FLAT CHAT WRAP

As we edge ever closer to relief from our various lockdowns – and the inevitable spike in infections that will follow before vaccinations fully kick in – the NSW government’s plan for apartment blocks is quietly gelling in the background.And, as detailed in this story, part of the plan to limit the spread as we transition to semi-freedom, will be to blitz any unit blocks where an infection pops up.One major element of that strategy is to allow managers, health workers or even police to knock on apartment doors to find out who’s living there and who is a frequent visitor.Now, as discussed on Amanda Farmers live podcast last week, maintaining accurate strata rolls is among the least-observed strata laws – and it IS law – on the statute books.However, as we discuss on this podcast, that piffling $200 maximum fine for not registering on the strata roll could become a $5000 slam for not give “true and accurate” information under the new public health orders.And does having a strata roll that doesn't match the names and numbers of people living in a unit increase the chances that the block will be deemed "high-risk" and locked down? LISTEN HEREAlso this week we discuss the importance of good ventilation in apartment blocks – especially when there’s a deadly airborne virus flying around.And we have some handy hints on how renters can make the most of record low rents in our CBDs.Finally, the Bachelor finds a pad, and a brief reminder of why a good pair of headphones are an absolute boon for you and your neighbours during lockdown.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.     TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 I was listening to Amanda Farmer's podcast, which is on Friday afternoons. I listened in last Friday; there's a lot of chat about the issue that we raised in the website last week (and it's been elsewhere), about the new measures that the government is preparing to take in apartments, in cases of potential 'block-down.'Sue  0:26 As you've coined it.Jimmy  0:28 It was interesting to hear her, because she's a strata lawyer and her podcasts tend to be listened to by a lot of strata managers and strata professionals. She was talking about the legalities of these new powers that the government has given people, to go in and basically come and knock on your door and ask who's living here; who's been here visiting. So, we're going to talk about that and you've got stuff about air quality; you've written an article about air quality, which will be on the website. And, we're also going to talk about how to get a good rental.Sue  1:13 From a tenant's perspective.Jimmy  1:15 From the tenants perspective, yes. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  1:22 And I'm Sue Williams, I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  1:25 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOne of the new powers that's been given to strata managers and health professionals (and you wrote about this in the Sydney Morning Herald), is the ability to go and knock on doors and say "who's living here? Who's been staying here?" This is when there's an infection in an apartment block and they want to do onsite contact tracing, I suppose you would call it.Sue  2:05 Yeah and they want to check how many people in a building have tested positive and want to know whether they should lock it down. So therefore, they want to know who lives in each apartment and who's been visiting each apartment.Jimmy  2:17 And there's quite substantial fines for people who don't give true and accurate information.Sue  2:23  Really, how much?Jimmy  2:24  That's the wording, yes. I think it's about $5,000.Sue  2:28 Okay, that's 10 times more than Tony Abbott got, for not wearing a mask at Manly.Jimmy  2:34 Yes.Sue  2:35 Isn't it funny, he's saying we're not a nation of dobbers, but really, maybe we should be,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Forgive us for patting ourselves on the back this week but, having surpassed 20,000 downloads and listens to the podcast, I reckon we’ve earned a little self-indulgence.  Suffice it to say that the audience for our weekly ramblings is growing steadily, and that has to be good.This week we turn our attention to the extended moratorium on rental evictions and the compensation for landlords who reduce the rents of tenants who are doing it tough. You can read all about that HERE.Then we discuss France’s vaccine passport and how people are taking that up with gusto (or should that be elan?).  Sue thinks the idea of vaccine passports is complicated – Jimmy vehemently disagrees. You can also read some other arguments, both pro and con, HERE.LISTEN HEREWe talk about how and why rental vacancies are going up in Melbourne but have plateaued in Sydney.We dig into Building Commissioner David Chandler’s latest attempts to expose the shonks and swindlers in the building trade, this time by focussing his laser vision on the worst of the worst certifiers and sending them a collective “My office, now!”Jimmy talks about the odd letter from Kerry Chant’s office that took a week to confirm it was real. By the way, it came out after this podcast was in the can but we now know why it was issued, as NSW Health gets ready blitz apartment blocks.We ask why 90 per cent of strata professionals and committee members would not recommend buying off the plan to friends, family or colleagues.Sue takes us to Green Square where the population density is greater than in New Delhi