Women prosper at the top of the property game
Once, women dreaded walking past building sites or being patronised by real estate agents. But today, it’s increasingly likely that a fair number of those construction workers will be women,…
By-laws that someday you’ll want in your block
Few if any apartment residents love the idea of by-laws telling them what to do … until a neighbour does something they don’t like and they discover there’s no easy…
Forum: Loan or levy? Choice isn’t really yours
Strata loans or special levies – if your strata scheme has to pay a bill how would you rather pay your share? A one-off hit to your bank account or…
Podcast: Builder fails despite home shortage
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…
Away daze: When holiday rentals don’t add up
With so many investors having bought property during COVID-19 in regional treechange and seachange areas, many are now working out what to do with their second home as the pandemic,…
Lannock to manage NSW cladding loans
The NSW Government has appointed long-time Flat Chat supporter Lannock Strata Finance to manage the state’s Project Remediate interest-free loans, intended to help owners corporations with the cost of rectifying…
OCN issues revised Airbnb by-law after NCAT ruling
As we reported last week, when the owner of two properties in a Sydney Olympic Park complex challenged their identical by-laws restricting short-term holiday lets, an NCAT member had found…
Podcast: Strata’s next big challenge – ageing blocks
This week’s podcast is given over to one topic – but it’s a fascinating one: What are we going to do about Australia’s older apartment blocks? Sure, there’s been a…
Forum: Are two-lot strata schemes too much hassle?
We tend not to hear too much about the mysteries two-lot strata schemes like duplexes and villas. Is “mysteries” over-stating it? For a long time Randwick Council in Sydney’s East…
Concern as 50,000 unit blocks reach use-by dates
Between Mascot Towers and the Opal building, and more recently Vicinity in inner-West Sydney, the high-profile problems at various Sydney apartment blocks has drawn our attention to the quality of…
Small business of a strata minister missing in action
We may be jumping the gun here but our fears that strata would be taking second place to small business haven’t only been confirmed, they’ve been compounded. You may recall…
Forum: Something fishy going on down by the pool
One of the reasons I love this job is that, even though we are often asking and answering variations on the same questions, almost every week I get a query…