FLAT CHAT WRAP

As we emerge from our “close contact” self-isolation we are probably going to have to go back into hiding after the selfie we took of ourselves still at work, despite lockdowns, which appeared in the Fin Review last weekend.Responses have ranged from “a picture-perfect combination of domestic bliss and productivity” to “oh, dear … you look like two crazy old people.”Of course, either or both of these may possibly be true.Back to the podcast, on which we discuss how much (or little) the government is getting out of the controversial sale of the Sirius building.LISTEN HEREWe look at the new focus on owners corporations who deliberately hide their building’s defects, presumably so they don’t damage the prospects of selling their flats.And we talk about how buildings’ reputations can be easily harmed when rumours and gossip get out of hand.We chat about the very shaky start to the new Property Services Experts Panel, with one of the biggest players pulling out.Plus the new regulations that will require the professionals involved in property development – like architects, engineers and builders – to register their involvement in new schemes.Domesticity and productivity ... or two crazy old people?And we mention Sue’s new book “Daughter of the River Country” the biography of an amazing Aboriginal community leader which is out now, just in time for Naidoc week.All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPTION IN FULLJimmy  0:00 We only have just over 24 hours left in isolation!Sue  0:06 Woohoo! I can't wait to get out. Well, I guess we have got out on three occasions, haven't we? But, that was purely to have a COVID test.Jimmy  0:17 Although yesterday, we walked down to the one at the park.Sue  0:21 That was very pleasant.Jimmy  0:22 Yeah, just to get out in the sunshine. We'd had two negative tests before that and that test proved negative. So, it's just a matter of time now.Sue  0:32 Yeah, absolutely.Jimmy  0:33 Until we're free!Sue  0:34 Yes! Never been so pleased to get out and have somebody stick a thing up your nose, but still!Jimmy  0:41 Today, we're talking about the sale of the Sirius building, or more to the point, what they're going to do with the money. And, we're going to talk about the hiding of defects. What else have we got, Sue?Sue  0:53 The next phase of the apartment buyer protection.Jimmy  0:57 And then, there's something we should mention, which is the apparent collapse of the whole Property Services Expert Panel.Sue  1:06 Oh, really?Jimmy  1:06 The estate agents have pulled out.Sue  1:08 They were the ones who were lobbying for it! It was their idea.Jimmy  1:12 Yeah, and now they've pulled out. There's that and a lot of other stuff coming up. I'm Jimmy Thomson; I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  1:22 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  1:25 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay Sue, what's the skinny on Sirius?Sue  1:44 Well, the New South Wales Government has just announced where the money is going to be spent.Jimmy  1:49 We're talking about what they call the 'brutalist architecture' block down close to the Harbour Bridge, with the fabulous views of the Opera House.Sue  1:59 That's right and it was social housing for many, many years. It was built in 1979 and it's always been very cheap housing for social welfare recipients.Jimmy  2:09 I think from the front, it looks like a bar graph, because it goes up to a peak and then comes down again.Sue  2:15 Yeah, I can certainly see that.Jimmy  2:18 And, that peak could be the huge sums that the developers are going to get for selling the new apartments.Sue  2:26 Because, they've renovated inside and they paid $150 million to buy it from the New South Wales Government. There have been reports that they now stand to..