but the facilities there make it a very nice place to live.And we discuss why cats are OK for apartment blocks but not so great at ground level. That’s all, and more, in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We achieved quite a milestone this weekend, as regards this podcast.Sue  00:05Yeah?Jimmy  00:05Overnight, we had our 20,000th download.Sue  00:11Wow! 20,000?Jimmy  00:12Yeah, so that's spread over 138 podcasts, but still, it's okay.Sue  00:18Oh, that's amazing. Congratulations, Jimmy.Jimmy  00:23We have probably more than 50% more listeners, than we had this time last year.Sue  00:28Oh, fantastic!Jimmy  00:30I read something that said, if you get more than 135 listeners in your first two weeks, you are in the top 50% of podcasts in the world and we're way ahead of that.Sue  00:47That's great. Well, thank you, everybody listening, for supporting us. Thanks for listening in.Jimmy  00:52It could be one person, listening to it 20,000 times. I doubt that that's the case;  I'd be a bit worried if it was.Sue  00:58They'd be in hospital by now, I'd imagine.Jimmy  00:59Getting back to this week's podcast, we're going to talk about David Chandler's battle to build confidence in apartment building. Things like certifiers; he's putting certifiers under the microscope and the irony of trying to build confidence by pointing out problems. Before that, we're going to talk about the continuing payments for rent reductions available to landlords. The evictions moratorium has also been extended. And, we're just going to talk about high-density living. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:27And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:42And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo, the government has extended the moratorium on evictions and the compensation for rent reductions.Sue  02:08That's in New South Wales, not in Victoria; I don't think they have a moratorium there.Jimmy  02:14Well, New South Wales is obviously at the moment, in a lot more trouble with COVID than anywhere else in Australia.Sue  02:21That's right and, it's been going on for longer.Jimmy  02:22Yeah. So,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

In this week’s podcast we chat about a report which reveals that one-third of 500 unit blocks inspected in a survey had serious defects, from leaking bathrooms, to fire safety issues..And there’s the stomach-churning claim that some units face remediation bills that will cost more than half the purchase price of the apartments.We also look at a small scale developer who has been ordered by a court to pay more than $1million in compensation, plus legal costs, after their attempts to blame everyone else for the problems in their property fell on deaf ears.LISTEN HEREWe touch briefly on the revelation that the two tradies per apartment limit on apartment renovations doesn’t apply to unoccupied units – they can have as many as they want provided they don’t go over the one worker per 4sqm limitAnd we examine how out-of-date community title laws have stymied pet owners’ attempts to enforce the new by-laws on pets.Finally, we follow Sue’s story on Pinchy the crayfish whose rescue and survival is worth of Disney movie.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We're going to be revisiting some well-worn paths this week, but each of them has a bit of a twist, Sue Williams.Sue  00:07They certainly do!Jimmy  00:08A couple of stories about defects. We're going to be looking at renovations in apartments during lockdown (again), because it's even worse than we thought. We're going to be looking at pets, but not in strata; in community schemes. And, we've got a happy little story, that's got nothing to do with apartments really, except that you wrote it. It was written in an apartment.Sue  00:36That's a tenuous link, isn't it, really?Jimmy  00:38Yep. It's about as strong as I can get. I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:47And I'm Sue Williams. I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:49And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySue, one positive story for apartment owners, regarding defects that you've dug out and another absolutely horrendous one.Sue  01:14Oh, yes. What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?Jimmy  01:17Give us the good news first.Sue  01:19Okay, well, residents in an apartment building in Strathfield in Sydney, won their fight against the developer about defects. There was lots of defects (alleged), in this building, including bad waterproofing and flammable cladding and they won in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled against the developers, after the developers pointed to everybody else and said "it's their fault; it's not our fault. It was the designers, it was the architects, it was the certifiers." The Supreme Court of New South Wales disagreed and said it was their fault, so they've ordered them to pay all the costs of remediation and the legal costs that the strata owners incurred in their fight.Jimmy  01:59So, what's the total cost to the developer?Sue  02:03They're having to pay just over $1.2 million, to get all the defects fixed and they're also paying the cost of $183,000 that the unit owners incurred, during their fight.Jimmy  02:17Are we going to name these developers? I think we should.Sue  02:20Right. Omaya and Al Maha.  Okay, well, they're a husband and wife team; Antoine and Georgette Bechara and they have a company called (they have various companies, you know, where they go through lots of different names)... The wife is a sole director and shareholder of Omaya Holding limited and Mr. Bechara's company is Al Maha Ltd.  That's right.Jimmy  02:48That's interesting. I'm sure they'll be doing their best to lift their game in the future, when it comes to any developments that they do under those names.Sue  02:59Sure and the certifiers (Essential Certifiers), have now gone out of business, so they're not trading anymore.  They've had lots of complaints about them,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

