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Typical house and land prices in Perth have gone through the roof. Up around 40-50% in just the last 2-3 years. I was talking to a real estate agent last week. He sold a house near mine for $1.1m about 18 months ago. He said he would list it today at $1.5m. One of my daughters is renting and there’s no way she can afford to buy now. Three years ago she could probably have managed a mortgage but not now. Our other kids are reasonably secure but I worry about her. Once a parent, always a parent!

Probably the same reason I joined ... to provide some opposition to the excessive far-left viewpoints that distort facts and truth.

Doesn't seem like much of a prophet. He allows himself plenty of wriggle room to adjust his prophesies to match what actually happens.

You like Facts and Truth? Try using them then. Your Idol, Trump, doesn't either. Nev

I was lucky to buy a bare 2000 sq m block of industrial land in a wheatbelt tiny country town, about 130kms NNE of Perth, in 2019. I paid $10,000 for it, because the seller was retiring and selling up all his assets. In the 6-1/2 years that I've owned it, the value of the block has gone from $10,000 to $110,000. The land/property pricing "bubble" must burst in due course. I really feel for the young people starting off, buying a house must only be a dream for them. SWMBO has a friend who has 2 sons and daughter. The daughter married several years ago and both she and her hubby are on good money, and they managed to buy an old timber-framed house in an average Eastern suburb for $780,000. But the middle son isn't married and is working on the mines to try and get enough to buy a house. He proudly told his Mum recently, he'd saved up $50,000 towards the house. But he goes to look at a building block in the far northern suburbs, about 70kms from the City, and they want $500,000 for a tiny bare patch of sandy limestone. So then he finds a reasonable sort of house for sale nearby for just $800,000. He calls the agent, and the agent floors him with the words, "I'm sorry, I've already had 2 offers for the property in excess of $1,000,000!! This is the standard story around trying to buy a house today, Chinese buyers roll up carrying suitcases full of banknotes, explaining they have the cash to pay for the property, right now! AUSTRAC cash payments reporting is only being extended to real estate agents from July 1st this year. It's way too late, it should have been done 15 or 20 years ago. The flood of Chinese black money has ruined our real estate purchasing ability.

And thanks to the others too not only really helpful hearing about the different situations and what's working for different people as in relation to to my situation here now , but really interesting to. Been browsing property over a very wide net of a few 100km last few wks just to see if l even have a choice and of what but can say one thing. Not that l think l'd even be able to get finance now prettyyyyy doubtful anyway but l'd sure as hell be needing some to get anything better than here. Prices are madness, too late in the day to be taking those on now can say that for sure.

