Flat Chat: How off-the-plan buys went off the boil
There was a time when buying off the plan was a gamble well worth taking. Investors and ordinary home buyers with a good sense of where the property market was…
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Roundup: Monstered by tradies with trucks
I was in at the ABC doing my strata spot with James Valentine the other day and the question of monster trucks and the increasing squeeze in apartment block car…
Why Airbnb is nothing like Uber
As Airbnb pumps bucks by the bucketful into the local media to try to convince our MPs to remove the legal right of apartment owners to keep holiday lets out…
Winners and losers – the five main options for Airbnb laws
As D-Day approaches for holiday let legislation to be tabled in the NSW parliament, Jimmy Thomson looks at the five main options currently under discussion – and examines the likely…
City hosts strata living workshops
Sydneysiders can learn how to get the most out of apartment living in a series of free interactive workshops for apartment residents, organised by City of Sydney. The City has…
Roundup: Same-same strata shame in Singapore
Flat Chat has just returned from Singapore where they know a bit about building lots and lots of apartments for their booming populations – and face many of the same…
Strata management giant slugs unit owners millions
More than 200,000 unit owners have been slugged with compulsory ‘compliance fees’ potentially totalling millions of dollars, that critics have branded ‘gouging’. And the NSW Government Minister in charge of…
How to beat balcony bombers
Of all the neighbours in apartment blocks who can turn tolerant, accommodating, reasonable residents into screaming psychopaths, it’s not all-night party people, or weekend hobby home renovators, or barking dog…
Roundup: The upside of apartment living
We’ve been doing a fair bit of trumpet-blowing this week, what with being praised in state parliament, podcasts of our radio chats and all that. So, while we have our…
Finding positives in negative gearing
To many Australians, the connection between negative gearing and inflated property prices seems obvious. But would rents rise if it was scrapped? Reader John Byrne thinks he has a solution.…
Window lock shock – you must install but you can remove
Following the tragic events in Bankstown recently, when two young children fell three storeys from an apartment block window, there has been a lot of discussion on Flat Chat about…
Selling sharing: Airbnb facts, figures and flim-flam
Airbnb and the battle for your block: Last week Jimmy Thomson looked at how some politicians have been seduced by the myth that online short-stay letting agencies bring nothing but good…