Podcasts: Your top ten pods of the year

It’s all very well to be gallivanting around the Scottish Highlands, hiking from B&B to B&B (traditional ones, not Airbnbs) but it’s not exactly conducive to recording a podcast.

We have a lot of pods in the can so I have taken this opportunity to look back at the most popular podcasts in our archives, based on the numbr of listens and downloads.

Now, it is the nature of this particular beast that the longer a podcast is available, the more people listen to it.  It’s a rabbit hole down which listeners fall when they have listened to the latest pod and decide they want more.

So, like the Logies, I’ve created two categories; the all-time most listened-to and the most downloaded podcasts this year (so far).

I have excluded the Hyperbole Towers PodCom, a scripted comedy which has, over the last year or so, acquired about five times as many listens as our most popular regular pod.

Otherwise, the links below will take you to the original posts, with audio and transcripts, the latter to help you decide if you’ve heard them already.

To be fair, there are a lot of themes that come up time and again – especially in the pods recorded during Covid. Pets, defects, the building commissioner – they all pop up more than once.

Anyway, follow the links below and you can listen (again) or read the transcripts.  We’ll be back to normal (or what passes for normal in strata) next week.

The most downloaded Flat Chat Wrap podcasts

All-time favourites

1. Anti-anti-vaxxers and 20,000 listens (July 9, 2021)

Topics: Moratorium on rental evictions: France’s vaccine passports; David Chandler’s blitz on dodgy certifiers; rental vacancies; covid confusion; why strata pros say no to off-the-plan projects. Listen and read HERE.

2. Pet regs, kid noise, renos and rants (August 24, 2021)

Topics: New pet regulations; raucous kids in lockdown; noisy renovations (also in lockdown); strata-friendly pets and two rants from JimmyT. Listen and read HERE.

3. Pets to lets – 200 columns and counting (August 16, 2021)

Look back at four years of strata columns in the Financial Review, including dodgy building developers, the NSW Building Commissioner, pet by-laws, flammable cladding, short-term lets, and sunset “clawbacks”. Listen and read HERE.

4. No-vax bans and climate denial warning (May 10, 2021)

Topics:  Pro and anti-vaccine passions (including bans on people using common facilities); new leadership in NSW; two separate strata battles over common property. Listen and read HERE.

5. Defects detected and pets rejected (August 31, 2021)

Topics: Report reveals one-third of units defective; developer forced to pay $1million in compensation; non-existent tradies’ covid limits; community title laws undermine new pet regulations; and Pinchy, the crayfish that escaped death in a restaurant kitchen. Listen and read HERE.

Top pods of this year (so far)

1. Strata’s next big challenge – ageing blocks (February 23)

Topic: What it says on the tin – Building Commissioner David Chandler outlines the challenges we face as strata blocks overtake their use-by dates. Listen and read HERE.

2. Two alarms over fire safety in apartments (January 25)

Topics: The tragic cost of leaving fire doors open; the puzzle of why fire safety previously approved are suddenly not okay when a new contractor moves in; and a preview of Sue’s book on spray-on skin surgeon Dr Fiona Wood. Listen and read HERE.

3. Holiday let free-for-all… except investors (February 15)

Topics: Jimmy belatedly discovers that holiday letting by-laws don’t cover permanent residents’ apartments; an anti-holiday letting by-law is rescinded for going too far; experts explain why putting a property on Airbnb might not be worth the hassle; and pre-election promises to first-time home-buyers. Listen and read HERE.

4. Flood fears and by-laws to loathe and love (March 8)

Topics: Smart thinking residents save unit block car park from floods; what happens in multi-storey blocks when the power to the lifts is knocked out; the best and worst by-laws; and a positive story about Airbnb. Listen and read HERE.

5. Builder fails despite home shortage (March 1)

Topics: Builder Probuild collapses despite dire housing shortage; Sue looks at owners of both city and country properties; all you need to know about electric vehicle (EV) charging. Listen and read HERE.

Obviously some of the comments in these podcasts have been overtaken by events and new information.  But they offer an insight to the issues that have plagued and pleased us over the past year or so.