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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 saying going around that it's the hope that kills you - and certainly, fans of the Scotland, Sweden, France, Netherlands and German football teams at the European Championships would concur.Of course, it's nonsensense. If anything kills you, it's complacency. You walk around feeling like you're immune and then you find out the person sitting next to you in a cafe definitely wasn't virus-free, and your attitude changes quickly.So in this week’s podcast Sue and I chat about what it’s like to be self-quarantining (we were deemed to have been close contacts with an infected person) and ask why NSW Health doesn’t want to tell people in apartments just to take a few minor sensible extra precautions.LISTEN HEREWe also look at the tragic and terrible apartment block collapse in Miami and what that might and maybe should mean for buildings of the same age constructed in a similar fashion here in Australia.Interestingly, a comment piece by our very good friend and strata expert Cathy Sherry appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald the day after we recorded our podcast, and it pretty much confirms everything we were saying.Meanwhile, I’ll just take a break from self-congratulation to point out an error I made in the podcast where I referred to the apartment block in Melbourne’ Southbank as Kings Court.I should have said Kings Park.  If you Google “Kings Court” you might find a very different kind of establishment … so don’t! No! I said don't! Or at least remember to clean up your search history when you're done.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 It's very quiet today.Sue  0:01 It really is!Jimmy  0:03 It's quieter than normal, when we do our podcast.Sue  0:09 And that's because we're in Sydney.Jimmy  0:10 And, we're in the middle of lockdown-central.Sue  0:13 Absolutely!Jimmy  0:14 Even more lockdown than most people, because we are actually in quarantine. We are in quarantine, because of close contact. We spend half our lives in cafes, and it was bound to happen, sooner or later.Sue  0:28 An infected person was in the cafe at the same time as us, apparently.Jimmy  0:32 Let's talk about that in a minute, and we're going to talk about this tragedy; this horrible tragedy, in Miami. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  0:46 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  0:48 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC}JimmyWell, while our theme music was playing, there was a very atmospheric ambulance siren in the background. Kind of appropriate, but difficult to edit. We had that heart-sink feeling, earlier last week, when we looked at the list of places where infected people had been at and discovered we had been in the same cafe at the same time.Sue  1:28 It was a bit depressing, wasn't it, really?Jimmy  1:30 It was a bit alarming, because we didn't really know what to do.Sue  1:35 It was funny, because we didn't receive a notice through our apps, because we'd signed in. I think the app was a bit faulty, or it blipped, or something and it missed it. So, it was up to us to look up where we'd been and the times; work out with our diaries, whether that was the same time as well and then voluntarily go into quarantine.Jimmy  1:55 It was a bit pathetic, wasn't it? I mean, we're going "okay, what day was it, we had the cheese toasties? What day was it that our friend came and sat and talked to us?" Yes. That was the final clincher when she called up and said "hey, I'm in isolation and you should be, too."Sue  2:12 Yeah, absolutely.Jimmy  2:13 So, we went on the New South Wales Health website and it told us to immediately make our way to a testing place. We went along to the testing station; there was hardly anybody there, to begin with and then suddenly, all these people started turning up with their mobile phones, looking at messages.

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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.

OK, it’s not in the same category as someone getting a couple of million clicks on a Tik Tok movie of them trying on a new pair of trainers, but Hyperbole Towers, the Flat Chat venture into “PodCom” quietly clicked over 1000 listens at the weekend.Hyperbole Towers is the pilot episode of what would once have been called a radio sitcom, set in an apartment block where a long-suffering chairperson struggles to manage a dysfunctional strata committee.Written by yours truly (drawing on many years of scripting for TV) and voice-directed by Warren Coleman, who was co-director on the Happy Feet movies, performed by a number of top voice-over actors and, with a special cameo from Todd McKenney, it’s actually quite a slick production.The set-up is that the chair, Charlie, is aided and abetted – and often undermined – by a calculating and conniving caretaker cum building manager called Alfie.He occupies a permanently locked office from where he seems to be able to monitor everything that’s happing in the building, via an impressive array of CCTV cameras.The other characters include:Amber a “massage therapist” who says it as she sees it … and she sees a lotSteve, the committee treasurer who regards everything in terms of money.Brooke the hopeless committee secretary who ducks criticism by telling callers that their line is breaking up.Retired class warrior Joe, who is still fighting the revolution in his mindDo-gooder Wendy who thinks her charitable works entitle her to interfere in everyone else’s businessDamien a manic day trader for whom the committee is his only social contact.In this episode the set-up is that Brooke has accidentally created a by-law that says the committee MUST meet on Zoom, rather than can do so.The café in the commercial area of the block is closing and a massage parlour has applied to take it over.And there are complaints about a constant tapping noise from one flat which leads to speculation that it’s occupied by drug dealers. Oh, and there's an attempted coup when Charlie can't get her Zoom to work.What happens next?  Have a listen just by clicking on the “play” button below and it will come pouring out of your computer speakers or into your earbuds if you are reading this on your phone.And, if you enjoy it, pass it on to a friend in strata who may recognise some of the characters here. Just click on the social media links at the foot of this story.LISTEN HEREThis podcom was made with the generous support of City of Sydney Council.

