A spoof property ad in a major real estate website has been causing hilarity in strata circles.  Under the headline “Buy the dream… inherit the nightmare,” it asked, “Have you ever looked at a beautiful terrace in Glebe and thought… this is nice… but I wish it came with a little more emotional trauma. Well…Today’s your lucky day.”

Another clue that the “for sale” ad – now removed from realestate.com.au – is less than serious is apparent from the asking price: $999,999 for a $4million town house.

“For nearly $4 million, we thought we’d purchased our forever home,’ the blurb read. “Turns out we’d actually enrolled in an unlimited subscription to “Strata – The Never Ending Story.”

Included in the purchase price, the ad said, were:

• One beautiful terrace.
• One fantastic location.
• One advanced diploma in strata law.
• Thousands of pages of meeting minutes.
• Enough legal correspondence to keep a small forest employed.
• A front-row seat to governance theatre.

“Need a repair? Excellent,” the ad continued. “First you’ll need a meeting. Then another meeting. A consultant. An engineer. A report. A report about the report. A lawyer. Another lawyer. A special levy. Another meeting. Then… Maybe… Someone might look at the repair.”

Laden with sarcasm directed at who-knows-what by whomever, we don’t know, it goes on to describe an annual “tradition” in which everyone agrees something needs fixing but nobody agrees how and 12 months later everybody meets again to discuss why nothing happened.

The spoof ad went on to list as its potential purchasers:

• Someone who enjoys suspense.
• Someone who enjoys meetings.
• Someone who enjoys reading agendas longer than most novels.
• Someone who believes every problem can be solved by commissioning another report.
• Someone who just loves a challenge.

The one piece of reliable advice that the ad poster offered was to read all the available minutes in great detail because “the biggest surprise in strata usually isn’t hidden behind the walls… It’s hidden in the paperwork.”

We have a redacted copy of the original ad, with the address removed because we don’t know what the intention of the advertiser was.  Could have been a piece of fun or just an opportunity to vent. However, it could have been a malicious swipe at the strata committee or another owner.

Or it could be a way of gaining attention to a townhouse that’s available for rent on the same website.  You can be the judge HERE.

Meanwhile, we’ll leave the final word to the website’s disclaimer: Whilst every care has been taken to verify the accuracy of the details in this advertisement [the website’s publishers] cannot guarantee its correctness. Prospective buyers or tenants need to take such action as is necessary, to satisfy themselves of any pertinent matters.