Melbourne father buys $680,000 house for his daughter - but she's not even old enough to live on her own

A Melbourne father has forked out $680,000 to buy a house for his school-aged daughter over fears she wouldn't be able to afford to buy a property in the future.

The dad, who outbid two first-home buyers at an auction on Saturday, plans to rent out the two-bedroom art-deco cottage until his daughter is old enough to move in.

Co-selling agent Luke Magree told The Age that bidding kicked off at $630,000, before the determined dad ended up sealing the deal.

'This home has been an investment property for the last eight years and it presented really well ... but it was also very unique,' Mr Magree said.

'There's not too many of those left,'

The cottage features a stain-glassed front door and high ceilings, set on a 600m sq corner block in the heart of Frankston.

It is expected to be rented out for up to $520 a week.

The sale left some people scratching their heads on whether parents were going too far.

'Has the pressure on parents ever been higher?' one person wrote.

'As if it's not difficult enough to buy our own homes, we now need to be buying them for our school-aged kids?'

Another added: 'The system is busted. How can we sustain a tax regime that allows people to hoard land for generations?

'This speculator will live off the wages of his tenants while he waits for his daughter to become old enough to join the 'haves'.'

A third asked whether anyone else was 'offended by this'.

'Sure, by all means look after your children, but at what cost?' he said.

Another added: 'Buying houses for children who haven't finished school. What's next, buying houses for grandkids and great-grandkids not even born yet?'

The Frankston sale falls well short, though, of what a generous Sydney dad splashed out earlier this year.

He gifted his daughter a $6.95 million luxury home in one of Australia's most expensive suburbs, North Bondi.

The three-storey Bonus Street property sold at auction for just under the $7 million reserve.

Despite snaring the sought-after home, he was expected to hand the keys to the four-bedroom property to his daughter.