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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-19 is back in the news in new, super-infectious variants, and in the podcast this week we ask the highly relevant question of what do you do if it comes to your apartment block?Do you expect everyone in your block to be told that someone is self-isolating because they have been tested, or were in a certain place at the same time as an infected person, or if they just have a bit of a cough and the sniffles?Would you be annoyed if you were that person and all your neighbours were warned to stay well clear of you? Do we have to wait for a resident to get the bug? And should our entire block be locked down if someone does?LISTEN HEREShould residents in “hot” zones be wearing masks in lifts and carparks right now or do we have to wait for the state government to tell us what to do?The Owners Corporation Network is asking NSW Health to take strata seriously (they say they are) and strata lawyer Amanda Farmer has advised us all to stay vigilant.We say, most blocks watch the states’ health departments’ notices slavishly, so we need some clear advice now, so we can be ready.Then we follow the story of the woman whose leaky balcony was getting up her nose – literally – in the form of black mould.And that story has led to a revelation about Victorian balconies in the Forum.And, finally, three big developers face a range of negative reactions as their projects are rejected or are in serious trouble, while real estate agents are in the crosshairs for not warning prospective purchasers.All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap. Transcript in FullJimmy  0:00 There's a lot going on in apartments this week and a lot of news and not much of it very good. We've got the lockdown of the apartment block in Melbourne. We've got the spread of the Coronavirus in Sydney and the call by OCN for New South Wales Health to actually have protocols for apartment blocks.Sue  0:24 Sounds like a good idea.Jimmy  0:26 And we've got developers getting themselves into all sorts of trouble. Plenty to talk about! I'm Jimmy Thomson; I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  0:38 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for DomainJimmy  0:41 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo, lockdown of an apartment block in Melbourne and then virus spreading through... I mean, I don't know if you can even call it casual contact... Passing clouds.Sue  1:10 Absolutely! That's a real worry, isn't it?Jimmy  1:12 It is and they are connected, these things. The apartment block in Melbourne; apparently, the transmission of the virus was through people passing in the carpark. These are townhouses, although it looks like an apartment block from the pictures. These are basically townhouses and they have their own front doors to the outside. So you're thinking, well, how's the transmission going on here? Apparently, it was in the communal carpark, underneath.Sue  1:43 That puts it on another level completely, doesn't it?Jimmy  1:47 Well, yes, in so many ways, Sue. Then, we hear about the spread from the Bondi Junction shopping center and they've actually found CCTV, where they've got the original infected person and saw him basically brush past. I don't know even if they made physical contact or walked in the vicinity of the person who got infected and that's all it took. Basically, two people, breathing the same air.Sue  2:17 So, what can you suggest to help keep apartment and townhouse residents safer?Jimmy  2:24 Stay home! Look, the Owners Corporation Network has sent out a press release. It's actually a letter that they sent in February to New South Wales Health, saying "come on, you've got to come up with a protocol for apartment blocks." Remember back a year ago, or a little bit more. We were outraged that Airbnb hosts were saying "come and self -isolate in our apartmen..

