A financial adviser for young professionals in Melbourne earning real money for the first time.
A financial adviser for young professionals in Melbourne — junior doctors, lawyers, consultants and engineers on $120K to $300K. First home, super, insurance, HECS, and how to invest beyond the default fund. One file. One adviser.
Six conversations that come up before 35.
Same adviser across all six. The plan, the loan and the cover sit on one file rather than three separate quotes from three separate firms.
First home, deposit gap and all
Most people on a registrar or junior-lawyer salary can service the loan well before they can save the deposit. The First Home Guarantee, FHSS, parental guarantees and 5 to 20 percent options are worked through plainly.
Salary packaging where it exists
Public hospitals, charities and some consulting employers offer packaging. The dollar figure is real. We work out what is worth packaging, what is not, and how it interacts with HECS and the tax bracket.
Super consolidation and investment option
Three or four old funds bleeding fees is common at this stage. Consolidation, default option review, and a sensible growth tilt while the horizon is still 30 years out.
Debt stacked sensibly
HECS, a car loan, and a credit card balance is the usual picture. Order of attack, refinance options on the car, and a written cash-flow rule before adding a mortgage.
Income protection while you are still healthy
Premiums are lower and underwriting is cleaner before the first specialist referral, the first ACL reconstruction, or the first mental-health claim on a Medicare card. Worth setting up now.
Investing outside super
ETFs, debt recycling once the mortgage is in place, and a conversation about whether an investment property fits or whether it is too soon. Honest answers, not a script.
The decade that sets the next four.
The salary curve between 25 and 35 is the steepest most people will ever see. Pay goes from graduate to senior, then bonuses or partner track start to land. The decisions made through that window quietly compound for the next thirty years. The first home buyer hub covers the deposit and scheme piece across broker, BA and planning, and investment-property briefs start to come up once the first home is bedded down.
Three things usually get left too long: super (no one looks at it), insurance (everyone assumes the employer default is enough, and it is not), and the deposit strategy (saved haphazardly rather than structured). None of them are urgent until they are.
The Opes engagement here is not life-stage product flogging. It is a practitioner who has run this conversation hundreds of times with registrars, junior lawyers, management consultants and software engineers, and who can tell you what actually matters versus what just sounds important.
Deposit, schemes, and the real borrowing number.
Most people on a senior associate or registrar income can service a $700K to $900K loan well before the deposit is there. The job is closing the gap without taking on bad debt.
First Home Guarantee
Buy with 5 percent down, no LMI, subject to income and price caps. Place numbers are limited each financial year. The broker checks the caps for your suburb before you build a plan around it.
FHSS scheme
Put extra concessional contributions in, then withdraw them for a deposit. Useful for high earners because the contribution gets taxed at 15 percent on the way in rather than your marginal rate.
Full deposit, no LMI
Sometimes the right call is to wait six to twelve months, hit 20 percent, and skip the LMI bill. Other times the market move outpaces the saved deposit. The numbers determine the answer, not a rule.
Income protection now, while the underwriting is easy.
The most common regret we hear from clients in their 40s is that they did not set up income protection before a back problem, an anxiety claim or a knee reconstruction made the policy harder to write. Premiums are also age-rated, so the policy is cheaper the earlier you start.
Default cover inside super is rarely enough on a $150K income. It is worth a proper conversation, not a tick-box.
See the income protection page for how the underwriting actually works.
Super is doing more work than you think.
Most people in this bracket have three or four legacy super accounts from past jobs, each with its own fee and insurance. Consolidation, investment option review, and a sensible growth tilt are the basics. They take a single afternoon and they pay back for forty years.
See superannuation advice for what the engagement looks like.
Questions we get from people in this bracket.
No. The five years between the first real salary and the first house tend to be the highest-leverage years for the rest of the file. Decisions made now about super, insurance and the deposit strategy compound longer than anything done later. The first conversation is free.
Usually yes if you work for a public hospital, public health service, or a registered charity. The cap and the way it interacts with HECS and the Medicare levy surcharge are the bits people get wrong. We do the actual numbers against your payslip, not a generic example.
If your future income is the asset funding the house, the kids and the retirement, yes. The case is strongest while you are healthy and a non-smoker, because that is when the policy is cheapest and easiest to underwrite. Locking in cover before any pre-existing conditions get listed makes the policy materially more useful in 10 or 20 years.
HECS is indexed to inflation, not interest. The maths usually favours investing or saving the deposit ahead of voluntary HECS repayments, but the answer changes around the threshold for the new compulsory rate. It is worth a specific calculation rather than a rule of thumb.
Yes. FHSS lets you put extra concessional contributions into super and pull them back out for a deposit. The First Home Guarantee lets you buy with as little as 5 percent without LMI. They can stack. The broker side of the file checks the price caps for your suburb before you bank on either.
Initial consultation is free, about 30 minutes. If we proceed to a Statement of Advice, fees are scoped to the work and quoted upfront. Broking fees are paid by the lender, not by you. Where a buyer's agent is involved, the financial plan is included at no extra fee.
Continue reading
- Financial planningHow the Statement of Advice work fits at this stage.
- First home buyer loansFirst Home Guarantee, FHSS, stamp duty concessions and lender choice.
- Income protectionCheaper and easier to write while you are healthy.
- Superannuation adviceConsolidation, investment option, and contribution strategy.
- Debt managementHECS, car loans, credit cards. Order of attack.
- First home buyer hubCross-pillar view for the first home decision.
- Investment propertyWhen the first home is behind you and the portfolio starts.
Set the next thirty years up in one afternoon.
If you are between 25 and 35, salaried, and the file has not been opened yet, the first call is free. About 30 minutes. No homework before it.