Buying a home to live in
Your home is an investment. Whether you treat it as one or not.
Nobody tells you that at an open for inspection. They tell you about the kitchen. But the postcode you buy into decides how long it takes to afford the place you actually want next, and ten years later the gap between a good pick and an average one is bigger than most people's deposits.
5.0 from 28 Google reviews · Same flat fee as every client
Tried the DIY research route before finding Dan.
Didn't think a buyer's agent was useful. Then came the conversation with this one.
Works in the mortgage industry and still chose Dan for their own investment purchase.
Skeptical at first, then found Dan went above and beyond to find the right property.
Was reluctant to use a buyer's agent until recommendations from friends won them over.
Found Dan helpful and supportive through their first investment purchase.
Found Dan's communication easy, professional and efficient.
Says Dan's commitment to clients is second to none.
Says Dan did an amazing job securing their first investment property.
Refers clients to Dan without hesitation.
Praised Dan's integrity, care and clear strategy.
Says Dan supported them through every stage of the purchase.
Calls engaging Dan one of their best decisions. Professional throughout.
Recommends the agency to selling agents with off-market properties.
Excellent to deal with, and will use Dan again.
Thanked Dan and Kate for the help purchasing their investment property.
Thanked Dan for helping secure a heritage home in regional Victoria.
Genuine, honest and knowledgeable.
Dan secured their first investment property and handled all the agent comms.
Tried the DIY research route before finding Dan.
Didn't think a buyer's agent was useful. Then came the conversation with this one.
Works in the mortgage industry and still chose Dan for their own investment purchase.
Skeptical at first, then found Dan went above and beyond to find the right property.
Was reluctant to use a buyer's agent until recommendations from friends won them over.
Found Dan helpful and supportive through their first investment purchase.
Found Dan's communication easy, professional and efficient.
Says Dan's commitment to clients is second to none.
Says Dan did an amazing job securing their first investment property.
Refers clients to Dan without hesitation.
Praised Dan's integrity, care and clear strategy.
Says Dan supported them through every stage of the purchase.
Calls engaging Dan one of their best decisions. Professional throughout.
Recommends the agency to selling agents with off-market properties.
Excellent to deal with, and will use Dan again.
Thanked Dan and Kate for the help purchasing their investment property.
Thanked Dan for helping secure a heritage home in regional Victoria.
Genuine, honest and knowledgeable.
Dan secured their first investment property and handled all the agent comms.
Who this is for
Three kinds of home buyer walk in. Same process for all of them.
First home
One deposit. Don't spend it in the wrong postcode.
You have a suburb list and everyone has an opinion on it. We put the list next to ten years of price, rent and vacancy before you fall in love with a kitchen.
The first home pageUpgrading
The suburb you move to is the whole edge.
Sell first or buy first is a numbers question, and Tom answers it off your actual equity and capacity. What we bring is the market read on where the next ten years are, not just the next school run.
How the process runsBuying with help
Family money, partner, guarantor. All fine.
The only rule is that everyone who is signing is in the room for the first conversation. A brief that half the buyers disagree with wastes everybody's time.
Book the free callThe number nobody shows you
Two suburbs, the same price today, $300,000 apart at the start.
Langwarrin and Ringwood are both Melbourne, both a house on land, and today they cost within $1,623 of each other. Langwarrin sits at $995,896 and Ringwood at $997,519.
The difference is how they got there. Over ten years Langwarrin has compounded at +5.8% a year and Ringwood at +1.3%. Run those rates backwards and the buyer who picked Langwarrin paid somewhere near $567,241, while the one who picked Ringwood paid closer to $874,922.
Langwarrin · VIC 3910
$567,241
Roughly what it took ten years ago
$995,896 today
+5.8% a year
Ringwood · VIC 3134
$874,922
Roughly what it took ten years ago
$997,519 today
+1.3% a year
Same house price today. About $307,681 difference in what it took to get in the door. And it is still happening: in the year to August 2026, while the Melbourne median went backwards, a typical house in Hallam did +7.4%, Langwarrin +7.1% and Truganina +7.0%. The city median is two different cities averaged together.