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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’re looking at some big news this week on the podcast and wondering what it all means.NSW Fair Trading has announced that they will be appointing a properties commissioner - like building commissioner David Chandler, only maybe without the fear factor – to help regulate all the professions involved in looking after buying, selling, renting and managing properties.What might those professions be? The inaugural appointees of Fair Trading’s Property Services Expert Panel provides a clue. The invitees included strata managers, real estate agents, building facilities managers, real estate trainers and employers, livestock and property agents, business brokers,  short-term rental managers, someone from the Wool And Pastoral Agency and a representative of private landlords.LISTEN HEREEverybody and his or her brother or sister – except apartment owners and tenants. But hey, what would we know about buying and selling, let alone letting and renting property?You can see the full list, with the lucky participants named, if not shamed, here. By the way, a couple of times in the podcast we refer to the strata managers’ organisation SCA as Strata Community Australia.  That’s their old name. The A now stands for Association, and has ever since they pulled New Zealand into their orbit.Anyway, the big questions are, what is this new Property Commissioner going to do and how are they going to do it?  Will they be kicking butt and taking names, a la David Chandler?  Or will they follow the established Fair Trading protocol of a light tap on the wrist and a quiet word with miscreants?Will they be looking at under-quoting, misrepresentation of properties, excessively long contracts, systematically waived cooling-off periods, gazumping, embedded networks, endemic dishonesty and general incompetence?Having kicked those topics around, we turn to security in strata buildings and a free webinar scheduled for June 30 (not this week, as I briefly thought).There’s a lot in this week’s podcast so it runs a little longer.  Enjoy.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 0:00So, you're back from Arnhem Land?Sue 0:02I am. It was so nice and warm up there. It's freezing down here again.Jimmy 0:07Yeah, we had a really cold day during the week. We've got a lot to talk about, because last week, there were a couple of big announcements from Fair Trading New South Wales and, the property market seems to have gone completely nuts.Sue 0:21Oh, it really is mad. I mean, it may not be hot weather, but it's certainly a hot market.Jimmy 0:28I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 0:33And I'm Sue Williams. I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 0:36And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.So, for the past year, we've been talking about the Building Commissioner, David Chandler, and the difference he seems to be making in apartment buildings; getting them built. But, last week, the Fair Trading minister (or whatever they call themselves now; the Better Regulation and Shorter Titles. I think that's what the ministry is called). They announced there's going to be a properties commissioner.Sue 1:20This is something that the Real Estate Institute was really pushing for, wasn't it?Jimmy 1:24Well, they were. I wonder if that's one of these 'be careful what you wish for' things, because if this guy turns out to be anything like David Chandler… I'm saying it's a guy; it could very easily be a woman. I wonder if they're going to shake things up more than the real estate industry suspects. I mean, why would they be keen to have a commissioner?Sue 1:45Well, I think in the same way that SCA, the Strata Community Australia, are really keen to have tighter regulations for strata managers. They want to clean up their industry. To make sure it's really respected and operates well and it has no charlatans in there.Jimmy 2:02This kind of goes back about a month or..

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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 in the podcast Sue Williams is in Darwin on an assignment, and finds that not only is Darwin the hottest city in Australia temperature-wise (probably … apart from Alice … and maybe Coober Pedy) it has the hottest property market with house prices going up an astonishing amount and apartments not far behind.Then we delve into the woes of the Toplace developers – or maybe their off-the-plan purchasers – as defects are found, repairs that might be fine but look suspiciously like band-aid fixes are revealed, and court cases are publicised.LISTEN HEREIs there a solution to the whole developer and defects conundrum? Sue reminds me that I am going to be MC-ing a Strata Matters owners day for the Owners Corporation Network (OCN) supported by City of Sydney, at which Better Regulation Minister Kevin Anderson will give the keynote address and Building Commissioner David Chandler and other Fair Trading bigwigs will be in attendance.It should be a terrific day - all I have to do is remember which of them I have insulted over the past couple of years and how deeply I'll need to apologise. There are more details on the seminar here.And finally we reflect on our newsletter piece from last week on lift notices warning against throwing things off balconies, and follow a link sent by a reader to a story from Scotland about what must be the worst case of “things thrown off a building” we’ve encountered.Actually, it’s a bit mad and quite poignant really, and you can read about it HERE. Oh, and FYI, "aufguss" (see notice above) is a kind of herbal infusion they put in saunas to aid relaxation and health.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 Things are a bit strange in the Flat Chat Wrap makeshift studio today; my usual partner in crime, Sue Williams isn't here. In fact, she's in Darwin and we'll be talking to her later, about why that city in the Northern Territory, is the boomtown of Australia when it comes to property. We're also going to be talking about a developer who is responsible for more than 1000 apartments, either newly built or in the process of being built, who's suddenly come under a very bright spotlight. A microscope, you might say, and people have been complaining about the build quality in their blocks. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review and this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyAs I said just a few moments ago, Sue isn't here with us today in person. She's up in Darwin and I caught up with her before she disappeared into Arnhem Land on her assignment. If there is a deterioration in sound, the fact that we're talking via zoom should explain most of why things sound a little different this week. Here's Sue. Hi, Sue!Sue  1:35 Hi Jimmy!Jimmy  1:36 You're in Darwin?Sue  1:37 Yes, I am. I came up here today. I'm up here doing a story and gosh, it's so hot! It's fantastic!Jimmy  1:46 Alright, so talking about hot, Darwin is the property boomtown of Australia at the moment.Sue  1:53 Yeah, it's kind of like the epicenter really, especially for apartments, which is nice, because I remember a few years ago, apartment prices in Darwin, absolutely crashed through the floor. A friend of ours bought an apartment up here and thought it would be a fantastic investment and in fact, it turned out to be one of the worst things he'd ever bought, but had he hung on; over the last year, apartments have done incredibly well up here.Jimmy  2:18 But you know, that was during the GFC and everybody suffered to some extent, but Darwin suffered especially badly. They seem to be affected up there, to some extent, the same way that they are in WA, with the boom and bust, with their mines and whatnot.Sue  2:35 Yeah, because they're so dependent on resources, so it depends so much on resource prices. I think in Darwin more recently, the public sector has become a really big investor in th..

