Inside Australia's shrinking affordable housing market

Affordable homes are moving faster, buyers are crowding into the same price brackets, and the pressure on entry-level property is only building. Julian Barnes is joined by Finni brokers Costa Arvanitopoulos and Robert Lee to unpack the growing squeeze at the lower end of the market, as first home buyers, investors, and rate-conscious borrowers all compete for a shrinking pool of stock sitting beneath the 5 per cent Deposit Scheme caps. From there, the trio dive into APRA's latest high-LVR lending figures, the rise of rentvesting among Gen Z borrowers, and the changing ways younger Australians are approaching property ownership as both a lifestyle and wealth-building decision. The discussion also turns to ASIC's finfluencer crackdown, the role social media and AI now play in shaping borrower expectations, and why major lenders are tightening trust lending as policy risk continues to rise.