Context:
Household income $266k
Cash deposits $115,000
2 children
M40 f38
No other debts, cars owned outright
Houses in area around $1m, do we try get 92/95% mortgage? Or look further afield?
Repayments approx $5.5k / $6k by time LMi added, 35/40% of take home pay
Just bought my first investment property in Brisbane and I’m planning to rent it out for the next few years. I’m trying to cut down on ongoing costs where I can, so I’ve been thinking about giving self-managing the property a go instead of paying full property management fees.
The thing is, I honestly don’t really know where to start yet.
From the quick research I’ve done so far, I’ve found a few self-management platforms like Cubbi, Managed App, RentBetter and PropertyNow that seem to help private landlords handle things like advertising, leases, inspections, rent collection, etc.
For those of you who self-manage:
Is it actually worth it?
How hard is it really?
Any big mistakes or things to watch out for?
Which platforms do you recommend?
Would appreciate any advice, experiences or recommendations from people who’ve done it before.
Most businesses don’t have a marketing problem.
They have a trust problem.
I’ve seen brands spend thousands on ads while their positioning felt emotionally empty.
Good visuals.
Decent copy.
Strong targeting.
But no identity.
And people can feel that instantly.
The internet changed marketing in a very strange way.
We now live in a world where:
So the real differentiator is no longer visibility.
It’s believability.
That’s why some brands with smaller audiences build stronger loyalty than brands with massive reach.
Because people don’t buy when they understand your product.
They buy when they trust your intent.
Most marketing today is optimized for algorithms.
Very little of it is optimized for human reassurance.
And I think that’s why so much content online feels forgettable now.
The brands that will survive the AI era won’t just produce more content.
They’ll communicate clearer meaning.
I can’t believe this is happening.
3 months ago we sold our farm to a wealthy cattle station family. After a long settlement, we were meant to move to our new town tomorrow. At the end of the day today, our settlement agent called to tell us the buyer is not ready to comply with the purchase. WTH??? I didn’t know that was even an option after their bank had sent us their financing approval?
So our settlement agent has served them with a ‘Ready Willing and Able’ notice and they have 3 days to comply. After that they get served with another notice and they get 10 days to comply.
How could this happen after financial approval has been in place for 3 months? I smell something really fishy. Our settlement agent and realtor say they’ve never seen this happen. Have you ever seen this happen?
HEAR ME OUT!!! For context before I start, I’ve worked for decades in investment banking and corporate finance. I also own property as part of a diversified portfolio, so I’m certainly not anti-property or opposed to property investment. And to be clear, I don’t necessarily agree with the policy changes currently being discussed for inclusion in next week’s federal budget.
But surely, we can all acknowledge one thing: Australia’s housing market has serious structural issues that need to be addressed. If we step back from the politics and emotion for a moment, the current trajectory simply does not appear sustainable over the long term.
For years, large parts of the market have not been driven primarily by fundamentals. They’ve been driven by leverage, incentives, and narrative. Prices have been fuelled by expanding credit, tax and policy settings that reward speculation over productivity, and a system increasingly reliant on ever-expanding borrowing capacity rather than underlying income growth. We’ve seen borrowing capacity stretched to extremes, yields compressed to levels that only make sense under perpetual capital growth assumptions, and a heavy reliance on investor demand to keep the entire system moving.
And this is where the debate becomes frustratingly simplistic. It is not a matter of “supply versus demand.” It has to be both. Increasing supply is absolutely critical. But pretending demand-side settings are irrelevant is part of how we arrived here in the first place. You can increase supply all you want, but if you simultaneously turbocharge demand through immigration, excessive population growth, and policy settings that heavily favour leveraged property investment, you are effectively running on a treadmill.
From my perspective, a balanced long-term approach would involve:
• Significantly increasing supply
• Improving planning systems and infrastructure delivery
• Creating a fairer balance between investors and owner-occupiers
• Managing demand pressures sustainably over time
These points sound obvious, but we are clearly not getting the balance right. This is not “anti-property.” This is how you stabilise a market responsibly. It is simply acknowledging that housing markets, like any market, require balance, sustainability, and alignment with economic reality over the long term.
Because ultimately, this is not really about current owners like me. It is about whether future generations can realistically afford homes in which to raise families. At some point, we have to ask ourselves whether we genuinely want our children and grandchildren to have a realistic pathway to home ownership, or whether we are comfortable with a system where housing becomes increasingly detached from incomes and progressively inaccessible without family wealth or extreme leverage.
The idea that this trajectory ($150k+ annual increases/ doubled last 5 years) can continue indefinitely, while remaining fundamentally disconnected from wage growth and broader economic productivity, should concern anyone thinking rationally and long-term. People can absolutely agree or disagree on the precise policy response proposed by Labor. Reasonable people will differ on that. But surely we can all agree that the current trajectory deserves serious discussion and meaningful reform.
I’d genuinely be interested to hear your perspectives, respectfully and constructively, of course.
Anyone know if this home can be suitable for a big family or is it worth buying for investment and future development? How much it is worth?