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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 on the podcast we look GOMO, specifically grief over missing out on your dream home.It’s the other side of FOMO, where fear of missing out has you plunging headlong into what might be unwise purchases and contracts.When it comes to houses, it can feel more like a seduction and betrayal when you’ve been encouraged to imagine living there for years of domestic bliss, then the faithless vendor goes and sells it to someone else, just because they have more money.You can get a taste of Sue’s original article on GOMO (© Sue Williams) for Domain here.LISTEN HEREThen we chat about sea changers and tree changers, why people are fleeing our city centres and where they are going. And try to explain exactly how we came to ignore our own advice about diligently doing your homework before purchasing a flat, especially off the plan, and plunged into buying one in Kiama.We talk about how newcomers to strata often don’t have a clue about their rights and responsibilities and how an Owners Corporation Network and City of Sydney webinar is setting out to resolve that issue.And we discuss the benefits of having electronic notice boards in our lifts (not so much those highlighted in this week’s newsletter).  That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPTION IN FULLJimmy 0:00A couple of years ago, you invented an acronym, which was GOMO. What does that stand for, Sue?Sue 0:06That's right. It was a variation of FOMO; you know, fear of missing out. I was doing a story about grief, when you do actually miss out and so I called it 'grief over missing out.' It never really caught on, GOMO, but in fact, I was asked the other day to write another story about GOMO! And, I was delighted, because maybe this time, it will stick.Jimmy 0:27So, we'll be talking about GOMO; what else have we got?Sue 0:32The move of lots of people towards coastal regions in Australia (and also regional areas as well), post-COVID and the newest recruits to that trend.Jimmy 0:43Right. And, we're going to be talking about your rights and responsibilities when you move into an apartment block and how you can get some advice on that. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 0:59And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 1:02And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo Sue, you've been writing about GOMO; 'grief over missing out?'Sue 1:22Yes, because the housing market at the moment is so tough and the apartment market is similarly tough. I mean, in some areas, it's a little bit soft, particularly in Melbourne CBD. It's kind of quite easy to buy an apartment there and the prices haven't gone up at all and in certain areas (well, very few areas of Sydney is the same). Harris Park out west, has actually shown a drop in apartment prices, but everywhere else, apartments are doing incredibly well. There's a huge demand; an excess of demand over supply. A lot of people are going to auctions or trying to buy apartments that are actually for sale, and a lot of them are missing out and time and time again.Jimmy 2:07I thought apartment prices were going down and rents were going down?Sue 2:12Rents have gone down but they're coming back up again. Apartment prices in most areas are quite strong. They're just soft in some areas; the CBD's of most cities (certainly Melbourne and Sydney), but in lots of other areas, apartments are doing pretty well and there is still a shortage of apartments in many areas. There's an excess (Docklands), or Green Square over in Sydney, but in most areas, it's quite patchy and demand is much greater than supply, so lots of people are missing out, a lot.Jimmy 2:46So, people are going into the areas that people really want to go into and there's just not enough supply?Sue 2:53That's right. A friend of mine is trying to buy an 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.

