Home truths

Lee Lin Chin – fashionista, newsreader, Gold Logie loser and social media superstar. In her book, Iced Beer and Other Tantalising Tips for Life, she blows the froth off important topics, from acceptable careers (bartender; brewer) to her favourite cocktail recipe (beer, preferably obscure Japanese, served on ice). Channel Lee Lin’s inimitable flair and contempt for all beneath her and you might discover the Chinspiration you need to live a transcendent life.

After a bit of traction in the housing market? Or just looking for new digs? Straight from Iced Beer and Other Tantalising Tips for Life, here’s Lee Lin’s real estate tips for young and old.

Renting

If you’re young, it seems like this is your only option – renting a sub-par property from, statistically, a non-caring old white slumlord who owns three other domiciles just like it but who would never himself live in such squalor.

The rental market is an aggressive one. It’s like a UFC match, but instead of winning fame, money and a shiny belt, you win the most basic of human necessities – shelter – and you’re competing with an entire city instead of just one person.

When looking for a rental property you may feel that the quality shown is beneath you. Well, you’re correct. They all are. Do you really think you’ll find the perfect house? No one rents out the perfect house; they live in the perfect house and make it even more perfect by renting out their garbage flat.

Bring your hopes down. It’s going to suck.

Once you’ve found a property you don’t completely hate, you merely resent, it’s time to apply and lie through your teeth.

Make your referee a celebrity who is bound to impress the landlord, preferably a sexually experimental newsreader beloved by all. You have my permission to use me.

But Lee Lin, you may be thinking, wouldn’t they check that my reference is real?

Of course they will, and that’s where you get creative. Download my news broadcasts and sketches from the SBS website. There’s days’ worth of footage and thus plenty of dialogue to steal. Cut it together on your computer – which is a thing I assume is possible – and buy a second phone. Give the real estate agent that number and then answer it using my audio clips. Simple.

Or you could bribe the real estate agent. Whichever takes less time, I guess.

Buying a Home

To the Old:

STOP BUYING HOUSES! YOU DON’T NEED EIGHT INVESTMENT PROPERTIES! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN INVESTING IN? YOUR FUTURE? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT’S IN YOUR FUTURE! DEATH!

Sorry if I was a tad aggressive there, but can’t you see that you’re the problem? Just leave the kids alone and stop making their lives worse.

Buying a Home

To the Youth:

Well, I feel for you, I really do, but it is possible to get into the housing market. You just need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and, as Joe Hockey says, ‘get a better job’.

I myself started with nothing, just a small $1 million loan from my father.

Wait, sorry, that’s Donald Trump. Sometimes I get confused, we’re both egomaniacs who find it hard to relate to… well, everyone. Him because he’s a monster and me because I’m a god.

I really did start with nothing, though. As one of seven children there was no way my family could help me out.

But when I bought my apartment fifteen years ago, it was a different time. Money went further and I’d been working for a long time.

After researching the current state of property it seems that my experiences are irrelevant in this day and age. That’s infuriating for me so I can’t even imagine how infuriating it is for the youth.

For once, I am at a loss, I have no advice for you other than to take to the streets. Protest this injustice. The government can only ignore your voice for so long and if enough people speak out they’ll have to change things.

I’m truly sorry that I have no other advice to give.

I guess you could take Malcolm Turnbull’s and have your rich parents buy you a house, but how many people actually have rich parents?

I should be Prime Chinister.