If anyone ever tells you they couldn’t live in an apartment because of hassles with neighbours,  point them in the direction of this article in Realestate.com.au.

A new survey has revealed that it just takes one issue to have neighbours up in arms with each other and free-standing house dwellers are just as likely to have hassles with people who live nearby.

Th reported issues range from cars and even boats blocking their driveways through rude and threatening notes on their windscreens to giant eyesore kids’ cubby houses built in their backyards. At least in strata there are rules about what your neighbours can and can’t do.

On the other hand, there’s the woman in an apartment block who’s setting a trap for a package thief. Interesting story with a couple of flaws. Firstly she says she knows she can’t video people without their permission? Where did she get that one?

You can’t record people’s voices without their say-so but video is another matter. However, you can’t set up cameras in common property without strata permission.

And she complained to the strata manager. Sorry, lady, the strata manager is not the building manager and they can only do what the committee asks, not individual owners … end even then …

This is a sad tale of dishonesty and mistrust in a strata block – but it’s also an example of how a lot of people have patchy knowledge of how strata works, and it’s just one of the quirky yarns in this week’s feed from Leftfield.

Free Reads

Domain

‘Setting a trap’: Missing deliveries spark apartment package feud
A Sydney apartment resident is setting up surveillance after a series of package thefts she believes are being carried out inside her building.

‘No roof, no floorboards, just the walls are left’: Historic Tassie ruins expected to sell for $300k
The registered ruin of the Royal Hotel in rugged western Tasmania, with no roof and no floorboards but dramatic landscape credentials and an adjacent building with a commercial kitchen, is expected to sell for around $300,000.

‘She’s having a nervous breakdown’: Telstra outage blocks life-changing $15.5m call
A former Australian servicewoman missed learning she had won a $15.5 million property portfolio because a nationwide Telstra software defect blocked her calls and messages during last week’s outage.

Daniel Johns lists second property in just two months
Former Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns is selling a two-bedroom Art Deco Darlinghurst apartment he co-owned with his brother for more than 15 years, purchased for $670,000 in 2010.

A rare patch of grass in Sydney heads to auction with $1.6 million price guide
A 951 square metre vacant block in Smithfield with duplex approval potential and a 16-metre street frontage has been listed with a $1.6 million guide.

‘I was trapped’: The hidden cost of inheriting the family home
A woman who inherited her mother’s home found herself nearly $50,000 in debt after unexpected maintenance, rates and holding costs accumulated before she was able to sell

Aussie star’s new Bondi home breaks record with staggering eight-figure sale
Actor Natassia Halabi and partner Tolga Kumova have paid $24,008,889 for an unrenovated duplex above Bondi Beach, rewriting the North Bondi price record.

Princess Margaret’s country retreat hits the market
A centuries-old English country house in West Sussex, once home to Princess Margaret and her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones and the setting for notable society gatherings, has been listed for sale.

‘It was inevitable’: Matildas star’s nightmare discovery in first home
Olympic footballer Michelle Heyman and her partner have discovered significant quantities of asbestos in their recently purchased first home, a reminder that the hidden costs of older dwellings rarely surface before settlement.

Canberra agent completes 777 marathon for Bravehearts
Carter and Co managing director James Carter ran seven marathons or half-marathons across seven states in seven days to raise funds for Bravehearts, covering more than 230 kilometres.

How much it costs to be Taylor Swift’s neighbour revealed
A penthouse atop the landmark Ocean House hotel in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, overlooking Taylor Swift’s estate, has found a buyer months after hitting the market.

ABC Online

Grey nomads welcome in outback Queensland amid slow start to tourism season
North West Queensland’s tourism season got off to a slow start after road closures and event cancellations, but grey nomads are now providing an economic boost to outback towns that depend heavily on the annual winter caravan circuit.

Realestate.com.au

Lucy Lawless’s multimillion-dollar real estate empire revealed
Xena star Lucy Lawless and producer husband Rob Tapert have quietly assembled a $45 million property portfolio anchored by a Georgian mansion in Auckland’s Mission Bay, purchased in 1998 for NZ$4.2 million.

How Aussies plan to spend their 2026 tax refunds
New research shows a growing share of Australians intend to save their tax refunds or pay down bills rather than spend, a rational individual response that could compound the housing market slowdown by reducing discretionary economic activity.

Kyle Sandilands’ weekend estate attracts mass views after $800k price cut
Kyle Sandilands’ former Glenorie weekend property has attracted significant online attention following an $800,000 price reduction, becoming one of NSW’s most viewed listings.