Hi Ian, My first thought is speak to a trusted financial advisor. $100K is probably not a lot for most of them, but importantly, your kids are young and this could be the kick start for them to invest to earn and not save. Yuor strategy with your bank savings did very well.. I am guessing it was compounded or sem compounded interest that was being paid (and by semi compounding, I mean left the interest payments paid on whatever frequency in the account to add to the principal on which the interest is being paid). I am no financial adviser, and if you look at my current personal financial position, you would probably want to do the opposite of what I have done, but FWIW, which is nothing really, when investing, you have to consider at least the following: Purpose and Time Horizon: In this case, you are saying they want to buy a house and at 27 and 24 repextively, I would say the time horizon to utilise the funds and any growth will be shorter than 10 years. Risk aversion: From the purpose, I would suggest there shouuld be a low tolerance to risk. In investing, like most other things, there is suaully a risk v reward gradient - the higher the risk, the exponentially higher the reward you should seek, because at anything greater than 10% risk, you should assume you will lose it. The timeframe is relatively short and the purpose is a major capital purchase. I would suggest a very low risk tolerance Strategy of investment: Do you want to max returns or ensure the amount preserves its purchasing power/value. We all think max the returns, but I would argue, with a low tolerance to risk, it is more about preservation/modest growth - i.e. safety rather than squeezing every drop yu can from it. That is my opinion, yours or your kids may be entirely differnt. Costs and Charges: Whatever you choose there's a cost, and an opportunity cost. What may seem a "small" charge (2%) is actually high and can cost you much more, especially over time. In the EU, all unit based investmen companies have to publish the effect of their costs on projected earnings versus the cost free projected returns and the graph differences are very telling. Also remember, for unit trusts and the like, there is often trailing comissions paid to agents for years - the life of the investment. But. don't be too stingy about it. If you are paying two percent and they are giving you a 20% return, bersus paying 0.5% for a 10% return, well, I would rather take the former. It's a minefield. Taxes, which is another cost at the end of the day. There are tax efficient vehicles in Australia for investments held over 10 years, but you generally always pay some. I would suggest a short term super fund investment is not the way to go as therewill be taxes and exit fees (ooh, I forgot to mention those earlier - they can be a bummer on unlisted funds). Australia has about the worst tax regime for personal investoers. Even the US has tax free investment accounts. In the UK and Europe, there are tax free accounts - UK has ISAs - up to £20K per year can be invested and returns are entirely tax free. Also, we pay zwero input tax into Super and 25% of contributions can be withdrawn tax free after 55 years of age. It sounds like you are pretty averse to risk, but also the time horizon and purpose would mean you would want more fo a defensive strategy than a aggresive one. The infation rate in Aus at the moment is 3.8%, so a 4% term deposit is treading water - sort of. If it is compounded daily, then it can grow very much quicker than inflation as the rate curve becomes exponential-ishh0. House price inflation in the areas your kids want to buy is more important - how can you invest and keep pace with that? Also, I read that Chalmers is considering a cap of two homes for negative gearing, and I am guessing the removal of the CGT allowance on residential property investors, which personally should have been done years ago and contributes far more to house price inflation than the immigration issue (which also does contribute). Also strengthening Anti Money Laundering riles for real estate agents and solicitors shouldl also have been done years ago. These measures will slow house price inflation, but it will still be more than the inflation rate. What that may mean though, is that they want to get on the housing ladder sooner rather than later, even with the changes. I am sure there are other consisderations than the above.. Personally, an ETF that has a mix of growth hedged by defensive positions would be where I would go for. While it is very low cost here, and online brokers don't charge a fee (they get a 0.05% commission, generally), they tend to perform to the market. Despite the market turmoil, over the last 10 years, the NDX (Nasdaq top 100, I think) has performed remarkably: But note, while over the longer term, index finds do well, there is a lot of short term volatility and they may slump right when you want to cash in. There are other options than the financial markets. Despite the potential cap on negative gearing and the CGT allowance changes that may be coming, it may be worth them pooling their cash and earnings and investing in property rentals. Also, not necessarily residential. Quality commerical stuff such as medical centres, etc on maintaining leases are great and you would be surprised how you can access finance to this stuff. But also residential investments will help combat house price inflation and they can use the increase in equity over time (especially if they make improvements that add value) as collateral to expand their portfolio, and in 10 years they may have enough being generated from a portfolio to afford them each a house and some passive income to boot. The long and short of it is that they have to look at their life aims (maybe not focus on using the money to buy a house but set themselves up spo they can buy a house if that makes sense), do their research and look beyond the traditional financial markets investing . Hope that helps a bit

Joining a site like this is like joining any other group of people that have known each other a while. You've got existing cliques, well known stances on various issues, a bit of background on most people, and the occasional mad uncle (you know who you are). The point is, you show a bit of restraint and respect until you're established and part of the group. After 2 days, starting a post with "You're full of it." And ending with "...keep running off at the mouth with a half assed understanding" shows neither respect not restraint.

Yeah ... Predicting the death of a 96 year old. Amazing!

Have the courage to handle it in an intelligent way.

