Australia needs to loosen planning controls and boost apprenticeship incentives, reskill migrants already in the country, and launch an international campaign to bring in skilled migrants if we are going…
There are two essential seminars coming up in the next few weeks – one online, the other in real life (with added drinks and games) – so get your diaries…
There’s some good news and some possibly calamitously bad news in this week’s podcast. Firstly, the number of apartment building approvals was up by more than 50 per cent in…
Does your apartment block need a building manager? Do you have one but don’t know what he or she does? Do you even know what a building manager is and…
When it came to tightening quality control of building work, it was always likely that the new NSW Design and Building and Practitioners Act would have unintended consequences. The Act…
COMMENT: A crucial element in the NSW apartment building revolution has arrived with the first of the big insurers prepared to take a punt on Chandler’s five-star reforms. As we…
When it comes to cutting corners, skimping on construction costs in strata buildings is one of the most flawed false economies in our world. But while some outcomes are more…
A couple of weeks ago, Sydney Morning Herald and Domain contributor Sue Williams accepted an invitation to see Building Commissioner David Chandler in action on a development site. How do…
Strata buyers are drifting away from apartments and towards townhouses in the post-Covid era, as people seek more space in which to work from home, and less close contact with…
In this week’s podcast we give the NSW Parliament’s deliberations on it’s new strata pet laws a kick along. As reported here, the Lower House has taken a good six…
It’s renovations all the way in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap as we chat about a Forum post asking what can be done about a disastrous and unauthorised renovation, now…
The big strata news of this week stopped us in our tracks. The NSW Court of Appeals has overturned a decision by the strata tribunal (NCAT) which, earlier this year,…