The Pay Off with Sylvia Jeffreys

Property prices are falling, but higher interest rates are squeezing borrowing power. So, should you buy now or wait?

Westpac’s latest Home Ownership Report reveals buyers are holding back, waiting for rates to settle or prices to fall further. But how do you weigh that uncertainty against your own circumstances?

Sylvia Jeffreys is joined by Westpac’s Chief Executive, Consumer, Carolyn McCann to discuss what the bank is seeing from buyers and borrowers — and the options available whether you’re saving for your first home or trying to keep up with repayments.

In this episode:

• Why first-home buyers are holding back — and whether you can time the market
• What negative equity means if you’ve bought with a small deposit
• How to ask your bank for a better rate and access mortgage support
• Where Westpac’s economists expect property prices to head next

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Women make up two in three beginner investors. But as investing gets more advanced, that representation starts to fall away.

Global X portfolio manager Jessica Leung thinks confidence is a big part of the problem — and she knows what it’s like to feel out of place in finance, having spent much of her early career as the only woman on her team.

Jessica joins Sylvia to strip investing back to basics: how ETFs actually work, what to look for when choosing one, the fees that can eat into your returns and why a boring, long-term strategy might be a good thing.

Plus, they unpack the AI investment boom — including why the opportunity extends well beyond the big tech names to data centres, infrastructure and even copper — and the biggest mistake Jessica sees new investors making.

This episode contains general information only and does not constitute personal financial advice.

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Why does a strong CV disappear into a recruitment black hole? Former recruiter and Project Roar founder Catherine Harris joins Sylvia Jeffreys to explain how hiring has changed, what can stop your application reaching a person, and why spending hours on job boards may be getting you nowhere. 

They cover:

• How to make your CV easier for recruitment software and recruiters to read
• What to do if you’re worried your age is counting against you
• How to explain a career break, including time spent caring for children
• How to use conversations and referrals to find opportunities

Catherine also shares what employers could gain by hiring more workers in their fifties and sixties.

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Australia is one week out from the RBA’s next interest rate decision — and the possibility of another rate hike is firmly in focus.

So what is the Reserve Bank actually watching?

RBA Chief Economist and Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter joins Sylvia Jeffreys to take us inside how the bank thinks about interest rates, inflation and the Australian economy — and bust some of the biggest economic myths along the way.
In this episode:

• What the RBA is weighing up ahead of its next rates decision
• Why interest rates affect far more than just mortgage holders
• Whether higher interest rates really push up rents
• Whether migration is adding to inflation
• How government spending factors into the RBA’s thinking
• What’s behind Australia’s housing downturn — and where prices could go from here
• Whether Australian households are showing signs of mortgage stress
• Why the RBA remains concerned about inflation

Plus, Sarah explains what happens behind the scenes before every interest rate decision — from the economic data her team analyses to the papers that land in front of the Monetary Policy Board.

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SportsGrad founder Reuben Williams quit his own company — then figured out how to buy it back.

But that’s only part of his story.

Reuben has gone from landing his dream job at Cricket Australia, to redundancy, entrepreneurship and almost losing the business he built. He’s helped close to 850 people find jobs in sport, travelled the world chasing some of its biggest events, and rebuilt SportsGrad after a buyback deal left him under enormous financial pressure.

At the same time, Reuben spent six years navigating the legal system after taking a former colleague to court over a sexual assault. The experience led him to speak publicly about what happened and become an advocate for survivors.

Reuben joins Sylvia Jeffreys on The Pay Off for a wide-ranging conversation about ambition, resilience, work and what happens when life doesn’t follow the path you expected. In this episode:

• The CV mistakes that could be holding jobseekers back
• Why AI is changing the entry-level jobs market
• What his experience taught him about the barriers facing sexual assault survivors
• The four values shaping how he lives and works

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Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks has built her career around a question: who gets heard — and who gets a seat at the table?

After working inside Parliament House, she founded Missing Perspectives to give young women a bigger voice in media. What started as a Squarespace blog has grown into a global media platform, backed by major brands and amplified by the likes of Reese Witherspoon.

