic and commuting to the CBD (both driving and public transport).

4. Access to shops, cafés, gyms, and other facilities.

5. Any other pros and cons you think are important for first-home buyers.

If you had to rate these suburbs overall for a recently migrated couple, how would you rank them, and why?

Our current rental lease ends in the first week of September, so we're hoping to make a decision before then. This is a big step for us, and your local knowledge and honest opinions would really help us make the right choice.

Thank you so much in advance!

I have just rented an apartment that comes with a covered car space. While this is nice, I do not drive and I do not have a car. I asked the agent if I could forgo the car space for a reduction in rent, and was told that the car space came with the apartment, but that I could try to lease it out to other tenants if I wanted.

Thus far in my life I have lived in high-rise apartment complexes with no parking so I am a little out of my depth trying to figure out what to do with this. To make it even worse, I am one of those dirty New Zealanders and arrived here last week so I am unfamiliar with Aus/NSW laws regarding this kind of thing.

Has anyone had experience with this? Are there any risks with trying to lease the space out to someone else (e.g. if they smash their car into the building while using the parking space am I liable?)? Are there differences if it is someone from the same apartment complex versus someone outside the apartment complex? And, how much would be a reasonable price to set per week/month (this is in Newtown, Sydney)?

As far as I can tell there is no fob or anything needed to access the parking space, so needing to arrange extra fobs shouldn't be a problem.

I've seen people list parking spaces on real estate websites, but I'm not sure if that would be too heavy handed an approach for something like this.

Anybody have any experience with this company?

https://i-build.com.au/

Seems like they push out a lot of homes but very little online reviews from buyers beyond ibuilds published testimonies.

A friend and I are currently in NZ and everyone we know is moving to Aus after graduating. I was interested in Sydney but keep seeing mixed comments about finding housing and rentals in Sydney, what is the actual market like at different times of the year? If I have NZ bank statements and some payslips from work here, what type of paperwork should I begin preparing?

Hi all,
I am relocating to Sydney in a couple of months and just want to know about the process & what to prepare for in terms of finding a rental.
I’m a mid 30s single female with a job lined up in Macquarie park and will be looking in areas easily commutable (ideally cycleable!) with a budget of around $800pw.
Some things about me:
- kiwi citizen but lived in UK for the last decade
- extensive rental experience in London & Edinburgh with great refs
- after a 2 bedroom/1 bath/ 1 car park ideally and some kind of outdoor area
- I have a small dog who was raised in apartments. Do people disclose their dogs in Sydney or just sneak them in? In London especially most dog owners I knew never told their landlords and just hid them. I don’t mind doing this but would prefer to be honest - is having a dog going to make my search harder? He has great references too! And I’ll be working hybrid so he will rarely be left.

Any words of wisdom (or misery - lbh this is reddit) let me know.

I'm hoping this is the right sub!

Location: Cairns

Budget: 20-30k

My wife runs a home based beauty salon and we have recently purchased a property in Cairns. What we would like to do is have a separate building on our property that she can work out of. These are by appointment only, and parking etc is not an issue.

We're looking at these "office pods" that are classed as relocatable buildings and it's my understanding that these can be used but I'm getting conflicting answers. I've spoken with council and they haven't been very helpful.

Or are we better off building an structure and getting Class 1A certification?

Does anyone have any experience with this?

We bought our home super young it’s super small 3x1 with non stop work needing to be done to it.
We have no room, no shed, tiny garage.

We would really like to upgrade, larger home, kitchen pantry, bath, large shed, guest rooms, double secure garage, entertainment area yada yada. Why does it give me this guilty feeling.. greedy I don’t know. We’ve work so hard at the same time for something nicer.

We are 36 now so plenty of working life left in us. Happy in our jobs. Expect to pay home off in 20 years. Deposit of 30% of purchase price to put down.

It is a change of 2300 mortgage per month to 5700.

We can afford it, albeit not saving as much as we were but we are home bodies and not interested in gambling with I’m sure could be safe, other investments redditors promote.

Why am I feeling a glimpse of uncertainty still. Have home values ever plummeted!? Are we going to be screwed. Will everything be ok lol 😅

Hi all, my first experience OC so looking for some insight if anyone else has been here.

