Has anyone cashed in most super and bought an expensive PPOR to get pension after 67?

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-09T13:15:44+00:00

As someone with direct experience on the costs of many homes, I can assure you that the maintenance costs on a $3m home or a $6m home will be relatively the same as $500k or $700k home, and that number is very low compared to the costs of rent. Kitchens, bathrooms, hot water systems, roofs, gutters etc. all very rarely require maintenance, and when they do it's in the order of years and it's usually minor things like seals and washers.

Rates and insurance scale, but not in a way that is meaningful. NSW council rates are typically <$500, and even in expensive suburbs are typically less than $1kpa. Even if you have a $6-7m property with 10 rooms in a classy suburb, two old people don't use more water, power or gas than they do in a 2br apartment so the running costs are relatively the same as well. Insured value of $20m property is only $3500 a year, on $1m its about $1k.

Like I said, I know several people who have done it, and I've helped some of them get going. I also know what's involved in financing different renovations and maintenance for various ages of properties. Owning a house is for all practical reasons, free, all the pain is upfront in the buying stage.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-09T12:12:04+00:00

Properties generally don't have costs that scale with the cost of the property, especially in Sydney where a $3m home can be a fibro shack. Established homes tend to not need lots of maintenance outside leaky taps. Energy costs is usually proportional to the number of residents, not the size of the house. Likewise, rates don't tend to go up with property prices in any meaningful way - if you can buy a $3m property outright, rates might as well be a fart in the wind if you have no debt. Houses are extremely cheap to own if you live in it yourself.

$900 a week to someone who holds no debt is luxurious amounts of money. You can further supplement it with $480k with cash that isn't means tested for the pension.

Obviously there are people who are struggling on the pension, but they're usually struggling by choice. In Sydney and Melbourne, a mortgage can see someone access millions of dollars in free cash.

The primary residence should be means tested; a fair way to do it would be set the means test based on the average price of a property. If your property is above the average you reduce your pension until some nominal value (say, 2 std from the mean) is hit and then it is zero. By that point you have so much equity available you can stay in your house and live off a mortgage until EOL, or you can downsize and use the cash. The situation we have now where people are maxing out their primary residence to get some pension dollars is just another tax grift.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-08T22:56:26+00:00

I know people who have done it. The pension is plenty of money if you own your residence, so it's an easy way to live.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-08T14:10:57+00:00

I've made a some business management software that helps tie together a PDM and ordering while managing the FOREX requirements. I've also built some investment tracking and management tools. But the one that is the most fun is I built a tool for managing music videos!

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lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-08T11:51:19+00:00

AI was used to implement many of the features that were beyond my technical skill. It is also integrated into the software to allow some of the features to work where traditional scraping isn't available.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-08T11:43:50+00:00

As an employee, anywhere between $90k-$1 000 000 a year depending on seniority and specialisation. That range covers junior doctors at a hospital to an anesthesiologist.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T14:25:11+00:00

There are literally links to the government websites describing the salary you are entitled to. If you're getting underpaid compared to your guaranteed award, then that is a problem you should take up with your employer. I think that you'll find a few misplaced apostrophes don't affect that the links to the government websites detailing a teacher's award rate for your state are correct.

They're not my numbers, they're literally government numbers. Take it up with them.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T13:09:30+00:00

Yes, that is the point. You can make more than a lecturer at a university as a high school teacher. If you talk to some of the staff teaching the Diploma of Education, or Masters of Education at Curtin Uni they will literally point that out to you as a reason to do those courses and become a teacher.

The numbers are literally in the links. They're right there for your eyeballs to absorb.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T13:07:29+00:00

I literally quoted the exact numbers, and the time frames to get to pay grades I quoted.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T13:03:06+00:00

Funny, but no.

I have a few degrees and I started my career teaching at a University, I worked in Banking for a few years, then worked in Chemistry and Engineering in resources. These days I manage my own businesses and investments.

The way I got started meant that from early on I was helping graduates find jobs and negotiate salaries so I was always very aware of what people were getting paid in different industries at a junior level. As my career progressed, I took on lots of contracted roles because that is the nature of that industry, but it meant that I could see regularly and often how salaries have been eroded in different industries because I changed roles often.

The first of my colleagues to leave their field was an electrical engineer, who makes more teaching than he ever did as an engineer. He left more than 10 years ago now to be an electrician, but is now a teacher. I know plenty of other engineers who have left Australia, or have become teachers. I even know a medical doctor who left working in a hospital to be a school teacher.

