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> My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month.

Melbourne is not cheap, there must be more to this story. The average house price in Melbourne is $855,428. A $600k unit, 20% deposit, 25y mortgage, cheap 2% rate is $1.4k or USD 1k. + strata fees

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Yeah, this person lives in a shoebox in the outer suburbs. We pay double that for a 1920s apartment (so very spacious, but cheap) in a suburb walking distance from the CBD, right next to a tram line.

No I don’t. I’m not in the sticks - it’s a ~20 minute walk to southern cross station from here. I’m not saying how much I paid but it was noticeably less than $600k. My apartment is small for a 2br (It would be uncomfortable with a family) but I live alone and it’s great. It’s bigger than any studio apartment you’d find in SF for $3k/month.

The numbers work out because I had a decent deposit when I bought - which I should have mentioned above since it certainly brings the repayments down. And (I think) let my mortgage broker negotiate for better rates.

30 Yr Mortgage would be 2.75%-3.1% with very good credit right now

Right, I think the parent was quoting an absurdly low rate to point out that even with unrealistically ideal financing, the monthly payment would still be higher than the grandparent's claim.

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