Yeah sadly though China's only a small part of it. These absolute morons, have let in a million and a half immigrants in their 4yrs, when we were a million houses short, but eh, so they've plus added 50% and went 1.5. To top that off, only 7% of those 1.5mill, were trades and skills we're actually also short of, the rest, God knows, they reckon family members and extras and all sorts. Butttt, apparently that's only part of it, they've also geared everything to investors and wealthy and literally sabotaged what little progress in new housing we could've made as well as reopened the door to China and their cases full of cash. Apparently, "everything " , they've done, only pushes house prices up and lines wealthy pockets. l can't pretend to even understand half of it but the immigrants and Chinese alone, more than screwed our own people especially our young. Makes me sick to the stomach but so 4yrs later we're in a worser state than ever. There's a dozen other things they've done to in real reports- can't even wrap my head around. But yep you bet rg, always a parent and yaknow, if my d wasn't to get married well she's gonna need help so l'm gonna be doing everything l can on the side. Got a small investment for her to which is suppose to go off well, if l get that lucky really hoping that can help her to by then. But yeah saw Perth rg l think they said is leading the pack this yr, must be bloody mad, feel so bad for young people there , everywhere but gees, crazy shyt over there, qld to. Somem like my place here onetrack , mine was a bit more though and closer to the coast and a really nice town but yeah worth about 130 now so nothing compared to even better town stuff let alone city but it's still 500% plus it's been rented out 18yrs to and that's paid for it 4 times over on top . Just a shame it's such small money for the market now most places better or we'd be sitting pretty eh.

That's what's good about Australia. We managed to conduct elections in 1914, 1917, 1940 and 1943 during world-wide wars. We even held elections during the era of the Vietnam war.

Make it low risk for a start. And don't be fooled by superannuation's 8%, there's too many takers. Also superannuation needs to be monitored for fluctuations and volatility which may not be fully understood by young adults. As an ordinary worker, I lost ten years of gains in the 2008 crash, I was back to square one. I couldn't draw the money out because I had not yet retired, so I moved it to the Cash portfolio and left it there. Cash is like term deposits, and you don't lose any of it. I also had bank accounts and bank term deposits which I salary sacrificed into, a small amount each week. This built up and the returns started to overtake my Super returns. In the end Super was insignificant and my Bank account strategy paid off, beating my Super by hundreds of thousands of dollars, even after paying tax on my earnings. After retirement I was in a position to pay cash for a residential property to max $250k, with funds left over. And I didn't start early, I started late in the day. There was no bank fees, just continuous interest three months at a time, heaps of it, it left my Super in it's dust, regardless of what my Super portfolios were.

Hmm. Strong words from someone who's been on this site for 2 days. Without wanting to seem unwelcoming, Down East, what causes an American to join a site named Social Australia?

You're full of it. The USA wasn't the only country offering assurances to Ukraine during the Budapest agreement. The UK, France, and China also offered their own assurances.......so where are they now? Do you want Russia lobbing nukes to appease your nonsense of the USA going to war with Russia. Europe smugly broke their own promises with NATO by not honoring the agreed proportions of military spending to GDP. The USA can only use European bases at the invite of their governments. Coups? Britain initiated the 1953 coup in Iran for economic reasons...................... and the US assisted due to the Big Red Scare that was sweeping the Europe and the USA. The stuff you are throwing out would be kind of funny if it wasn't so sad, but please, keep running off at the mouth with a half assed understanding of world events.

Talking to ex just the other night actually. As l said she's a good woman to things weren't all her fault and we still get along v well. But even she said the other night man, keep that place , she's paying 500pwk rent and has no chance of getting something, she's 55, says at least this is something and only 30mins from beautiful coast and a great town. l didn't ask her she just came out with that as we were talking. Back when we broke up , we talked about keeping our house man, wish we bloody did now tell you what, especially for her. That one was a helluva lot of work though. Wasn't just grass on one ac, 70ft cypress all over the place some of them fallen down, massive trees, all over grown , old sheds and crap all through it. House was solid but old too , she could've managed it in the end paying for some work but she didn't wanna take it on and l didn't want it so we sold it. As l say though not much money back then and 50 50 so, think l drank my share. She paid debts with hers.