Silverchair’s Daniel Johns continues property sell-off
Daniel Johns is selling his Darlinghurst investment apartment, held for 16 years since purchasing it for $670,000 in 2010 alongside his brother.

Hells Angels set for massive windfall on Alphington house
The Hells Angels are selling a three-bedroom Alphington home adjacent to their club house for a potential windfall of almost $1.3 million, in one of Melbourne’s more colourful property listings.

Ex-Saints coach Grant Thomas lists $10m Cape Schanck getaway
Former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas has listed his extensively rebuilt Cape Schanck holiday home at $10 million after gutting and reconstructing it almost entirely.

‘Tiled with a chainsaw’: Heatmaps deployed to hunt dodgy builders
A Queensland building regulator is using heatmaps to identify problem tradespeople as independent inspectors describe a wave of defective new builds and haphazard renovations.

‘Big John’ Zupp’s iconic Gold Coast estate hits market for $35m
The Sanctuary Cove estate of the late Queensland car dealer Eric ‘Big John’ Zupp has listed at $35 million, a price that would set a new Queensland residential record.

‘Jurassic Park’ property marketing video captures global attention before official launch
A Queensland property marketing campaign inspired by Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park has generated global attention before the property has officially launched.

One government policy is building homes but another is stopping them
Total dwelling commencements fell 11.2 per cent in the March quarter while apartment starts slumped almost 20 per cent, with the UDIA’s national president arguing that planning and tax policy are working against each other at the very moment the National Housing Accord needs them to align.

The little-known housing policy bonus for 3 million Aussies
A lender policy change has improved borrowing capacity for Australians carrying HECS-HELP debt, a development that has largely gone unnoticed amid the louder budget debate around negative gearing and CGT.

Aussie loses $100k in just 5 hours after government’s housing budget announcement
A Sydney buyer who signed a contract five hours before the federal budget announcement is facing a six-figure paper loss after the tax reforms immediately affected the segment she had purchased in.

‘Idiot’ neighbours: The one act that will start a war on your street
A Youi survey of more than 2,000 Australians identifies the single neighbourly behaviour most likely to trigger immediate confrontation, with more than half of respondents saying they would act on it without hesitation.

Inside Bonnie Tyler’s secret 22-home property empire
Bonnie Tyler and her husband built a 22-property portfolio across Berkshire and London alongside a New Zealand farm and a Portuguese villa, using international real estate as a financial anchor for a music career.

OnlyFans star Paris Ow-Yang snaps up rumoured $6.9m Double Bay home
Paris Ow-Yang has added a Double Bay property rumoured at $6.9 million to a portfolio she previously valued at $15 million, continuing a pattern of premium eastern suburbs acquisitions.

Leumeah’s medieval-style storybook castle with moat sells for $1.3 million
Leumeah Castle, complete with moat and tower in Sydney’s southwest, has sold for $1.3 million after generating significant online attention for a property that defies conventional valuation.

Ex-Essendon chairman David Evans secures Toorak pad
Former Essendon chairman and E&P Financial Group non-executive chairman David Evans has secured a Toorak house in a deal worth more than $13 million.

Olympian Lynden Hosking lists Mt Macedon home with private boxing ring
Olympic boxer Lynden Hosking is selling his Mt Macedon home, which includes a private boxing ring alongside the property’s rural amenity.

Urban Developer – Partly Free

The Robot Revolution: Is New Tech the Saviour for Construction?
The Urban Developer’s new Blueprint podcast launches with a look at robotics, automation and 3D printing as potential answers to construction’s productivity problem, at a moment when labour shortages and cost pressures make the question more urgent than it has ever been.

Pay-walled

The Australian Financial Review

This Sydney developer could be private credit’s ticking time bomb
Primrose Riordan’s deep read on Bathla Group examines how a developer of identikit western Sydney estates became one of the nation’s largest single private credit borrowers, carrying nearly $3.2 billion in debt to non-bank lenders.

Real Housewife of Melbourne and partner buy $10m penthouse
Hospitality entrepreneurs Bruce and Chyka Keebaugh have paid around $10 million for the penthouse atop Fortis’ Carmine House in Richmond, a 550 square metre off-the-plan apartment setting a price record for the suburb.

Hospital claims vibrations from gym next door are a health risk
A Perth hospital and a neighbouring gym are in the West Australian Supreme Court over claims that dropped weights and music vibrations are strong enough to dislodge fixtures and potentially disrupt surgical procedures in their shared three-storey building.