There’s a lot to get through in this week’s podcast, not least the new regulations on pets in strata which replace the now defunct blanket bans on pets.Even so, Jimmy finds time to indulge in not one but two full-on rants.But first, we talk about noise, specifically from kids playing in and around strata blocks during lockdown.Is it even reasonable to ask parents to tell their kids to keep the noise down?  And should we be bothered if they draw a hopscotch grid on the driveway in chalk?And then there’s the noise from renovations. In Victoria, during lockdowns, renos in apartment blocks are banned if there is even just one apartment occupied at the time – end of story.LISTEN HEREIn NSW, provided you have no more than two tradies working in any apartment at any given time, you can have as many renos going on in the same block as you want.What about all the people forced to work from home and not able to go out for anything except shopping and exercise? Welcome to rant No.1.Then we have the new pet regulations (which came out after we had recorded and edited the podcast, so we had to go back in and do that part all over again). The new amendment to the NSW strata Act say schemes can’t have by-laws that bans pets unreasonably.And now you have retrospective regs that define “reasonable”, all of which makes it easier for residents to have pets, but easier for owners corps to remove them if they cause a nuisance, by defining exactly what a nuisance might be.As you can read in this story, the onus is now on owners to have strata-friendly pets rather than find pet-friendly strata schemes.And here is the promised link to the Companion Animals Act, which is referenced in the new regulations.Finally, we talk about all the positives coming from the lockdowns, specifically the ways in which strata residents are helping each other get through all this.And this includes rant No.2 – if you are a member of the Potts Pointers Facebook group, you might want to give this a listen. Enjoy.TRANSCRIPT IN FULL Jimmy  00:00I am shocked and disappointed, Sue Williams.Sue  00:04Something I've done?Jimmy  00:06I've been writing a lot on the website, about how little concern is given to apartment residents by New South Wales Health. I've been saying there should be somebody in there who knows about apartment living and then I found out last week, that two of the ministers in the Crisis Cabinet are former Fair Trading Ministers.Sue  00:32Really?Jimmy  00:32Yeah, so we're going to be talking about that, later. We're going to be talking about noise, during lockdown. We're going to be talking about the new pet laws that come in this week and, we're going to talk about some of the good things that are happening during lockdown in apartments. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:55And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:58And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyNoise in and around the lockdown, Sue.  I mean, noise in apartments is one of the big issues, anyway and I've had a couple of posts to the Flat Chat forum this week, from people complaining about noisy children, like in normal times... Children running around, screaming and shouting and they're not able to get any peace and quiet.Sue  01:39Yeah, that would be very hard, wouldn't it? Especially I suppose, in lockdown, when kids are cooped up.Jimmy  01:43Yeah. Well, we saw a story in the Sydney Morning Herald (or was at the Sun-Herald), this week, about parents who've had complaints against them;  notices sent by their Owners Corporations, about the children playing on common property and using chalk to draw hopscotch grids. What can you do? You've got kids in the house, you're not allowed to go out for more than an hour at a time.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

How has apartment living in Australia changed in the past four years?  The answer is a lot, but still too little.This week, we celebrate our 200th column in the Australian Financial Review (and our 820th in all media).And at the risk of being accused of self-congratulation, it’s a good opportunity to look back on what has changed and what hasn’t in the past four years and beyond.It has to be said that progress has been slow and occasionally faltering, as we look at all the “hot” issues, such as dodgy building developers, the NSW Building Commissioner, pet by-laws, flammable cladding, short-term lets, sunset “clawbacks”  and anything else that’s made headlines here and elsewhere in the recent past.LISTEN HEREWe also dive into the question of what represents a higher risk to apartment residents – allowing cleaners from West and South-West Sydney Covid-19 hotspots to travel, or not having the touch points in apartment block common areas professionally cleaned?With more than 70 per cent of Sydney’s cleaners living in the “hard lock-down” areas, this is a dilemma that faces a lot of apartment blocks.Needless to say, we both have solutions that will infuriate some and amuse others. It’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00It's a bit of a landmark for Flat Chat, this weekend.Sue  00:03Yeah?Jimmy  00:04 I just published the 200th edition of the column, in the Fin review.Sue  00:11Oh wow! Well done!Jimmy  00:12Thank you. So, we'll be talking about that and the changes that have happened in the past four years. And, we'll be talking about the dilemma over cleaners from the lockdown hotspot LGA's in the west and southwest of Sydney. