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Buying a first home doesn’t have to mean years of eating beans on toast while you scrape together a 20% deposit. Here’s how you could break into the property market with just a 5% deposit.  The Australian government’s 5% Deposit Scheme has been around since 2020, and in that time it’s been a game-changer for  more than 300,000 first home buyers . That’s because the scheme offers a chance to buy a first home with a 5% deposit – or as little as 2% for single parents. The scheme has also helped...

If you’re in the market for a home, you may have noticed there hasn’t always been a whole lot of choice in recent months. Fortunately, it looks like property listings are really starting to pick back up. Here’s how to make the most of the increase in choice. Sure, price is the obvious big barrier when it comes buying your first home. But that’s often got a whole lot to do with a lack of supply (less supply than demand typically = higher prices). And in fact, Westpac says supply shortages have...

More bad news for mortgage holders around the country: the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) today raised the cash rate for the second time this year to 4.10% in a 5-4 split decision vote. How might this impact your monthly mortgage repayments?  Hardly seems fair to hike the cash rate by another 0.25% with petrol prices so high right now (which one could argue will reduce discretionary spending) – but it wasn’t enough to sway the majority of the RBA board, unfortunately, which voted 5-4 to...