City apartment rents catching up with houses
Apartment rents are rising so fast in our biggest cities that they are catching up with house rents, according to a new report. New data reveals a consistent rise in…
Forum: Strata Manager hiding behind ‘privacy’
Just when we were starting to get worried about posts to the Forum tailing off, there has been a virtual tsunami and questions and complaints, but the one that jumps…
Great Escapes: Reviewing the dodgy reviewers
You know that feeling when you arrive, travel whacked and jet-lagged for your holiday hotel or Airbnb and it’s not quite what was promised on the website. It turns out…
Back chatting on the ABC with James Valentine
For longer than either of us can remember, James Valentine used to invite me on to his Afternoons radio show to talk about strata, writes JimmyT. People would call in…
Podcast: ‘Worst-ever block’ and Greens v Nimbys
In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast we look at a report that building commissioner David Chandler has issued a stop-work order at a Wollongong construction site after structural defects…
Stratastrophe! Sign up for strata disaster webinar
Is your block ready for whatever disaster maybe lurking around the corner, be it fire or flood, tsunami or mystery sinkholes? Back in spring 2023 an Owners’ Corporation Network (OCN)…
Trainee strata managers’ deadlines extended
Assistant real estate and strata managers in NSW have been given an extra three months to keep working while they register for professional qualifications so they can maintain their registrations…
Forum: Frenemies wrestle over new carpet
The first ever apartment dispute I heard about when I started down this endless river of words about 20 years ago concerned two “captains of industry” who shared a lift…
Great Escapes: Northern delight, epic Arctic cruise
For hundreds of years explorers and traders who wanted to get from the Atlantic ports in Europe and North-East America, to the Pacific Ocean had two major obstacles in their…
POLL: What shops do you want in your block?
This week’s poll is related to two stories that we have mention in the Flat Chat Wrap podcast. One is all about “placemaking” which is building homes in a way…
Chandler works his ‘magic’ on Mascot Towers
NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has “pulled a very large rabbit out of a very small hat” in wrangling a deal for owners in the blighted Mascot Towers, says one…
Podcast: Find your place … just shop around
In this week’s pod we look at “placemaking” which seems to be designing communities simply to make them nicer places to live. By nicer, of course, we mean places that…