They say strata is a world of contradictions and never has that been so obvious as this week when one report reveals a shortage of housing, most of which will need to be filled by apartments, yet one of our biggest and most highly regarded apartment complex builders has gone into voluntary administration at a time when apartment prices are rising.Is it because materials have gone up but the availability of skilled workers has gone down, both due to the pandemic? Probably, to some extent. Or is it partly just bad timing?But could it be that the idea of building a 366-unit scheme plus transport hub, plus 10-cinema complex, in Brisbane was too many eggs in an already brimming basket?We have a look at the Probuild collapse and what it could mean for their purchasers and the industry as a whole.Maybe some of those apartments were (and still are) going to be second homes or holiday let investments for Sydneysiders.  Sue looks at people who have the best of both worlds with handy pads in the city and glorious getaways in the country.Apparently selling your big house in the burbs to buy a small flat in the city and a cottage in the country is called “right-sizing”, a term surely coming to sales brochure near you, soon.Also we celebrate our sponsors Lannock being selected to manage the NSW government’s interest-free loans for flammable cladding remediation.And we introduce a free training program for strata schemes to find out all they need to know about electric vehicle (EV) charging.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULL Jimmy  00:00They say it never rains, but it pours and it's certainly been pouring...Sue  00:04My gosh, has it ever!Jimmy  00:07And it's true about stories as well, it seems. We've got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about today. What have we got, Sue?Sue  00:14I think at first, we are going to be talking about the shortage of new apartment dwellings; new figures have come out, which are a bit shocking.Jimmy  00:21And then there's the collapse of Probuild and news about loans for flammable cladding,Sue  00:27Yes, remediation work, for flammable cladding.Jimmy  00:30Well, we'd better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:36I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:39And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyAccording to a report presented to the Property Council conference last week, we have a huge housing shortage, in New South Wales.Sue  01:05Yes, particularly of apartments...Jimmy  01:07That's Sydney, I suppose, especially. They're saying that, because apartment completions have nearly halved, from their 2017-18 peak of 30,000 and free-standing houses have come back (in terms of builds), then that's left a huge gap for housing the numbers of people that we need to house. Michael Koziol has written about this for the Sydney Morning Herald. I know I tend to be a bit cynical, but one minute we're hearing there's going to be a glut of apartments and the next, we're hearing that there aren't enough; what's going on?Sue  01:45Well, I think in the past, there have been gluts of apartments in different areas, where there's been a huge concentratio

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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.