Investor and actor smash North Bondi record with $24m pad
Actor Natassia Halabi and resources investor Tolga Kumova have paid $24,008,889 for an unrenovated ocean-view duplex in North Bondi, beating several competing parties in an expressions of interest campaign to rewrite the suburb’s price record.

The Australian

Experimental Tennant Creek house hailed as blueprint for Aboriginal housing crisis
A philanthropically funded, solar-powered house in Tennant Creek built without government oversight has been endorsed by Labor’s remote communities envoy Marion Scrymgour as a model for addressing the Aboriginal housing crisis.

The Sydney Morning Herald

The tiny north shore loft that has caught the world’s attention
A St Ives renovation that added a small loft to a dark 1960s home to capture views across Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park has been shortlisted for the world’s largest international architecture award among 20 Australian projects.

This Sydney man built a wall for privacy. Six years on, he’s still fighting the council
A 6.8-metre wall on Sydney’s lower north shore has generated six years of legal dispute, hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and no resolution in sight.

‘Home stretch’ for metro with test runs from Tallawong to Bankstown
Sydney’s $30 billion M1 metro extension is in the final testing phase along its full length including the Sydenham to Bankstown section, with an opening date of mid-October now likely.

Transport officials stumble on north shore road changes ‘on developer’s website’
NSW transport officials reviewing a proposal to close and sell three public roads to Iris Capital for its St Ives Shopping Village redevelopment discovered the developer had already published community consultation materials on its own website before any government decision had been made.

If you can, why not? The buyers paying for multiple Sydney CBD homes
Ultra-high-net-worth buyers are deliberately acquiring portfolios of multimillion-dollar apartments in the Sydney CBD, with The Agency’s Steven Chen describing clients who have purchased more than two homes in the city centre as a deliberate investment strategy.

A new type of class divide is emerging and property is to blame
Victoria Devine examines how sustained property unaffordability is creating a new class divide in Australia, where access to housing is reshaping life choices around careers, family formation and geography in ways that previous generations did not face.

The Age

‘Taking the mickey’: Inner-city council tears up e-bike deal
Yarra City Council has voted to terminate its nearly six-year trial with Lime e-bikes after the operator repeatedly failed to address complaints about bikes dumped on footpaths and riders behaving dangerously.

The Daily Telegraph

Only five people from Wagga homeless camps rehoused last month as council prepares to clear more sites
Wagga Wagga City Council is proceeding with clearing homeless encampments despite official data showing only five residents secured long-term housing last month.

PM Anthony Albanese’s own home hit by price falls amid housing downturn
PropTrack data shows property values have fallen across nearly half of Australia’s suburbs since the federal budget, including at the Prime Minister’s own beachfront address.

The Herald Sun

Victorian MP launches pothole reporting website after rogue roadworks probe
A Liberal MP under investigation over a pothole stunt has responded by building a free digital road repair tracking tool, framing Victoria’s road maintenance backlog as a major issue for the upcoming state election.

The Gold Coast Bulletin

Council and state government unite to fast-track thousands of Gold Coast homes
Southport’s Priority Development Area has been declared a failure and the Gold Coast council and state government are now jointly reforming it to fast-track housing delivery across the city.

The West Australian

Curtin University student housing is sometimes so expensive you need a full-time job to live on campus
Curtin Student Guild research shows on-campus accommodation requires earnings of between $800 and $1,800 a week to be affordable, making university housing unattainable for most students on typical casual incomes.

One million-plus homeowners miss chance to cut mortgage rate
Finder research finds 1.2 million Australian mortgage holders have never asked their lender for a better rate, leaving significant savings on the table in a market where banks are actively competing for retention.

House That! The ultimate man cave is set over 150sqm of space, with an 80sqm al fresco area
A Henley Brook property listing features a 150 square metre standalone man cave decked out with a bar, pool table, dartboard and nearly 20 arcade games, alongside a separate home on the same block.

WA Today

Gym claims Perth hospital forced it to close over dropped weights in Supreme Court fight
The gym at the centre of a Supreme Court dispute with a neighbouring Perth hospital says it was effectively forced to close by the injunction limiting its operations, while the hospital argues it is simply protecting its patients and staff from a noise and vibration problem that should never have been allowed to develop.

‘You sleep with one eye open’: Behind the push for a ‘vital’ respite centre in Fremantle
Fremantle’s strategic committee has voted unanimously to progress plans for a 28-bed overnight respite centre for people experiencing homelessness, as the port city’s mayor describes years of trying to address what he sees as the most visible social issue in his jurisdiction.