Just finished at my AGM and there are significant works that need to be done to bring the building up to code. Long story short I'm being hit with a levy of around $80,000. The value of the property is about $600,000. Issues relate to water ingress and fire code issues.

The previous OC was negligent and clearly didn't maintain the building, since the new OC took over they have been working on this to rectify the code issues.

Most of the committee don't think it's worth taking legal action against them for negligence, and the current OC manager has also said it wouldn't be worth the time/legal fees.

I have an outstanding loan of about $370,000 on a property worth $600,000 with a now additional $80,000 levy.

Is there any option other than:

1. Sell and rent
   
2. Just pay the thing?

Any guidance is appreciated.

The Perth property market is having a significant downturn as supply has increased nearly 5x since December. As much as REA'S have tried to convince buyers that Perth property is more valuable than Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane this is not the case according to the Cotality data. I won't be surprised to see many in the Negative Equity territory soon.

Looking at property in Wilson along fern road ? Is it dodgy safe , there are bad pockets of Wilson : but on the fern side looks peaceful : are there social housing on that side ?

Hi everyone,

I live in a block that's been subdivided. I live in the front unit and my neighbours are a family living behind connected with a shared driveway. I have an decent relationship with the family and we have some long casual chats when we see each other.

At the front of my unit I have stairs leading up to a small porch.

The first bewildering situation was earlier in the year I drove home and saw their family just chilling on my porch! Luckily this stopped afterwards.

The neighbours have a young daughter around 2-3 years old who loves playing on the fence and the stairs. Previously, I was okay with this but I work from home and the noise gets extremely distracting as she sometimes screams out loud. I talked to my neighbour about this and now the noise is much much less frequent. I haven't seen her play on my stairs since then but I can't ever be too sure.

The thing I thought about recently was what would happen if the daughter falls on the stairs leading up to my porch or on the fence? I feel that I need to protect myself and the daughter and need to make it very explicit that she's not allowed near my stairs. Also, at the end of the day I feel like it's my own property and I can't be too nice. I'm not 100% sure if the fence is common property but I will need to double check.

In a few weeks the new Cotality data will be interesting for Perth,Adelaide and Brisbane

We’re planning to rent out our four-bedroom home in Sydney’s North West and move into a two-bedroom apartment closer to the city.
Almost everything in our home was purchased new when we moved in four years ago—living room furniture, dining table, beds, appliances, home office furniture, outdoor furniture, décor, etc. Since we’re downsizing, many of these larger items simply won’t fit in the new apartment.
Initially, I considered renting the house fully furnished, but I’ve been advised that furnished rentals in my area aren’t very popular and that they can involve extra maintenance, replacements, and tenant issues. So I’m now leaning towards selling everything instead.
My ideal scenario would be to sell the entire household as one package rather than listing 50+ individual items on Facebook Marketplace.
Has anyone successfully done this?
Are there companies or estate sale businesses in Sydney that buy complete household contents?
Are there Facebook groups or other marketplaces where people look for complete home setups?
Would offering a substantial discount for buying everything together attract investors, Airbnb hosts, or first-home buyers?
Or is it simply unrealistic, and I’ll end up selling items individually?
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been through a similar downsizing or relocation. What worked, and what would you do differently?

Hi Legends

We were about to sign the contract but thought of increasing room size a bit. We requested our builder if they can alter the plan by increasing master bed room a bit, they shared new plan with modification as in the image.

Does this look bad as there won't be any eaves for master bedroom and also the shape is not a proper square for master bed room? Modified plan(new one) and original plan attached. Thanks..!!

Looking to make our first purchase and tossing up between newer vs. older builds. Appreciate that newer builds are by and large filled with defects vs. older double brick apartments, but you can't deny that they're much nicer to live in and often in very central locations. And our thought process is if we're purchasing it as a PPOR, we'd be willing to slightly compromise for a premium build - keen to hear any thoughts on this view.

Has anyone had any experience purchasing newer builds from more reputable builders (think Mirvac etc.). And what's the most appropriate and thorough due diligence process to assess quality of newer builds - aside from purchasing the strata report and getting a conveyancer in to have a look.

Thanks in advance!