Aug 7, 2026 – 11.20amThe last thing 25-year-old Neve Hickey planned to do this year was to buy an apartment, but a slide in Melbourne’s property prices was too good to miss.“I’ve probably always seen more of a benefit in investing in the stock market as opposed to property,” she says. “But the declining market felt like a good opportunity to own a home.”Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Andrew HobbsWealth reporterAndrew Hobbs covers self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), financial planning, retirement, inheritance, tax, personal finance and, sometimes, the Perth Bears. He has been a financial journalist for 30 years, previously at Bloomberg and AAP.Fetching latest articles