I'm starting to wonder whether buying a small apartment and waiting for this to all blow over wouldn't be the smarter move. Just doesn't make sense to me going all in knowing that prices will fall or plateau for years.
I am looking at a one or two bedroom unit in Sydney, trying to keep it under 900k though I can go a bit higher.
Every single unit I have seen has issues, from holes in the walls to water ingress (on every single strata report I bought).
I am at my wit's end. I knew new apartments were shoddily built but the reality is so, so much worse. I started exclusively looking at older units and it seems like they're all owned by investors or misers who are dead set against doing basic maintenance. Yes I understand a 56 year old building will have waterproofing issues. No I don't think it's reasonable to have ignored the problem for the past seven years and each unit now requires at least 12k in waterproofing. According to a quote obtained in 2025. Which got struck down. So who knows how much it will cost now. And the unit I'm looking at wasn't even quoted for repairs.
Did the scheme allow you to be more picky with what you wanted to buy or did you just get whatever your new maximum capacity was?
Been looking for close to two years now, seriously for the past 8 months or so. Minimum four every week.
Thought it was my budget a year ago so I got a promotion and started only looking in suburbs where the median price is below my budget and still nothing. Just want two things, no major defects and sunlight but I just can't seem to find one.
I read people post here about finding their place in under 3 months, 2, some even just a couple weeks. How? Do most people just don't care?
edit: budget is under 1m for a 1 or 2 bedroom unit in Sydney
Been looking at some of the newer apartments since older units aren't coming on the market in the Sydney suburbs I am interested in. I research a bit before bothering to turn up and inspect but even so, they all seem to have issues.
The 'best' one I've seen:
Four storey tower built in 2017, has basement carpark. Builder been around 1998, other than one lawsuit in 2014 been quiet. Has a really good reputation amongst locals (used to live near it).
It ticks everything else but waterproofing issue spooked me away but seeing that every other apartments I inspected have similar issues... am I overreacting?
Is there some deposit of old strata reports of double brick walk up units I can read? I know that they can have concrete cancer, roofing issues, and pipe problems but how common are they? Can't seem to find any concrete numbers on this.
Have a family friend that's a family of lawyers and I was told to just get a conveyancer since even if I was to go through his father's company, they would outsource it to a secretary who is not a lawyer and just have a lawyer's name signing off.
Now, he is quite successful and busy so could be that he didn't feel like taking on extra work for minimal pay, but I was wondering if things do go South what was preventing me from engaging a solicitor after the fact?
I remember years ago being able to see a builder's iCIRT rating on some site but the NSW government page doesn't work any more.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/news/icirt-apartment-rating-system
I think https://register.icirt.com/registry is the new website but it only shows you if they are registered and not the number of 'stars' they have. I still see builders advertising the number of stars they have on some construction sites so presumably they are worth something.
It's like all the one bedrooms are being forced under the 800k stamp duty free price, leaving the 801k to basically 950k as "would normally be over 1m but has varying levels of things wrong teehee".
I swear I've been seeing higher quality listings in the 750-800k bracket in Sydney.
p.s. and of course, the 2 bedrooms in 800-950k range aren't too great. Too rich for nice a tiny apartment, too poor for slightly less tiny apartment.
Assuming I have been told that I can buy up to 920k with the scheme, would it be silly to settle for something closer to 700k?
I'm such a chicken when it comes to these large financial decisions. Head says that it would be stupid to not take advantage of this but my heart gets scared at the thought of owning such an expensive property.
Those who have gone through something similar, please share your thoughts and experience.
I've seen posts here saying that if you buy something after 2021 you're safe but I'm seeing the same dodgy builders employing the same dodgy people building the same cookie cutter apartments. What exactly changed?
I think someone mentioned builders having a longer liability but most problems start rising after the warranty (6 years? 10 years?) ends and that's assuming that they simply don't phoenix. Even if you get a large builder that's going to hang around I have seen so many apartments having to fight the builder and sometimes even go to the Supreme Court to get fixes applied.