 
Now, her new book The Right Hand takes her inside another world of influence: the chiefs of staff behind some of the world’s most powerful leaders.
In this episode, Phoebe talks about:

• Why working in Canberra changed the way she thought about power and representation
• How a cold LinkedIn message helped launch Missing Perspectives
• Why she turned down early investment — and later quit her job to go all-in
• What traditional media gets wrong about reaching younger audiences
• What the people closest to Tony Blair, Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau revealed about leadership behind closed doors
• The surprising role empathy, trust and difficult conversations play at the highest levels of power
• Why sometimes the hardest part of building something is simply getting started

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Sundae Body sells a product every six seconds and is stocked in more than 10,000 stores across 14 countries. But behind the rapid growth of the colourful Australian beauty brand are some costly mistakes and hard-earned business lessons.

Lizzie Binks went from working in a call centre and receiving a school score of 59 to building one of Australia’s fastest-growing beauty brands. 

The Sundae Body co-founder joins The Pay Off to explain how Sundae went from an idea to shake up the body care aisle to an international success story — and the decisions that almost derailed it along the way.

Binks reveals how she launched into Woolworths and Priceline without a finished product, why the business took eight months to gain momentum and how a six-month cash-flow gap nearly broke the company.

She also shares what happened when Walmart approached her at a New York trade show, why Sundae eventually lost its US shelf space and how the mistake helped the brand succeed at Target.

Sundae Body is preparing for its next major step: A 36-product launch into Sephora in the Middle East.

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Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar started Atlassian as two university friends with $10,000 in credit card debt. They went on to build a global software giant worth more than $100 billion — and become two of Australia’s richest people.

But behind the extraordinary success, their friendship was beginning to fracture.

Tech Bros authors and senior business journalists John Stensholt and Perry Williams join Sylvia Jeffreys to reveal what they uncovered about the relationship behind one of Australia’s greatest business success stories — from tensions inside Atlassian and a reported year in which the founders barely spoke, to a multimillion-dollar renovation dispute between their neighbouring Point Piper mansions.

In this episode:

• How Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar built Atlassian from almost nothing
• The Point Piper property dispute that exposed cracks in their friendship
• What happened when tensions spilled into the workplace and why Farquhar ultimately stepped down as co-CEO
• How Atlassian’s culture changed as the company grew
• The impact of AI and 1,600 job cuts on Atlassian’s future
• What their story teaches us about friendship, ambition and knowing when to walk away

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Interest rates remain at 4.35%, house prices are falling across much of Australia, and households are still feeling the cost-of-living squeeze. So, what happens next?

Westpac Chief Economist and former Reserve Bank Assistant Governor Luci Ellis joins Sylvia Jeffreys to unpack the RBA’s latest decision, what it means for mortgage holders and why Australia’s housing downturn isn’t necessarily a crash.

They examine what’s keeping inflation elevated, whether government spending is part of the problem, the complicated relationship between migration and housing affordability, and why Australia needs more skilled workers to build the homes and infrastructure we need.

In this episode:

• What the RBA's latest decision means for interest rates
• Why falling house prices don't necessarily mean a housing crash
• Whether migration is really to blame for housing unaffordability
• When interest rates could begin falling
• Whether government spending and data centres are adding to inflationary pressure
• Why Australia needs more skilled tradies
• How women and older Australians are reshaping the workforce
• Whether AI will destroy jobs — or create new ones

Subscribe for more conversations about money, property and the decisions shaping your financial future.

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What if technology could help us become better voters?

Climate advocate, former elite long jumper and Build a Ballot co-founder Lizzie Hedding is trying to do exactly that. Her non-partisan voting platform attracted more than 600,000 users during the last federal election, helping Australians cut through political noise and make more informed decisions at the ballot box.

In this episode of The Pay Off, Lizzie joins Sylvia Jeffreys to unpack the unlikely journey that took her from elite athletics to climate advocacy and, eventually, tech entrepreneurship.

She reflects on how the Black Summer bushfires changed the course of her life, why she believes Australian democracy can work better, and what she learned building a political platform designed to remain fiercely neutral.

They also discuss:

• Why younger Australians are engaging with politics differently
• Housing, cost of living and the rise of minor parties
• The challenge of remaining politically neutral in an increasingly polarised environment
• How social media has transformed political messaging
• Why Lizzie chose the not-for-profit path rather than trying to build the next tech unicorn

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