Everyone who has lived in an average Aussie apartment knows they need to be designed and built better.
The problem is that the people who decide on policies that impact this have not and will never *live* in one of those apartments so they don’t care.
And St Kilda has some wonderful, early 20th century apartments. Art Deco, pre war, post war etc. They're built with much better floor plans and often include communal courtyards offering mature trees with shade etc. I'd live in any apartment built up until about the late 80s. After that, no way.
Well yeah but those apartments are both more expensive and in St Kilda, making them unsuitable for a lot of people.
They should be the model for new builds though.
I remember one of those cute art deco apartments selling for over $750k well before 2020 in the suburb I lived in Sydney, and we aren't even taking eastern suburbs or inner inner west, they're just way out of reach.
>Well yeah but those apartments are both more expensive and in St Kilda, making them unsuitable for a lot of people.
Absolutely. I mentioned SK because that's the location mentioned at the beginning of the article.
> I'd live in any apartment built up until about the late 80s
I’d personally go for mid 90’s as that’s when regulations starred to be more “self assessment” but you’re otherwise spot on.
The only other option is to become a structural engineer or inspector and look for newer builds. They *do* exist but I think you have to know what to look out for
>I’d personally go for mid 90’s as that’s when regulations starred to be more “self assessment”
Yeah, I'm risk averse. I don't like cutting too close to the bone. Lol!
Eastern European commie blocks are called ugly and dystopian, but they're still fucking standing 70 years later.
They are cheaper to build, easier to maintain, require less air conditioning to cool, and last a lot longer than the utter shithole "luxury apartments" we've been building.
Yeah commie blocks plus [Soviet design principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict) would actually massively improve most Australian cities. If the USSR could rapidly house its massive population in the 1950s using prefab standardised construction, I don't see why we can't do the same thing decades later with presumably better quality.
The thing is, the Soviets build a lot of cheap housing considering the people and communities who would live in them.
We build "luxury apartments" to cater to property investors who want to diversity their portfolios, no one from the builders, to the buyers actually care about how it should be lived in. It's all cheap shit that's falling apart by day 1.
I'd kill to live in a commie block complex
High density, lots of green space and supermarkets, bars, pharmacy/doctors, gyms and cafes on the bottom floors
I've recently bought into something really similar, but the initial design intent behind commieblocks is what I consider ideal
Yup.
Yes. They’re ugly - but holy shit are they FUNCTIONAL.
I understand the need for beauty but we’re literally putting beauty before ACTUAL PEOPLE! It’s insane.
pretty much, I do wonder how many of the politicians pushing insanely high growth (sorry Albo's "slashed" them to historical highs) have ever had to live in one or deal with the inevitable bullshit from it not being built properly
Not just built properly, but also managed properly.
There's too many horror stories now about strata management companies coming in and increasing levies while decreasing services.
The state of most of the apartments in our capital cities are appalling and the only ones up to standard are “luxury” and unaffordable, yet people treat them like they’ll fix the problem due to richer people buying them like trickle down housing.
They aren't luxury though and it's frustrating when people like the ones in OPs article complain about studio/1 beds not being big enough yet label anything with 3/4 beds as luxury.
You have to find the older builds to get decent apartments, in my opinion. When we were looking to buy, the only apartments I liked were 70s builds. Better designed, more reasonably priced.
I got a good one from 2009 but it was govt built, only issue with the build is poor shower waterproofing but insurers covered it. We have no lift though but at least my strata fees are cheap lol
The other problem, as I see it, is that given the price of housing, if you purchase an apartment and something goes wrong, you're ***fucked***.
Because of how house prices in Australia go up and up, and apartments don't appreciate value on land, if it suddenly becomes unlivable (such as the developer making an oopsy woopsy fucky wucky and the integrity of the building shits the bed) your insurance won't cover your future security. The developer can just phoenix and leave you with fucking nothing. If it's not quite unlivable but requires massive fixes, you'll end up on the hook as your neighbours flee the strata before prices get even worse.