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:34And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:37And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]Sue  00:52Well, happy anniversary, Jimmy. Gosh, that's gone quickly; four years!Jimmy  00:56Four years, 200 columns. But, that's only 200 in the Fin Review.Sue  01:02That's right. Before that you were in the Sydney Morning Herald. How many years were you doing that?Jimmy  01:07Well, 620 columns.Sue  01:12Wow!Jimmy  01:14That breaks down to what; about 12/13 years?Sue  01:17Goodness me and you still don't seem to run out of things to write about.Jimmy  01:21No. I haven't repeated myself that often. I mean, we do go back and update certain topics, obviously, because things do change.Sue  01:29And all your columns, are they all on the Flat Chat website?Jimmy  01:32Most of them are. That's why we in fact, we started the Flat Chat website, to have a kind of repository for all the columns. And you know, I wouldn't dig too far back, if you're looking for information, because the laws have changed. But, I was amazed to find that all my previous columns are still online, for the Fin Review.Sue  01:56Oh, fantastic. And tell me, have things changed enormously in the last four years?Jimmy  02:02Some things have changed enormously; some things have not changed at all.Sue  02:06Okay, shall we look at the good news first?Jimmy  02:09Well, I think the biggest news (certainly in New South Wales), is the appointment of the Building Commissioner, David Chandler. He was appointed because things weren't changing. Dodgy builders were building dodgy buildings, and then 'phoenixing' into other entities. You know, just shutting down shop, before the unfortunate purchasers of of their apartments could claim for the defects. And even if they did claim for the defects, they'd just shut down, and then disappear, with a slightly different name, but with exactly the same business address and exactly the same phone numbers.Sue  02:45And has the Building Commissioner changed an awful lot,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

This week’s podcast has placed a ban on the C-word … no, not that one, the other one that’s filling our news bulletins on radio and TV and clogging up our newspapers and online reports.Instead, we start off talking about pets and renters, courtesy of a guest spot Jimmy did on James Valentine’s Afternoons on ABC radio.We’ve snipped out his listeners’ contributions but we’ve left in the insights from  Tenants-NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross about what happens to pet-owning renters who have to move house when a lot of landlords are still saying “no pets”.You can here the piece in full here, with listeners' calls, from the ABC Radio website (go to the one-hour mark if you only want to listen to that segment). And you can get your own advice from the Tenants Union here (it will automatically connect you with the right website for your state). LISTEN HEREBy the way, if you are a landlord rather than a tenant, that website will give you all the information you need about your rights and responsibilities, so it’s a good one to bookmark for the future.Also in the podcast, we discuss a worrying trend towards unhappy owners trying to sack their strata committees and why, even when they’re successful, it doesn’t always work out the way they had hoped.And finally, we look at fluctuating apartment prices and where the “sweet spot” may be for those brave enough to take an investment plunge right now.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We have a challenge.Sue  00:02Oh, what's that?Jimmy  00:03We have to try and get through a whole podcast without saying the C word. Oh, I mean the other C word. The new C word.Sue  00:14Oh, that's a good challenge to have, because I'm really...Jimmy  00:17Sick of it.Sue  00:18Yes, exactly.Jimmy  00:19Alright. We've done all we can to help people.Sue  00:22Yep.Jimmy  00:23It's up to them now; we're moving on. We're going to be listening in to a session I did on the James Valentine show on ABC Radio last week, when we were talking about pets and tenants. We are going to be talking about sacking your strata committee and replacing them with a compulsory manager. And, we're going to be talking about apartment prices and what is going on there. