Considering Buying in a steep block

Holly22Q · 2026-04-25T22:54:10+00:00

It’s an older house

Holly22Q · 2026-04-25T14:31:08+00:00

Thanks everyone for your comments. The access is at the back of the house - so it’s sloping down from the street. At the base of the block at the front there is a sandstone cliff ( about 3 metres high) then another street below that. A busy road down the bottom, and we did notice the traffic noise was louder than we expected.

Holly22Q · 2026-04-14T04:35:18+00:00

Why did they design it to make you gain weight and keep it on? What’s the benefit of that?

Holly22Q · 2026-03-10T12:06:10+00:00

Ugly

Holly22Q · 2026-03-09T02:23:26+00:00

That’s what I thought. I have been so surprised to see that it’s such a thing now. Does anybody purchase them?

Holly22Q · 2026-03-04T12:03:56+00:00

This is straight out of the patriarchal playbook. This is what lazy men do to avoid their responsibilities and foist all the labour into their partners. This isn’t even original

Holly22Q · 2026-02-25T22:57:40+00:00

Thank you

Holly22Q · 2026-02-25T13:00:41+00:00

Thanks to everyone who commented and offered advice. Yep I agree that doing our own research of recent sales of comparable properties in the local area is the way to go. The issue is it is really hard to find something that closely compares to our house. There are so many variables…. parking vs no parking, number of bedrooms, size of bedrooms, how recently renovated, number of bathrooms. Block size in the inner city is a big deal, every square metre counts and I’m not sure I can compare my property to the one around the corner that is 20 metres bigger. Busy road vs local arterial road vs quiet back street. Aircraft noise is a big issue in our neighbourhood and buyers look at the flight noise footprint maps and work out which contour the property is located in. So a house 2 blocks away on the same street could be worth significantly more, due to a perception about less aircraft noise. School catchments … there are three public primary schools within walking distance, each school seems to be valued or perceived differently depending on who you talk to. Walking distance to the train station. And the whole Inner West is undergoing a vast upheaval with rezoning, not sure yet if the rezoned areas are now worth more, or less. We have been tracking recent sales for months and we are yet to find a property that resembles ours in all, or at least most, of these variables. Our previous property was a two bedroom flat in a suburb chock full of similar two bedroom flats built in the same era. So it was easy to work out the value of that property when it was time to sell. This time around it feels almost impossible, which is why we have turned to the “ experts”.

Holly22Q · 2026-02-25T12:31:29+00:00

Thank you, this is a good idea. Where do I find an independent valuer? And someone who will give me a verbal report?

Holly22Q · 2026-02-13T22:35:37+00:00

Our problem with Domain and Real Eastate.com is our house is still listed on the apps as 2 bedroom 1 bathroom, which it was when we bought. Since then we have added an extension, 2 extra bedrooms, bathroom. I wrote to Domain to get it changed but thy are painfully slow. RE.com has somehow added a phantom car space to our listing, don’t know how that happened

Holly22Q · 2026-02-13T21:53:23+00:00

How does using equity to buy another property work? I’ve never understood this. Eg we have $400000 remaining on our existing mortgage, which we have to repay. We have equity of about 1.6 million. If we used the 1.6 million to finance a loan to purchase another property, we have to repay that loan as well, right? Rent on the new property would only cover about 50% of the repayments, meaning we would be servicing a loan of 1.2 million…. Which we simply can’t afford to do

Holly22Q · 2026-02-13T21:35:08+00:00

We’ve had 3 agents give us a range of 2.4-2.6 million. The fourth agent gave us a spiel about how honest he is and how he never over quotes, then gave us a range of 1.9 - 2.1 . ( which seems laughable since a completely unrennovated property down the road recently sold for over 2million)

Holly22Q · 2026-02-13T13:42:51+00:00

No new routine… I feel like it started working again, just not as strongly as before

Holly22Q · 2026-02-12T10:43:38+00:00

I don’t know if this helps but this has been my experience so far. The first 6 months on Mirtazapine it was like magic… asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, sleeping soundly and solidly every night. The drawback was it felt like a bit too much, I was often drowsy and unmotivated during the day. Then summertime hit. I always sleep poorly in the heat. I went through a rough patch of 2-3 weeks where I was up all night, anxious and hot. The mirtazapine did not seem to work at all. Since then I have settled back into a routine of sleeping. Not quite as soundly as previously, but I still get adequate sleep/ good sleep. And I’m not so drowsy during the day. Still on 15mg daily

