Landlord bashing ‘doing more harm than good’
Landlord-bashing by tenant support groups is doing renters more harm than good, says an organisation of property investors, hitting back at a report that revealed many tenants were too scared…
Fight for the right to ban holiday lets taken to the top
“How often in any politician’s career does he or she get to effect tangible and significant social change?” That was what Planning Minister Anthony Roberts asked me back in 2013…
Roundup: Back in print and raring to go
Wot? No Flat Chat? Where have you gone? Why was there no print edition of the column? This weekend saw the launch of the shiny new half-property, half-lifestyle Domain magazine,…
Renters v landlords: have-nots and have-lots
The recent revelations that rentersvare too scared to complain about problems in their units should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever rented a house or flat in…
Airbnb and the battle for your blocks
In an exclusive five-part series Jimmy Thomson examines spectacular growth of short-stay letting in our cities’ most popular areas and the affect that has on rents, house prices and, especially,…
Queensland closer to adopting forced sales laws
Queensland unit owners could soon join their counterparts in NSW in being forced to sell their homes against their will if 75 percent of the neighbours in their block agree.…
Roundup: A little update goes a long way
With the recent changes in strata laws, we realised a lot of our information needed an update, links were broken and there are new answers to old questions, so this…
Strata Parking
Parking is a contentious issue throughout strata, exacerbated by the fact that you can’t clamp rogue parkers and you can’t have them towed away … except in Queensland. The law…
Essential stuff for strata strife
There are a few forms that people are always asking for so here are some links to the most commonly used ones. A good starting point for all the basics…
Airbnb feelgood factor crimped by $415,000 fines
Just hours after Airbnb polished their sharing and caring image with a pro-refugee ad during yesterday’s Superbowl TV broadcast in America last week, a city council has punched a $415,000…
A good whinge and the power of negative thinking
Nobody likes a whinger, but in strata, sometimes it pays to stow your personal aversion to complaining. A well-timed complaint could save you a heap of grief, not to mention…
Kiwi writer finds Sydney airbnb trashed
I am “sharing” this extract from a column written by the excellent David Slack in the Sunday Star Times in New Zealand. Sharing is a word we use on the…