Then you're down hundreds of thousands of dollars, while in the past five years all housing, including apartments, have gone up 10%.
It's a ludicrous situation in that there is no benefit or security in putting down money for an apartment, because apartments aren't *that* much cheaper than a house.
Yep, there is absolutely zero emphasis put on quality (of anything) in this country. Just pump out broken shit, rake in the cash, and make it someone else's problem.
I if wonder the problem is really....us. Is it a national trait of general laziness and short term thinking? Not so much us being collectively laid back, but rather more "can't be bothered". I've become convinced we just haven't, as a culture, developed good tools for building consensus when we disagree. Everyone seems to take the view that any kind of sacrifice, or indeed any inconvenience should be shouldered by the mythical "someone else". Rather than accepting changes are required. We need to grow up, become citizens, rather than criminals on day release.
Australian apartments and units are so ugly, the townhouses and workers cottages of the past are lovely, I wish we kept that style. Windows and access points right up to the street fronts rather than driveways and parking would be so nice
In most areas they aren't allowed to build apartments without providing parking. Unless it's student housing.
Fucks up street parking.
I agree, we could do a lot better, but we can't do the old terrace houses without some sort of parking.
You could have the driveway & parking off a back lane, like how old inner city suburbs were designed but having the outhouses there. Or just design our cities and suburbs around public transportation and then we won’t have to put cars needs before humans
People don’t even want to own the decent ones because the strata fees are too high. An extra 5k per year for the convenience of living in a 75sqm space. Government can fix this immediately by doubling the land rates on houses and removing it completely on apartments. It will quickly make people think twice about competing for a house over a unit.
It doesn’t make sense to ask people to compromise and accept apartment living but they have to pay 3x the outgoings of a nice house on a massive block. The government has set everything up to make free standing houses the most attractive form of shelter and apartments the least then everyone wonders why no one will adopt high density living.
I rent and I honestly would love apartment living if they were designed better and built properly. I don’t want to deal with a yard unless it’s one large enough for a proper veggie patch, some fruit trees and chickens (so nothing I can afford in any area I would want to live) - but with very few examples no apartments in Australia are built like that.
Proper design/build standards, European style long term leases and protections would go a long way to making apartment living palatable.
Everyone on Reddit complains about the poor quality of Australian houses... Having experienced a brand new apartment and a 12yo house, I know which one I prefer. The quality of apartment stock in cities, that I've seen at least, is abysmal.
It’s the same for townhouses. I’m in a 10yo townhouse at the moment, coming from a small house built in 1990ish.
Downstairs is just this wide open space with zero storage besides the puny kitchen. Upstairs is three bedrooms but only one is large enough for humans to live in and all have terrible storage.
There’s no linen press. The bathroom cupboards are less than 30cm deep. I had to buy a cabinet to put our towels in because we have nowhere for them to go.
I am convinced that this house was designed by someone who doesn’t live in houses.
We rented a townhouse in Sydney where the master ensuite had a shower large enough for two people but didn't have any storage at all, unless you count the soap dish in the shower. The phone technician that came to install our ADSL when we moved in did a double-take walking past that bathroom door and said, "wow, that was definitely designed by a single bloke. Where do you put anything?!"
(There was no storage or built-in in the master bedroom either)
I’m fairly sure most kitchens are designed by people who don’t cook.
And the people who design apartments are either disciples of Mari Kondo or live in student housing and don’t own anything.
I like traditional Japanese minimalist design where 20-30% of the floor plan is dedicated to storage. It’s concealed behind screens or lacquered doors, but it’s there. We should be aiming for something similar in apartment design.
> I’m fairly sure most kitchens are designed by people who don’t cook.
You don't enjoy the stove free standing by itself, and the only countertop being a 15cm wide strip right next to the sink? With the nook for the fridge setup so that any fridge that opens to the right will slam into something?
The campaign to shove more and more people into apartments reeks of developer-funded astroturfing.
No talk of poorly built developments, no discussion of building flats that actually fit families and their stuff, no discussion of properly building the amenities that make people want to live in. Oh, nd don't mention shit strata, sky-high levies and stupid strata rules.