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:55And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:58And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]Sue  01:14I understand you were on James Valentine last week, Jimmy? What were you talking about?Jimmy  01:18We were talking about pets and tenants and the problems that tenants have when they've got a pet and they're trying to find somewhere else to live. And also on the show, was Leo Patterson Ross from the Tenant's Union.Sue  01:33Oh, great!Jimmy  01:33So, we covered quite a lot of ground and this is how it went out on air.James  01:39Your'e on ABC Radio, in Sydney and Newcastle this afternoon. There was the sad story on ABC News last week, about the difficulty that many renters have, trying to find accommodation, when they have a pet; when they've got the dog, got the cat. Many landlords say "nope, you can't come in." This is relevant and increasingly relevant, because more and more people have dogs and companion animals; we value that relationship so much more than perhaps we once did. The numbers are increasing; more and more people will be turning up with dogs and with cats and companion animals, when they're trying to rent. What's interesting also, is that the situation in New South Wales is different to the situation in Victoria and the ACT, where landlords are not allowed to discriminate against people with the dog; they're not allowed to say no to the dog. What's the situation here and what experience have you had? Is this something that you've had to deal with? Are you a tenant,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We had a new PHO out last week – that’s a Public Health Order, not a Vietnamese noodle soup – and as we discuss in the pod, it’s more of a dog’s breakfast from NSW Health.Are we supposed to allow renovations in apartments when people are being told to stay inside and even work from home?Are cleaners essential workers? How about building managers? Does anybody in NSW Health realise that apartments and townhouses are significantly different from each other and, certainly, from free-standing bungalows?When they tell us to pass by-laws to fill the gaps in their legislation, do they even know that that means and how hard it can be.LISTEN HEREDo they know that some blocks – maybe even the majority – don’t have building managers, strata managers or even active committees? Or that half the strata population are tenants with zero effective say in the way their blocks are run?Is anyone in Fair Trading trying to explain the facts of strata life to the Health Department policymakers … and are they listening?We ask former OCN board member and active advocate for strata residents Jane Hearn what NSW Health is thinking, if anything.  Also in the pod, we discuss this story about a new star ratings system for new apartment blocks in NSW and try desperately not to be too cynical.And we discover a tiny skerrick of good news for owners in Mascot Towers.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 I've got a bit of a confession to make.Sue  0:01 What?Jimmy  0:03  I think I might have Olympic fever.Sue  0:06 What's Olympic fever, Jimmy?Jimmy  0:08 Well, I started to suspect this, when the figures came out last week for the new number of infections in Sydney. There were 96 and my immediate response was to go "come on, Australia! Come on, Sydney; you can do it!" Which is probably an inappropriate response.Sue  0:28 Absolutely, yes, but the Olympics have been amazing.Jimmy  0:32 Terrific relief from all this doom and gloom, of which there is much.Sue  0:37 It's been fantastic for keeping us occupied during lockdown.Jimmy  0:40 Yes and keeping us thinking about going to the gym, or having a swim or whatever. Today, we will not be talking about the Olympics; we'll be talking about a new scheme that the government's bringing in to have a star rating for new developments. And, we'll be talking about the latest public health orders and how confusing (and confused), they are, when it comes to apartments. And, finally, a tiny little bit of good news for the people in Mascot Towers. I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  1:20 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  1:23 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyThis weekend, we had yet another public health order from New South Wales Health. Once again, apartments seemed to be totally beyond their capacity for thought or concern, because in their bureaucratic gobbledygook (because of pressure from the construction industry), they have now removed all restraints on building work, apart from in the eight local government areas that are in southwest Sydney, that are currently the worst affected by the pandemic. What this means is, on one hand, you've got the Premier, Gladys and the Health Minister, Brad, saying you've got to stay home; just stay home. Just don't go out. Don't leave; if you can work from home, work from home and people, generally, seem to be doing that.Sue  2:31 On the other hand, you've got construction workers allowed back into apartment buildings to redo bathrooms and redo kitchens and carry on with the renovation frenzy, that we're all in.Jimmy  2:43 And one suspects, it's all done on that basis of 'well, if you wanted to have a nice life, you should never have bought an apartment.'Sue  2:53 So with that in mind, we had a chat to Jane Hearn.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