Typical prices are modelled estimates as at August 2026, sourced from HtAG Analytics. The ten year figures are today's price run backwards through the published annualised growth rate, not recorded medians. Past growth is not a forecast.
Why I care about this one
I bought my first place as a numbers decision. It paid for the house I live in now.
I was a tradie. I did not have a big deposit and I did not have a family cheque behind me. What I had was the willingness to buy where the data said instead of where my mates were buying.
That first purchase is the reason I live in a $1.6m home today, and I got there before I turned 30. Not because I picked a winner. Because I did not pick a loser with my first and only deposit.
That is the entire process we run for home buyers now. Same one I used on myself, same one we use for investors. The only thing that changes is that you have to like the place too.
Read the full storyHow it works
Same five moves. This one just has to be liveable as well.
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We work out what you can actually do
Borrowing capacity, deposit, and what the repayments look like on a bad month rather than a good one. If the honest answer is wait six months and save, you will hear it.
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We put your suburb list next to the data
You will have a list. Everyone does. We run it against ten years of price, rent and vacancy before you fall in love with a house in a market that has gone sideways since 2016.
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We find the market, then the house
The economics of the area first: jobs, population, supply, incomes. Then the things an investor never has to care about: the commute, the school zone, the second bathroom. Then the actual property, on market, off market and pre market.
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We negotiate like it's our money
Home buyers get worked over at auctions more than anyone, because agents can smell the emotion. That stops being a problem when the person bidding is not the person who has to live there.
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We get it to settlement
Conveyancer, building and pest, finance dates, keys. You end up with a home and a purchase you can explain to yourself in ten years.
Before you ask
It's $20,000 flat, GST included, and on a home that is a lot of money.
Same fee as every other client, at every budget. I am not going to pretend that is small when you are scraping a deposit together. On a $650,000 purchase it is a real bite out of what you have saved.
So here is the test, and it is the only one that matters. If the suburb the numbers point at and the suburb you were going to buy in are the same place, do not pay me. Go and buy it. If they are different places, the ten year gap on this page has been north of $300,000, and that is what the fee is being weighed against.
Do this bit yourself, free
Check your shortlist before you talk to anyone.
Every tool on this site is free and most need no sign up. If you only do one thing, put the suburbs on your list into the Momentum Dial and see where each one sits in its cycle. It takes about a minute and it is the same data we start a paid search from.
Worth a look while you are there: Craigieburn has done +7.3% a year over ten years and still sits at $747,663.
Home buyer questions
The ones that come up on every first call.
Do you actually work with people buying a home to live in?
Yes, first home or the next one, at the same flat $20,000 including GST as every other client. The service is the same. What changes is that most people buying a home have never had anyone treat the purchase as a financial decision before, and that is the whole job.
Is a buyer’s agent worth it on a home?
Honestly, not always. On a $650,000 purchase the fee is a real chunk of your deposit. It stacks up when the difference between the suburb you were going to buy in and the one the numbers point at is worth many times the fee. On the ten year numbers on this page, that gap has been over $300,000. Sometimes it is nothing. I will tell you which on the call.
Will you just tell me to buy somewhere I don’t want to live?
No. It is your home and you have to live in it. What I will do is show you what the data says about the suburbs on your list before you commit, and if one of them has gone backwards for a decade you will hear that from me early rather than from a valuer later. Then it is your call.
What about grants, the 5% deposit scheme and stamp duty concessions?
Your broker and your conveyancer handle those, and they are better at it than I am. I am not a lender, an accountant or a financial adviser, and I stay in my lane on that stuff. What I do is find and negotiate the property.
We’re upgrading. Do we sell first or buy first?
That is a numbers question and it gets answered properly in the strategy session with Tom, off your actual equity, borrowing capacity and timing, not on a call. What I will say now is that the suburb you move to matters more than the month you sell in.
Do you only buy in Melbourne?
No. Every search starts with all 15,000 suburbs in the country and narrows to the handful that suit your brief. For a home that usually lands somewhere you can actually get to work from, because you have to live in it, but where I live has nothing to do with where you should buy.
Fifteen minutes, free, no sales script.
Bring your suburb list and your budget. I will tell you what the data says about both, and whether you need me at all. Plenty of first calls end with me telling someone to go and buy the place they already found.