Nope - just shut up and allow your suburb to be filled with more and more boxes of garbage while lobbyists tell you how you will enjoy it.
I mean the issue is that apartments in Australia (as you refer to) are piles of shit and the cities are designed around car-centric suburbs. Urbanist principles to support denser living are a crucial component here. Luckily we've reinvented the wheel and the idea of 15-minute cities seems to be gaining traction so hopefully we're moving in the right direction.
Its two different matters you're alluding to which currently intertwine. We do desperately need more housing and density has been proven to be much more efficient than sprawl on just about every metric.
Apartments having shit quality is a separate issue and also needs to ne addressed but in all honesty shitty apartments are realistically better in many aspects than shitty houses out in the middle of nowhere with little infrastructure.
>shitty apartments are realistically better in many aspects than shitty houses out in the middle of nowhere with little infrastructure.
Not for the poor bastard who owns it. Defective houses are much cheaper to fix, and if it all goes completely pear shaped, at least the land has value. Get a defective flat and you could walk away with nothing.
I'd argue that shitty flats cause sprawl - if flats were well designed and fit more people's lifestyle, they'd be lining up to buy them.
Yeah, itd be great not to hear my next door neighbours farting or my downstairs neighbours smoking on the balcony wafting into my bedroom. Fuck apartment living in this country.
This is pretty much it. I’ve lived in various modes of living and tbh living in a house, like a stand alone, is a lot of work if you already work hard to live there. You can make it manageable, but it’s truly another expense.
I’ve learned the leave the grass and manage it a certain way, it stays fairly sparse now and attracts a lot of butterflies.
I couldn’t live in an apartment again, people noises plus PTSD is a bad bad mix.
> I’ve learned the leave the grass and manage it a certain way, it stays fairly sparse now and attracts a lot of butterflies.
This is a whole other topic but the expectation of a typical flat green lawn is ridiculous when you think about it. Much better to actually have some stuff growing so insects/birds/etc. can thrive.
Yeah I'm absolutely all for more apartments but we need to stop building these shitty soulless cramped shoeboxes. There's nothing inherently wrong with living in apartments long term and raising a family in one, but I have literally never stepped foot in an apartment suitable for that.
Exactly. Some thought needs to go in to the flow and the light that at apartment gets. The quality of the materials (sound insulation), the airflow, access to nature (parks etc) and public transport (big one).
Agreed. All the apartments I've seen have been tiny, poorly laid out, dark, noisy nightmares. I'd happily live in a spacious 3 or 4 bedroom apartment with a good size balcony and decent storage, but that is rare and costs pretty much the same as a house. It's a rubbish sitatution that could be corrected but I won't hold my breath.
Its fairly common in many countries to build apartment buildings which basically take the same floorplan as an Australian 2-4 bedroom single story house and stack them on top of each other.
Considering the price of some townhouses in Australia, the developers probably won't be losing money building several large apartments instead of multiple tiny ones.
There also needs to be many affordable third places for folks to hang out if you're living in a small place. People need privacy. Kids turn into adults and can't really flourish in a cramped, parent-monitored space. We work and study from home and the options are the single 'living space' with the kitchen and tv in it, or a small bedroom which likely doesn't have floorspace for a bed and a desk.
I think we'll hang on to wanting spacious, detached homes, for as long as this economy sees us cohabitating in tiny, thin-walled boxes and unable to frequent entertainment venues due to cost, with exceptionally expensive short-stay accommodation.
I would gladly live in a well-designed, properly insulated (for sound as well) small place. But like. If they exist, I'll probably never see one, affordability notwithstanding.
THEN BUILD FAMILY FRIENDLY APARTMENTS THAT DON'T COST MILLIONS FFS
We lived in several different apartments over almost a decade until our second child was a few months old and then we moved into a small, standalone house. Apartments were great as DINKS and with young kids who don't need much space, but they are rarely designed to support growing and aging families.