On this weeks’ Podcast Sue Williams and JimmyT explore the differences if any that our current locked down, work-from-home life will make to the way we build and live in apartments in the future.Last week we were taking the mickey out of marketers promoting “zoom rooms” … but then we thought about it and agreed, if they were done properly, they could be great.Then we look at the Australian Building (sub)Standards for noise mitigation in apartments which are close to useless even before builders start cutting corners and trimming costs on all the things we can’t see between walls and under floors.LISTEN HEREMeanwhile there are products like those we mention from Arcicture.com that cut down noise and look pretty good too.Then there’s open spaces, infrastructure for home offices, shared workspaces and areas in and around blocks where you can just chill out.Sooner or later developers are going to work out that putting a small premium on a lot of apartments that have access to a rooftop social space, is worth more (in every way) than selling a penthouse apartment to one person for their exclusive privileged use.This isn't going to happen overnight but unrenovated flats and new apartments, all with poor sound insulation, will drop down the priority list for buyers and renters alike.There’s all that and more – including the stupid “nanny state gone mad” arguments about leaf blowers in Bondi.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Thank God for the Olympics!Sue  00:02Yes, it's come in handy at the time of COVID, hasn't it? Not for the athletes and the people who wanted to go of course, and the officials and the volunteers, but for...Jimmy  00:11Those of us stuck at home?Sue  00:12Yes. It's pretty amazing.Jimmy  00:14Yeah. I briefly toyed with the idea that maybe, it was deliberate.Sue  00:19I think somebody on Insider said today, isn't it fantastic; we're all cheering for Australia and we're all Australians when we win a gold medal at the women's relay, but when we're talking about dividing our Pfizer shots, we're a nation of different states.Jimmy  00:34Yes, exactly. Okay, now, we're going to be talking about how dealing with COVID has affected the way that we live in apartments and what that might mean for the future. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:54And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:57And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]Jimmy  01:13Sue, if you were going to change anything about the way apartments were built in the future (given that this may not be the last time we have a pandemic, or a wave of the current one), what would you change?Sue  01:29Obviously, I'd want buildings to be much better built and to have much better soundproof qualities as well, because I think we're all at home a lot. If we had (god forbid), another pandemic, we'd all be home again. We don't really want to hear our neighbours playing the piano, or their kids running around above us on wooden floors, or playing the bass really loudly on rock music, or clanging weights in the gym; that kind of thing. We want to have some peace.Jimmy  02:00There's been a culture in and around apartments and I remember the old CTTT, one of their members saying you have to expect a certain amount of noise, when you live in apartments and that noise from other people. Of course, 'a certain amount' is a very undefined level of noise transmission. The building standards for noise transmission (even in apartments), even in the most recent figures, are ridiculous.Sue  02:29Ridiculously low! They should be much better.Jimmy  02:31Much, much better, yes. So, is that the first thing to tackle; the building standards, to have a reasonable assumption that you will have a reasonable amount of peace and quiet in your apartment?

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Covid kicks off the podcast again this week, unfortunately, but with both Sydney and Melbourne shut down it’s the first thing that springs to everyone’s  mind.However there are some new talking points – like the surprisingly handy Strata Covid Toolkit produced by the NSW government last weekend, which we highly recommend.Then, just when they’ve final acquired some Flat Chat Brownie points, the NSW government goes and stuffs it up by issuing Public Health Orders about who can work where, completely ignoring strata and the people who run it.LISTEN HEREThe in some non-covid chat (praise be!), we talk about some of the astronomical prices being paid for apartments in the Crown tower at Barangaroo.And we recall spending a night in one of the poshest (and worst laid-out) penthouses in Sydney.Then we discover “zoom rooms”, the new name for that awkward corner of apartments that developers don’t know what to do with. Too small to be a study, too impractical to be anything other than a cupboard, now it’s the potential hub of your burgeoning media career.As our picture of US broadcaster Ira Glass (purloined from Medium.com) shows, you don’t need a special room – just a wardrobe with a desk and lots of noise-absorbing clothes.Sue also introduces us to once-desirable areas where rents are 30 per cent lower than they were five years ago. And we get the inside running on the sale of a disgraced League player’s Parra pad.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 I feel like we're in double duty this week, because we were on Amanda Farmer's podcast, where everybody actually got to see us for a change.Sue  0:09  Yes. Amanda looks so glamorous and we both looked like we just got out of bed.Jimmy  0:15 Well, you had! She does look very glamorous. It was interesting and quite challenging, the three of us trying to speak, all at the same time, often. We still managed to get through a fair bit of material. Today, we've got a few things to talk about. We've got the new strata toolkit from the New South Wales Government. I noticed it's branded 'government,' not health and definitely not Fair Trading. We've got some confusing messages coming out in the public health orders and you've got some stories about rents and the sales of fabulous apartments.Sue  0:57 