America's civil war left 600,00 dead, which is far more than the current skirmish in Iran. Although England and France remained neutral, they supported the south. There must be a lingering political memory of all that.

The whole cost of land and housing now is just crazy. I'm so glad I did something about buying years ago and working hard to pay it off. I can't imagine what that would be like now; I'd be cut out of the market for sure, there's just crazy amounts of money involved these days.

The USA is not a signatory to the war crimes convention and refuses it's jurisdiction.

Another quandry well man, you've come to the right place 🙃. Thanks for the post to Jerry was really interesting. Don't really know anyone in this town as yet bar one bloke across the way met a few wks back. Classic of a guy we get along well but the funniest thing was though found out more about the town with him in 20mins last time than l could in 20yrs living here. Comes in handy ha ha. But l can say one thing so far, relating to all those villages over there for you and the different people, people here do seem very lay back and just have a kinda casual peace about them. Been noticing it a lot so at least that's pretty cool anyway. Well apart from old mate cross the way he's a lively cracker 😀 , good bloke though.

Well they haven't said anything that isn't true. Unlike the prick in the pic

I never visited the English countryside when I was in the UK in 1985, but I did get to see some rural life near Belfast and that was a bit like Dibley in a lot of ways. When I was in London, I went out with a local girl for a while and she took me down to her local pub in Chelsea. I walked in and it was a dead spit of the one in the TV show Coronation Street. Old men with Andy Capp hats on drinking big glasses of warm, flat beer. It was a bit surreal as I thought that sort of stuff was only on television.

Echo chambers are boring. I prefer reading diverse opinions. Echo chambers make those doing the echoing feel better about themselves, but that's about all it achieves.

Some funds have costs that eat into your investment. The industry funds are the Best there.. Nev

the rules on super have relaxed a bit in recent years , my advise ,put into their super i think from memory 30k is a 1 off a year

Yeah l bet wd, just feel bloody grateful that l at least have this place tell you what. Thx to a divorce totally screwing us both financially and so then later a bad deal l did just to get into another house on my own that went south, if not for at least having this l'd be totally stuffed. That's why all this , coupled with age and then prices now, is such a big thing for me andddd l probably couldn't even get finance now if l was starting from scratch, let alone the amount you need. Use to be cheap as blocks everywhere in areas l'd choose only 3-5 yrs ago, now they've effg tripled in just that time. Same with houses. That house l bought, 9yrs ago now, well l went nto it with someone else but thx to them it just sold for 3 times what we paid for it, 3 times x in only 9 yrs- wish l got the money but bc of the deal going bad, the banks got that. This one l have now, l've had 18 yrs. Almost embarrassing what l pad for this back then ha, gone are those days though tell you what, it's madness. Although land is still very cheap out here compared to most places , this one is still 500% now, on what l paid for this 18 yrs ago. l could probably still manage to get a place like this now in an area like this, if l was starting from scratch again bc it's still at least very cheap here but from what l've been scanning, areas like this sadly will be the only way now for a lot of young couples and stuff. Only reason l got to keep this later on when we got divorced was we agreed if l pay off our credit card debt we had, l'd keep this. We made a little bit of money selling out house, but then that was split 50 50 and all long gone now, it wasn't much to now prices, nothin. Our house that we sold would also cost 3x what we paid for it , to buy again now just 10yrs later. That was an old renovator on 1 ac. l feel so badly for ex w now , the divorce wasn't really her fault she's a good woman , but the poor things paying 500 a wk right now, just to rent something, bc she never managed to get into her own place again after we split back then. My main thing now is sort out wtf l'm gonna do , with this one or whatever else, and thn to help my daughter later get her own place one day, she's 23 and thankfully has no interest in buying a house any time soon so gives me time to get ahead in whatever l do and hopefully be in a position to help her in the door later on.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/887890947476013

The USA is no longer a dependable ally. From threatening to take over Greenland (leaving Denmark in the unenviable position of having to prepare to defend their territory from both Russia and the US), to invading Venezuela after destroying boats and killing survivors without any sort of due process, to unilaterally attacking Iran, to incarcerating visitors even from traditional allied countries without cause. Jerry ask yourself - if Australia were attacked and made a request for US assistance, is it likely they would? My feeling is that unless there was profit for their god-king, the answer would be no.

