u/ok9dot

Will it make any difference to the mortgage products you will be offered? (and therefore to your bottom line loan expense and terms)

The big ones are LMG, AFG, Finsure and Connective. Presumably all the market's most competitive loan products will be available via all of those major aggregators?

A bit of industry experience / insider knowledge would be helpful on this point. Thank you.

Will it make any difference to the mortgage products you will be offered? (and therefore to your bottom line loan expense and terms)

The big ones are LMG, AFG, Finsure and Connective. Presumably all the market's most competitive loan products will be available via all of those major aggregators?

A bit of industry experience / insider knowledge would be helpful on this point. Thank you.

People will tell you not to buy a 1 bedroom apartment because the capital appreciation is less.

As 4B women, should we reconsider this received wisdom?

Benefits of a one bedroom apartment for a 4B woman:

1. - own sooner! with less mortgage stress along the way. This is a big consideration when you will be bearing 100% of the mortgage responsibility yourself.
2. - smaller body corporate (strata) fees and council rates
3. - less space you have to clean, maintain, decorate and furnish
4. - if the apartment has some element of scarcity, you can still get some capital appreciation
5. - maybe 1 bed apartments may see better returns over the coming decades than in previous decades. Everyone predicts rising numbers of single people and increased cost of living, so maybe loads of people will seek 1 beds in future (for rental or purchase)
6. - easier to stick to your 4B principles while living in a 1 bed (for many reasons)
7. - women can feel they start to age out of the workforce in their 40s (due to age discrimination, which is illegal but happens anyway) especially if they are not doing botox juniper etc. Also some women find perimenopause really knocks them around in their 40s. Do we really want our 40s to be an age of intensive mortgage stress? Or is it better for this to be a time to take a little distance from the rat race?
8. - if you are introverted anyway (or dealing with PTSD from growing up under a patriarchy) a one bedroom can give a greater sense of security - there's no pressure to host friends or relatives, or to get a housemate in to help you pay bills.

The only downside I can see is that a forever single woman needs financial independence, especially in old age where health and accommodation costs can be high, she must navigate the system on her own, and potentially no one will be advocating for her. She may wish she'd had that capital appreciation to bolster her financial independence.

Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on this.

Also, how much is this decision context-specific according to where you live?

P.S. I have a 4B friend who sold her 3 bedroom house in the suburbs to move to the inner city in a 1B apartment. She now owns the 1 bed outright (no debt) and has (she says) 'plenty' of retirement savings. She is living her best life, still in her 40s, only working part-time, and only working jobs she likes. She is staying in the jobs market and keeping her skills current, just part-time. I think it's brilliant.

P.P.S. Without introducing too much complexity to my question above, a further consideration may be to buy a one bedroom that will allow you to stay out of a retirement village as long as possible in old age. i.e., good security, minimal stairs, and in a neighborhood that will meet your needs in old age.

I know of 4 or 5 old men who have a pacemaker implant, however zero women. How can this be? We all have hearts, and all age.

So I asked AI. Apparently:

- Significant Lower Rates of Implantation - studies indicate that men receive permanent pacemakers at nearly double the rate of women. Research published in major medical journals like the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) and Europace reveals sex and gender bias in pacemaker and cardiac device utilization, demonstrating that women are significantly less likely to receive necessary pacemakers and advanced cardiac devices than men, even when presenting with identical medical indications. 

- Device sophistication and suitability - When women do receive pacemakers, they are historically more likely to be given simpler, cheaper single-chamber devices, while men more frequently receive advanced dual-chamber systems.  Dual-chamber systems are known to yield better hemodynamic results and long-term symptom relief, meaning women don't receive the most effective technology available. 

- Surgical Complications because pacemakers are designed for male bodies - Women face a significantly higher rate of acute, non-fatal surgical complications following pacemaker surgery than men. These complications primarily include blood pooling and collapsed lung. This is largely driven by anatomical realities—such as smaller blood vessels and a lower body mass index—combined with a historical medical pipeline where device sizes and surgical tools were predominantly engineered based on male anatomy. (Sigh, just like the cars: https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/comments/11lxjui/cars_arent_built_for_womenafab_people_and_its_not/ )

- Emergency v elective implantation - Because their symptoms are frequently minimized or misdiagnosed initially, women are much more likely to require emergency pacemaker implantation rather than elective, scheduled procedures. 

- Symptoms are ignored; women's concerns dismissed - Cardiovascular disease is historically mischaracterized as a "man’s disease." Women often present with atypical symptoms of heart distress, which are more frequently misattributed to anxiety, stress, or normal aging.

- Clinical Trial Underrepresentation - Medical guidelines and device designs are heavily based on historical clinical trial data that overwhelmingly featured male participants.

- Age Factors and sexual discrimination - Women tend to develop severe heart blockages and arrhythmias at an older average age than men. Clinicians sometimes exhibit an ageist/sexist bias by assuming older female patients are "too frail" or too sedentary to need an advanced device.