This step asks you to list every cost you currently expect to pay when buying a home. The result is your personal baseline — a snapshot of what you know right now. You will revisit this list in Lesson 5, after the course has walked through the complete picture, so you can see exactly what you missed.
Testing yourself before you learn something improves how well you retain the information afterwards. Research from Richland, Kornell, and Kao (2009) found that even unsuccessful attempts to answer questions before studying the material led to better results on later tests, compared to simply reading the content . This is called the pretesting effect.
That is why this step comes first. By writing down what you already know, you prime your brain to notice the gaps. When later lessons reveal costs you had not considered, those gaps will stand out — and you will remember them.
The data suggests most buyers have significant gaps. Finder's First Home Buyer Report 2025 found that 47% of first-time buyers exceeded their budget . You cannot close gaps you do not know about. This exercise makes them visible.
Your baseline
Before this course walks through every cost involved in buying and owning a home, you need to know where you stand right now.
The activity on this page lists cost categories you might face when buying a property. Your job is simple: check the ones you already expect to pay. Do not research the answers. Do not guess strategically. Just mark the costs you are genuinely aware of right now.
Why this matters
This is not a test. There is no pass or fail. Most people miss several costs on this list — that is the entire reason this course exists.
Nearly half of Australian first-time buyers (47%) end up paying more than they budgeted, up from 38% in 2022 . The most common regret among those buyers? Paying too much for the home (26%) . These are not people who were careless. They simply did not know what they did not know.
What to do
Go through the checklist in the activity panel. Check every cost you currently expect to pay when buying a home. When you are done, note how many items you checked.
You will come back to this number in Lesson 5. The gap between what you checked today and what the course covers is your personal learning target — the specific blind spots this course will fill.
One rule
Do not look anything up. The point is to capture your current awareness, not your research skills. Honest answers now will make the rest of this course far more useful to you.