It’s a trope of our times that becoming a first-home owner has never been more difficult and, while there are tens of thousands of twentysomethings who can identify with that fact, it’s frankly no easier to buy your first home when you’re zooming in on 70.

Nearly eight months ago, as I explained in November, a new estate agent took over the management of the inner-urban Melbourne apartment where I’ve lived since 2015. Immediately the agent’s sales honcho started pressing for site entrance to perform a valuation, even as he assured me the owners had no intention of selling.

I knew that not only were the days of “peace and enjoyment” promised in my lease gone for good but I was now on that slippery slope, the travelator of uncertainty, taking me in the direction of homelessness, perhaps via the off-ramp of eviction.

How long the descent would be I couldn’t have imagined. In the eight months from September until the end of May, I contacted 29 estate agents; attended 15 inspections (and, being a........

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