Well, those countries that are bound are also bound to arrest someone who is charged or wanted for an international war crime if that person steps in their country. Would be interesting to see a charge brought against Chump and he then visit (pick any country) and see if that country would arrest him. Even Net may pose a problem for them.

That does not alter the fact that the are asked by others to put their shovel on those other's ship. How goo that shovel is or how they use it is a different question altogether. Still, compared to the alternatives,despite their drawbacks, I would rather the US anyday. Maybe we have been fortunate to be on their good side. Yep.. and at the same time appealed to the US as well to force assistance through.. In addition, when you appealed to the UN for military assistance, you are really appealing to the US as they would be the only ones to take the lead. That is my point.. they saw the US as their defender, and they kept asking the US for help. Again, asking the US to put he US shovel in their ship. Agreed.. again the Kuwaitis made direct pleas to the US as well as the UN... I sort of see a pattern here. That may be true - but in the Syrian civil war, the Syrian opposition groups made direct representation to the US for military help. Others want them to weild that shovel. Just as in Iran, opposition proxies also called for help.

That's right. The International law system is a toothless tiger. The ICC, the UN, all useless.

Jerry I was just wondering if you got around to using Floorp browser. I've been using it since you made the suggestion and am fairly happy with it. While Floorp is around, I'll certainly never go back to Firefox. The only issue I have with Floorp seems to be since they had a major upgrade last year. It's no big deal, just a bit frustrating. When I right click to bring up the right click menu, I'm most often going for the 'open link in new tab' option which is at the top of the menu. When I'm just about to click that option, the menu jumps up one notch so I end up clicking the next one down 'open link in new private window', so I end up with multiple windows. I don't know if other Floorp users have the same problem. There's a Floorp group on Reddit, maybe I should ask there.

https://www.trtworld.com/article/35eac28b7995

Jerry, Dibley kept flashing through my mind reading that post.

I think only Noddy and Big Ears would believe the world could happily tick along without major power dominance. Back to what I said earlier, the three choices to be dominated by are Russia, China and the U.S. Every power has it's pros and cons, but I'd still prefer to be under the domination of the U.S. than the other two. The Americans have their faults, but Putin and Xi don't really demonstrate any sort of society I'd like to live under. The Europeans will never get their act together to compete with the top three for power, not in your dreams.

Paddy O’Malley, an elderly Irish farmer, received a letter from the Department for Work & Pensions stating they suspected he wasn’t paying his employees the statutory minimum wage. They informed him an inspector would be coming to interview his staff. On the appointed day, the inspector arrived. “Tell me about your staff,” he asked Paddy. “Well,” said Paddy, “there’s the farmhand. I pay him £240 a week, and he gets a free cottage. Then there’s the housekeeper. She earns £190 a week, along with free board and lodging. There’s also the half-wit. He works a 16-hour day, does 90% of the work, earns about £25 a week, gets a bottle of whisky, and, as a special treat, occasionally gets to sleep with my wife.” “That’s disgraceful!” said the inspector. “I need to interview the half-wit immediately.” “You’re talking to him now,” said Paddy.

Definitely agree with the good neighbours thing. We're lucky enough to live on 5 acres, 20 minutes from Hobart, and can't see any neighbours from our place. Mind you, we get on really well with our neighbours - about 5 other families we've known over 10 years, our kids caught the same bus to school together, and we still get together a few times a year for parties. If someone needs something they put it on the group chat and usually within 5 minutes someone is offering to help.