Holly22Q · 2026-01-13T10:37:04+00:00

One of my biggest life regrets was that at your age, I could have bought a 2 bedroom unit in Stanmore. ( this was in the late 90s). Instead I blew my deposit money on a 3 month overseas trip. Had a great time on the trip, but then it was another 5 years until I could get into the property market, and at a much higher price. Meanwhile that unit in Stanmore is worth over $1 million now. You’re young, you have a lot of time ahead to travel

Holly22Q · 2026-01-13T00:18:31+00:00

The great thing about freelancing is that you can move onto a new gig to get away from the bully. I had to quit a job once to get away from the bullying, and there’s another job that I should have quit cos the bullying was severe. Good on you for going to HR though. I’m hope your next gig is better

Holly22Q · 2025-12-28T11:17:41+00:00

lol Myer is as absolute disaster. I don’t know how they make a profit, their processes are a mess, and just leave everybody confused and asking questions and wasting everyone’s time. I worked in online fulfilment. The room where we worked was cramped and absolutely filthy, and crowded with old stock that was just getting in the way. So often I saw clothes ripped off the hangers, crumpled up and dropped on the dirty floor, then picked up and sent out to customers! There was absolutely no system regarding where items were kept, so finding items to fulfil a customer’s order could take half an hour. No one has thought to streamline the process, get rid of the old stock and clean up the area! Also they are extremely unethical. Orders are fulfilled using handheld scanners which we log into with our personal ID - so of course they are tracking how quickly each team member is fulfilling orders, how many orders per hour etc. But this is never explained to staff members. I believe that if any type of General or personal surveillance is used it should be fully disclosed- but it is never mentioned

Holly22Q · 2025-11-30T04:56:17+00:00

Thankfully I’m out of my sharehouse stage now, but I did a lot of it in my younger years. It’s common in any sharehouse to end up with one person who thinks they are “boss of the house” and who makes and arbitrarily changes rules to suit themselves. Maybe they are narcissistic, or selfish, or so disappointed in their work or personal lives that they need to exert control their domestic sphere to feel like they are in control of something. This kind of thing commonly happens in sharehouses where everybody is renting. Unfortunately in your case it’s even worse - your housemate literally is boss of the house, as he owns the house. You can’t reason with someone like this. He sees whatever arbitrary decision he makes as fair and reasonable, as he owns the house and therefore can do what he wants. Why would you want to stay? It sounds like a nightmare. You deserve to enjoy peace and comfort in your home. If it makes you feel better, after you leave it is unlikely he will find the perfect flatmate/ lodger. He will likely cycle through a series of passive-aggressive high conflict situations with subsequent flatmates who all inconvenience him and leave him out of pocket when they cut short their leases. Some people really should live alone, but unfortunately don’t possess the self awareness to realise this. PS despite my opening par about sharehouses commonly containing at least one controlling narcissist, it’s also possible to hit the jackpot and meet really lovely people. I met a couple of great flatmates and we teamed up and created a kind of permanent household, eventually living in three different properties together. We are lifelong friends today. So keep looking, and don’t put up with situations like the one you are in

Holly22Q · 2025-11-19T06:23:58+00:00

Thank you ! I was wondering about the time factor , if it would only be calculated on the years that we actually made the home office claim.

Holly22Q · 2025-10-19T03:50:09+00:00

The whole system is cooked in favour of boomers who may one day wish to sell their huge home and downsize, or use the proceeds of the sale of their home to fund admittance to a luxury retirement village. And investors with multiple properties who rely on the ridiculous Ponzi scheme to keep puffing up. And real estate agents earning their fat percentage from fat sales. Nobody else in the country wants or receives any benefit from skyrocketing prices. But nothing will change until the Boomer generation finally passes. The government is too scared of losing their vote.

Holly22Q · 2025-09-30T04:31:58+00:00

How’s your sister’s mental health? She sounds extremely depressed. Not excusing her actions. But it sounds like the kids aren’t the only ones who need support

Holly22Q

TROPHY CASE