We admit we can get a little city-centric here at Flat Chat so last weekend it was good to get out of the urban jungle and find out what’s happening elsewhere.And the news is that Newcastle is booming, beach holiday homes are bouncing back and the roads are almost as crazy as they were pre-covid.Back in what passes for the real world, in this week’s Flat Chat we talk about how construction insurance premiums for low rise buildings and renovations are getting out of control, based on this story.LISTEN HEREAnd we chat about the pretty disappointing investment on affordable housing announced by the government, as covered in this story in the Guardian.We also discuss Sue’s major piece in Domain about why apartments may be better for families than you think.  We have an edited extract HERE.And we talk about whether charcoal barbecues can be allowed on balconies.  That’s kicked off in the Forum again, HERE.All in all, a pretty varied and wide-ranging podcast. Enjoy.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 We just got back from Newcastle. Well, not Newcastle (although we've been to Newcastle); up to Forster and...Sue  0:06 The mid North Coast and then Newcastle and then Lake Macquarie. Just having a bit of an explore, really.Jimmy  0:13 Newcastle is going gangbusters on apartments; the skyline is full of cranes. Most prices are higher than the cranes are!Sue  0:22 Yeah and apartment prices are getting pretty expensive as well. Some of those new ones, off the plan; I mean, the architects have won prizes for the designs and the prices really reflect that.Jimmy  0:33 Right, okay, but we're not going to be talking about that in this show. We've got so many other things to talk about. We're going to talk about building insurance. We're going to talk about barbecues on balconies. We're going to be talking about affordable housing and families; are apartments appropriate for families, or even better than houses? Is that possible? I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  1:00 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  1:03 And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.Did you see that story about insurance premiums for new buildings?Sue  1:25 Yes, that they've gone up five times in the last few years.Jimmy  1:28 And, do you know what it's all about?Sue  1:31 I get so confused about home warranty insurance in apartments. It just seems so complicated.Jimmy  1:36 So basically, that's because with any apartment block over three storeys high, the builder doesn't need to take out building warranty insurance.Sue  1:46 Right, so our insurance though (for the people in those blocks), is just going sky-high, it seems.Jimmy  1:52 Well, the ones who will be buying properties that are covered by building warranty insurance, are finding (and there was a report earlier, and we mentioned it on the podcast), that the fund for these insurance claims was $700 million in debt and so they're trying to claw that back by increasing the premiums. But, it's a very strange system. That insurance only kicks in if you have building defects and it's within the first six years and the developer is either dead or has gone out of business. So, it's very limited and narrow, but everybody's got to pay the insurance premiums.Sue  2:37 Okay, because I guess if there are defects, and if a builder has gone out of business, then people can be up for millions of dollars  in costs, I suppose. That's why maybe premiums are going to be so high?Jimmy  2:50 Well, exactly, because what it comes back to is buildings being badly-constructed and that's what the much-mentioned David Chandler is trying to deal with and is doing so with some effect. But, it still leaves this $700 million hole. So what it means is yet again, we are paying for all the mistakes that have been made o..

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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 is no building in Sydney that has polarised opinions more than the Sirius apartments on Circular Quay – unless you include the Opera House, its architectural antithesis across the bay.After years of controversy, plans have been revealed and expressions of interest sought in what will be a revolutionary revamp of the former housing commission apartment block.You can read more about it the multi-million-dollar project here - and see a slideshow of the proposed revanp - but, naturally we also have our two cents worth here in the pod.LISTEN HEREAfter that, we talk about the developer who was the first to fall foul of the Sunset Clawbacks law – which we personally helped bring into being – and who has now gone bust (pause to be mentally carried shoulder-high around the room). You can read more about that HERE.And we follow up some fairly heated discussions on the Forum about feeding stray cats with news from the Guardian Online about how Chicago is putting 1,000 feral felines to work.Also from Chicago, there’s this amazing video about how a cat has survived a leap from the fifth floor of a burning building.  [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWPeKT_FPg[/embedyt]As we say on the pod, don’t mess with Chicago cats …TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  0:00 Okay, we have a lot to get through today. We've got the sale of the Sirius; we've got a developer who has gone out of business. We've got cats!Sue  0:12 Great!Jimmy  0:14 So, we'd better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  0:19 And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  0:22  And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]So, there seems to be a bit of a stoush about the Sirius building.Sue  0:45 The Sirius building, I think, has been in the news for a long, long time. I mean, they've been lots and lots of fights over it in the past,  over the heritage listing of the building. Lots of people love the building, because I think it's a fantastic example, of 70s brutalist architecture.Jimmy  1:00 So, for anybody who's not familiar with it (and we'll probably put a picture on the website), but if you're not familiar with it, it's the one as you're coming over the Harbour Bridge towards the city from North Sydney, it's on the left, and it looks like a stack of Lego blocks.Sue  1:21 I guess it does! It's on Cumberland Street and it just can't be missed, really. As I said, some people think it's a great icon of brutalist architecture, which is increasingly rare these days.Jimmy  1:32 Well, for the good reason that they keep knocking it down because it's ugly.Sue  1:35 Well, other people will think that the building is a really ugly eyesore. A lot of people thought the building should be demolished. Other people felt that the building should be retained, because it was built for public housing. About 200 people originally and they felt that they should be allowed to stay there.Jimmy  1:53 With the best views of the Opera House you'll ever see.Sue  1:57 Yes and other people  felt that, well, they just didn't deserve it really, I suppose and that rich people are the ones who could afford to live in such a fabulous harborside location and should be allowed to do so.Jimmy  2:11 Is it as polarizing and divisive?  Is it a case of maybe saying this was terrific that for 40 years, Housing Commission tenants could live there with these fabulous views, but Sydney has moved on. The money from the sale of that building (which is allegedly going to be put into public housing), can be put to much better use and house more people.Sue  2:37 But where is that public housing? It's probably way out in the suburbs and personally, I think it's wrong to keep cities  just for rich people. Cities should have a really vibrant, demographic; a huge diversity.