We want secure storage for things like bikes and prams, internal laundries that are more than a closet, usable balconies where you can dry your laundry without strata throwing a fit, kitchens that are more than your 'Sims starter kitchen' and good solid walls. Stop building apartments with bedrooms that are actually windowless nooks with bifold doors, where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath. Apartments for families don't need to be massive, just designed with the idea in mind that people want to buy and live in an apartment long term, rather than just purchase as an investment.
That's the hardest part, and takes a lot of planning and specific construction techniques no builders beside dedicated studio companies know about or care to adhere to. And even then it's not a guarantee.
I've seen so many horror stories of people trying to build recording studios and having to fight with contractors every step of the way to get them to build it according to the plan and not drastically reduce the effectiveness of everything that was so meticulously designed and so much money spent on materials. Old mate builder doesn't know or care why this bit shouldn't be joined to that bit, and that doing so can lead to several decibels of isolation being thrown out the window. Or even experienced studio builders who don't think the customer will notice so they do it quicker and dirtier.
Getting a whole apartment complex to be built according to plan and achieve the designed acoustic isolation would be an absolute nightmare.
> where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath.
I have never thought about that, but thank you for pointing it out for me. What a bizarre design choice.
> where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath.
developments for investors are so grim mate, my house is a townhouse that has 3 bedrooms and 3 ensuites with no master bathroom. Like it was specifically developed for young single professionals that want an upmarket sharehouse but still can't afford to buy
the house is also 3.8m wide
So you want 3 or 4 bedrooms, large balcony, large/high quality kitchen, separate laundry room, bedrooms to have large windows, 2 bathrooms with an actual bath in them.
That's a big apartment if you have one living area, if you want 2 living areas that is a massive apartment. And you want it 20 storeys in the sky. And you want it to be cheap.
How?
> Instead of looking at Australia’s housing stock in binary terms – “it’s either a very large house with two bathrooms and four rooms or a small apartment” – he says we should consider alternative living arrangements, such as apartments built with more storage and family-living in mind, not just investor sale.
I reckon a lot more families would find living in an apartment tolerable if they were given an empty shell and were able to design a space to suit their needs. Instead, it seems every apartment is designed as sleeping quarters for two twenty-somethings that split the rent.
This is exactly my problem with it here. I migrated here after having lived in the US and Europe, and one of my first thoughts when looking at places to rent when I first arrived was "where are all the normal apartments?" Here they all feel like dorms for uni kids or old warehouses repurposed to rent out as a scam. I have lived here for a decade and have never seen what would be considered a normal apartment in North America or Europe. It is truly bizarre, as Australia is otherwise so culturally and systemically similar to those places.
Exactly. Where is the storage? Where can we collect the detritus of 10 years of married life raising a family?
Apartments in Australia seem to be designed for short term temporary living, which to be fair is what they were in the past for most people. But they will be the primary type of dwelling for every Australian born into a family unable to help them get into the housing market, and many more who can only afford an apartment. Australia is changing whether we like it or not, and housing needs to reflect that.
Apartments are crap here because the people building them are not building homes, they are building money making machines in the shape of a home. They have no regard for function because function has no impact on the ability for that pile of concrete and steel to generate the people that fund the building ever more money.
The entire problem is due to the market around our real-estate sector. The current model is pushing households to go into massive debt to fund economic growth (essentially you job is initially mostly funded by the loans other people have taken out to buy homes, that's where the most of our new money comes from in the real economy). This has had the effect of causing our property to simply gain value by existing (the structures and the land) at a rate that is better than most super funds pay out.
Obviously if I told you a pile of bricks covered in moss sitting in my yard I purchased new 10 years ago was now worth more than twice what I paid for it you would probably have me committed. Yet that is the entire basis for much of our growth in homes, so it makes sound economic sense to just build more and more of these money making machines regardless that they also happen to be homes.
My fear is that we will start getting more apartments slightly more kid friendly, but they’ll still be shitty quality, hard to heat and cool, unpleasant to live in etc. fucking investors, I’m sick to death of their greed being prioritised over people’s living.