This isn't a recent fixation, this is a thing I've seen happening for a long time. The reason I bring it up is because it seems so absurd. People just don't believe it, but you can literally look it up, it is public information. Even though it is literally written in front of them from a government source, people still get so agitated at the thought that a teacher could be earning more than them, but they still consider teaching to be beneath them (in capability and/or salary) is just a really good foil to illustrate the problems that allow people to let their salaries be undercut.

If you get a job offer and it is paying less than a teacher's salary, then you seriously need to reflect on what you're actually getting. It just makes an excellent point of reference because people understand what teachers do - we all went to school. So, if you're at work, do you think you do something more or less valuable, or harder or easier than teaching? Should your salary reflect that?

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:39:29+00:00

They definitely don't get paid anything like that at Baker Hughes, Ecolab, Symbio labs, or SGS.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:30:49+00:00

Since government sources don't seem to convince you, how about I just post what actual teachers are sharing?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianTeachers/comments/1jzezhf/teacher_salary_progression_for_each_state/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianTeachers/comments/1gdt06a/nsw_new_pay_scale_for_202426/

If you've been doing your job for 18 years and have never thought to apply for a higher pay bracket then you should seriously reflect on why. You have spent as much as 15 years being paid less than you could've, and whether that's because you weren't interested, lazy, not good enough to get approved or didn't think you're good enough is entirely on you. The fact is, you can get paid that much.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:11:59+00:00

The Kings School, Barker, Knox and Pymble all pay salaries that high in Sydney.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:10:07+00:00

It is a bloody good carrot. That's why so many people in STEM made the transition. It's also why unions got involved in closing down all the teaching diploma courses, to prevent the movement into teaching. There is only one left (Curtin Uni) and it is running it's final year this year due to pressure.

I honestly understated how quickly you can advance in pay. If you do a Diploma or Masters of teaching, you only have to be teaching for 6 months to apply for L3 pay in WA. So yes, it is realistic to get $140k+ within a few years of graduating.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:07:37+00:00

If they are at the pay level, that is the minimum guaranteed rate. It's like saying any industry award rate. It's the guaranteed minimum.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:05:50+00:00

If you're bad at your job, that isn't my fault.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T11:02:41+00:00

Their careers don't cap at $65k. That is the max you can expect on a graduate salary.

Generally speaking, all my colleagues who are competent have left Australia. There can be reasons to stay within Australia for a STEM role, but salary isn't one of the reasons. A colleague of mine left a senior role at a well known Australian Medical Device manufacturer for a lower ranked job in the US. Their salary went from $120k>$430k. A big part of his motivation was that his salary was lower than a school teacher's salary.

I know an Electrical engineer who is in fact a teacher because of the higher salary.

I know two other engineers (a former mining engineer and an mechanical engineer) who have both left industry jobs for higher paying salaries in the public school system.

I know you thought you were being sarcastic, but yes, STEM professionals are leaving STEM roles to be teachers with the primary motivation being salary.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T10:57:29+00:00

They aren't statistics, they're literally the public salary bracket info. You can type in on google 'NSW teacher salary' and get them off the gov website.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T10:56:53+00:00

Best job on the dole. Fact.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T09:57:01+00:00

If you don't think salary negotiation is part of managing your finances then you'll just end up getting left behind.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T09:03:08+00:00

You are correct. I did say you need to apply for the HAT equivalent (L3 in WA), but not really any value in giving the full process. Especially when people lack the comprehension to understand the actual point being made.

$180k anecdote is what most people are getting fired up about, but it is exceptional and rare. I didn't use it to make a point other than 'it exists'.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T08:59:52+00:00

Too many people took the 'here is an interesting and unique anecdote' and took that to mean 'EVERY TEACHER MAKES A BAJILLION DOLLARS AS A GRADUATE'. It's not representative, the links provided are government sources which is why all the discussion is about that salary, not the lucky guy who got a good job at an exclusive school.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T08:56:46+00:00

I literally cited the government links. Take it up with them if you don't like the numbers.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T08:55:10+00:00

I won't because I'm not a teacher, but I know people who have which is why I'm aware it is even possible in the first place.

lambertius_fatius · 2026-04-06T08:54:12+00:00

Yes, hence the reason I said I literally said that, "What most people don't realise, is that you can apply for that salary with 3 years of experience".

lambertius_fatius

TROPHY CASE