Please educate me on how people are so confidently suggesting these new builds.
Didn't make the APS6 interview that I have been filling as higher duty for two out of past three years. I wrote the training material for the role. I created some of the procedures. The questions were two technical questions for something that I did every day and two softball generic questions that I all followed STAR answering.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Found an apartment being sold for a steep discount in Lower North Shore area but it was built in 2020. Strata report looks okay. Still "under warranty" for whatever it's worth. Should I just avoid it to be safe?
Looking at units and prices have gone up but there seems to be a constant stream of units being up for sale. Is the area always like this? Seems to have the highest number of units listed in a suburb close to the CBD.
Got preapproval from CBA but wondering if it's possible to switch to BA in the future if the rate gap increases.
Got my preapproval from CBA around four months ago but looking to get it from a different bank with better rates. I recall reading that applying for preapprovals isn't an issue unless you do it 'too frequently', but how long is a piece of string?
Did a home sleep study and ANI came back at 80/hr with doctor's conclusion being "Severe obstructive sleep apnoea, associated with severe arterial oxygen desaturation". I also have an average oxyhaemoglobin saturation of 90%.
Guy made a huge fuss and wanted me to buy a CPAP machine ASAP when I got the results but:
Which makes me think I should perhaps give losing weight and sleeping on my sides a go first?
I asked to rent a machine before buying it outright, which was surprisingly pricey at 10AUD a day, and he didn't seem very happy. Also not sure how to feel about renting a machine that other people have also used to breathe through.
But it's mostly being immediately pushed to purchasing a machine that's giving me doubts about moving ahead with anything.
Did a home sleep study and ANI came back at 80/hr with doctor's conclusion being "Severe obstructive sleep apnoea, associated with severe arterial oxygen desaturation". I also have an average oxyhaemoglobin saturation of 90%.
Guy made a huge fuss and wanted me to buy a CPAP machine ASAP when I got the results but:
Which makes me think I should perhaps give losing weight and sleeping on my sides a go first?
I asked to rent a machine before buying it outright, which was surprisingly pricey at 10AUD a day, and he didn't seem very happy. Also not sure how to feel about renting a machine that other people have also used to breathe through.
But it's mostly being immediately pushed to purchasing a machine that's giving me doubts about moving ahead with anything.
I go to the office in the CBD less than a handful times a month so I've been looking at more or less the entire greater Sydney area. Thought buying would be easy with so many options available but in reality my options in 800-900k range seems to be:
Unsatisfied by all this I figured I'll just look for a single bedroom or even a studio in 600~800 range and it's the same as above with worse conditions (strata going for 900+ per quarter, shoehorned in studios, apartment falling apart).
Are people just YOLOing into newly builts from lack of option? I might have to push back purchasing and look for a promotion first at this rate.
Stamp duty exemption limit of 800k seems to have become the floor.
p.s. the 'ripple effect' is real and seems to have permeated across most of Sydney. Insane.
Found an older unit that I liked, second floor. Was a bit pensive about walking up so many flights of stairs every day but it's a decent price at a location I am happy with.
Read some other threads and about 80% seems to be about people complaining how the noise just bleeds through with 20% saying that they had no issues. Some people are saying the best part of moving to a newer apartment is how quiet it is.
It's a bit difficult to pay attention to the noise during inspection, should I be worried? I have very sensitive hearing and can easily have my sleep interrupted from noise.
Looking at both right now, I am getting more results on Domain for Sydney suburbs than RE. Was always told that it's the other way around.
Surely something must have been achieved by them right?
My options are new apartments whose best foot forward from the real estate agents seem to be that 'we successfully sued the builder two years ago and got things fixed' (it's fucked).
Or South facing older brick apartments on the highest floor with zero insulation but the 'rooms are bigger' and I'm not sure which is worse.