Yes, that's right.Jimmy  0:58 I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  1:04 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  1:07 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.Late on Friday night (which seems to be when they release anything that has to do anything with strata), the New South Wales government released its strata managers and committees COVID-19 handbook.Sue  1:37 Fantastic.Jimmy  1:38 I'm sorry, it's a toolkit. It's not a handbook, it's a toolkit.Sue  1:41 That's great, isn't it? Isn't that the first time they've done very much for strata people?Jimmy  1:47 Well, yeah. It's kind of like they keep forgetting that we exist and keep forgetting that it's a big chunk of the population and issuing all these very specific rules that leave us out, a lot of the time. We've had the whole thing about wearing a mask inside, but your home is being excluded. They didn't define whether that was apartment buildings, or apartments or whateve, so they brought out this toolkit, which I think looks pretty good.Sue  2:17 Great. What kinds of things does it involve?Jimmy  2:20 Well, there are things like the posters for putting up. You download them as PDFs, you print them and you stick them up in your lifts and on your notice boards and on your doors. And, they're quite specific; they're saying you must wear a mask.Sue  2:37  Oh, good. So there's no two ways about it?Jimmy  2:39 Yeah. What they don't have is the thing saying it's a condi..

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

This week’s podcast makes a brave effort to pretend life is going on as normal … and almost pulls it off.We talk about the new DNA for apartment blocks, or the Building Assurance Solution, to give it its proper name, which the NSW government says is going to help track down dodgy developers, just like forensic scientists catching criminals on TV dramas.Then we talk about a development in one of Sydney’s most affluent areas that has seen work halted until problems with the construction are fixed. LISTEN HEREThe developers and some early off-the-plan purchasers are saying “nothing to see here”. The government is saying fix the problems or you won’t get an occupancy certificate.And we talk about the areas where residential apartment rents and investment yields are soaring, which is just about everywhere … except Sydney and Melbourne, where most of our apartments are.But first we get into the nitty gritty of compulsory mask wearing in common property areas of apartment blocks and ask why it was, less than two weeks ago, that NSW Health didn’t even think it was worth suggesting this sensible precaution to apartment residents, let alone ordering us to mask up.Could it be the rapid spread of Covid-19 in apartment blocks? This episode was recorded before the 29-unit block in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, where eight infections across five households were discovered.This new variant of the virus is spreading so fast that even we almost can’t keep up … almost.  But we've managed to bring out a bumper edition of the podcast to help get you through whatever impacts Covid-19 is having wherever you live.And as of today, the Flat Chat crew will be fully vaccinated and masked to the max, so - fingers crossed - we’ll be here keeping you informed and entertained for a while.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 0:00So, straight from isolation into lockdown; the never-ending lockdown. But, at least it gives us a chance to catch up on things, like tidying our offices.Sue 0:12Absolutely! I completely tidied mine today.Jimmy 0:14And then, you couldn't find what you were looking for.Sue 0:16I couldn't find anything at all!Jimmy 0:20Right, so we have nothing to talk about (that's not true). We're going to talk about the lockdown; we're going to talk about mask wearing. We're going to talk about a thing called the Building Assurance Solution, which sounds like a cleaning product, but is in fact, a brilliant (allegedly), idea to have all new buildings have a kind of digital DNA, so you know everything about what went into the construction. And, we're going to talk about rents and yields. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 0:56And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 0:59And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo, last week, after we'd recorded the podcast (complaining about how the government wasn't taking the casual infection of people living in apartments and meeting each other in common property seriously), they issued an advisory, telling people who were in apartment buildings; in common property, that they should wear masks.Sue 1:40They suggested it, that we should.Jimmy 1:41It would be a good idea. And that is good; that's fine. They sent out posters and stuff and then this weekend, they've said no; it's now mandatory.Sue 1:52Which is what we've been saying. We've been saying that apartment residents need special attention, because we're all kind of chucked in these blocks together and we could potentially be a big risk of being super-spreaders. The government said no, no, no, we're not a special case; we're going to be treated exactly the same as people who live in houses. Now, they've finally come around to our way of thinking. Why did it take them so long, Jimmy?Jimmy 2:19Well, what was it; apart from the intense pressure from us and people like the Owners Corporation Net..

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.