I think you can find some desperation sales as Rob has suggested. I am sure that interest rates will ease off before the end of the year and that will make it harder to find desperat sellers.
If you are happy to keep renting but want to have an investment property you will find that it won't cost you all that much as the tenant will carry most of the load plus you will have all the tax deductions that come with the investment thereby bringing your costs down even more.
You will have to check this, as some people have disagreed with me, but I beleive your investment property will be Capital Gains Tax free for the first 6 years.
So if you sell it in a few years time you should be able to take the capital gain and use it as a deposit on whatever house you and your lady want to settle in.
The trick will be to decide which city, which suburb, which property will give you the best gain. Easier said than done. Some of the posters on this thread can help.
I personally think Adelaide's norhern beaches (Semaphore, Larg's Bay etc) will give you great bang for bucks in the next 5 years and will be buying their myself.
If you like Melbourne (I live in Melbourne) then I would focus on St.Kilda and Elwood as I think they will out perform.
There's a lot of other stuff we can help with on this thread so don't be shy to come back.