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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.

With property prices soaring but houses outstripping apartments, as detailed in this story, we try to make sense of it all.Why is the gap between the cost of houses and apartments growing, even though apartment prices are coming back up to pre-pandemic levels.And will the current apartment glut in Melbourne – with consequential 11 per cent drops in rents – flip to a shortage, soaring sales prices and runaway rents as soon as our borders reopen and short-term rentals are re-listed?Who knows?  But we try to make sense of it all.LISTEN HEREThen we visit the vexed question, raised on the Flat Chat Forum, of whether or not it’s legal for your owners corporation or strata committee to make donations to political campaigns or fighting funds – even those related to strata issues.If not, is there any way owners can support campaigns and movements they agree with, but not all of their neighbours do?And then there’s another old chestnut form the forum – does your owners corporation have a duty of care to enforce by-laws? We say yes and explain why.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00House prices seem to have gone nuts all of a sudden.Sue  00:03They certainly have and unit prices are going up as well, but not by as much.Jimmy  00:07And in some places, are actually going down, I believe.Sue  00:10Yes. In some places they are going down; in areas where there's an oversupply.Jimmy  00:14Okay, well, we're going to be talking about that; we're going to be talking about something that's come up on the Flat Chat forum, about whether or not your Owners Corporation can make donations to campaigns.Sue  00:26That's interesting.Jimmy  00:27And we'll be talking about an old chestnut, about whether Owners Corporations have a duty to act on their bylaws. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:41And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for DomainJimmy  00:43And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.MUSICJimmyOkay, Sue, you've been keeping an eye on house prices. Part of your many duties, writing for Domain.Sue  01:06Yes, that's right. It's been kind of quite hard to keep your eye on them all the time, because they're moving so quickly.Jimmy  01:11It's kind of surprising, isn't it? That we're, you know, we've just come out of there so we haven't even properly come out of the pandemic.Sue  01:20But we just seem to be valuing our home so much more now. I mean, most most of us are now working from home a lot more. Time in lockdown has allowed us to look at our houses, and homes and apartments and think, what do we need? We need more space? Are we thinking of relocating? Actually spending a period, thinking about what we want out of life.Jimmy  01:40And what effect is this having on apartments?Sue  01:43It's interesting, because house prices, as you so rightly say, have gone up enormously. Apartment prices have generally gone up as well, but by nowhere near as much. So, it does mean with a growing gap between prices;  between houses and apartments, more and more people are having to look at buying apartments, when maybe once they would have wanted to go and buy houses. So, there's gonna be a lot more new people moving into apartments, because, you know, it makes financial sense as well. We kind of all really adore the apartment lifestyle. Some of these people have never lived in apartments before, so they're not really in a position to be able to appreciate that. But, they're looking in terms of finances and when you look at the Sydney median house price now, it's hit a new record,  $1.31 million, which is incredible. The unit median is now $754,000. So, last year, houses cost, on average 55% more than apartments. This year in Sydney, they cost 74% more than apartments.Jimmy  02:02Wow!

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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.