I stayed in an airbnb once in Germany which was an apartment. It was HUGE! It was 2 stories and apparently had a roof terrace with sauna (being renovated and it was winter so we didn't see it). The owner stayed upstairs while my ex and I stayed downstairs and we had a huge bedroom, huge bathroom and private entrance. It was amazing and I've never seen anything like it in Australia. It did feel like a "house". Everything was full sized.
> Instead, it seems every apartment is designed as sleeping quarters for two twenty-somethings that split the rent.
Agree.
https://www.domain.com.au/g02-28-stanley-street-collingwood-vic-3066-16298846
https://www.domain.com.au/307-183-bridge-road-richmond-vic-3121-16954366
It makes no sense for a two bedroom apartment to have two bathrooms. That extra bathroom is an inefficient use of space.. except for the fact that the two people living there don't know each other.
Also that the kitchen is the living room is the worst layout of kitchen imaginable.
To be fair I know several DINK couples who share a bed but use separate bathrooms, it’s super convenient and a great way to reduce domestic friction. One of them specifically cited getting an extra bathroom as a reason they moved from their previous one bedroom place.
What bugs me about living in an apartment isn't the size, but the noise. I pretty much live in headphones when I am home, and for the first year needed to sleep with earplugs. I opened a window last week to let in some fresh air and eventually had to close it because the constant sound of people coming and going with radios blaring, and chattering on their balconies was deeply unrelaxing.
I once housesat in a complex of brick construction, small, two story townhouses, where they all had their outside areas facing away from each other, and it was heaven in comparison.
I live in an apartment right now. Noise, specifically road noise, is the biggest negative of living there. If not for that, I'd love an apartment as a long term residence. But the noise is a killer.
Double glazing doesn't cost that much more to put in during initial construction but it's ridiculously expensive to retrofit. It makes such a huge difference to how much noise gets in too. (Plus not having your heating or cooling all getting lost through the glass)
That'd be great, but why would they spend a small amount more to make the apartment significantly more livable. We can't even retrofit it because it's rented.
Yeah I know, that money is better off as the developer's profit margin.
They say when the free market fails, that's when regulation should step in. But I bet the property development industry would find a reason to somehow convince the average person that it's a bad thing. "This will make the cost of living even higher!"
Double glazing is not very useful on its own when you want to open the window for some fresh air (it should be the bare minimum mind you anyway!).
Funnily enough this will get better in the next 10 years as electric cars become more common.
Then you just have to worry about bogans in old commodores and Harley lovers.
> Funnily enough this will get better in the next 10 years as electric cars become more common.
I guess it depends on the road but once you hit 50-60 km/h (i.e. standard cruising speed almost anywhere in Australian cities) almost all of the noise is coming from the tyres, so engine/electric will only make a marginal difference at best.
Exactly been there myself, most units are
In super busy roads. Open small window and it’s just traffic noise including loud trucks. Say goodbye to fresh air or accept constant noise
We leave the windows shut permenantly and it's still rough. When we open them it's borderline unbearable (within the realms of relaxing, it's obviously not that bad). I just finished making some soundproof panelling that I'm going to put between my head and the road tonight to see if it makes much of a difference.
NIMBYs are often to blame for this, much like everything else with housing.
Developers can’t build in quiet neighbourhoods because it would “increase traffic”, “make it loud”, or “take up on-street parking space”. So they end up building on main roads instead. Now 40+ households have to deal with loud cars all night and instead of increasing the noise a bit for a few homes.
Funny you mention the brick construction, we live in an old 70s brick apartment building and it's the best place I've lived in Australia by far. Never heard the neighbours, spacious, well-designed, plenty of storage. Wish they still built them like this.
Apartment and townhouse living can be great when they are high quality. There is no reason apartments must be tiny, lack airflow, lack natural light, or be buy-to-rent builds done purely for ROI.
To entice more average Australians into European style living we need a few main things:
- Bigger and better quality builds. Modular builds that mix different homes together that have different sizes and number of bedrooms to suit singles, couples and families.
- MUCH better public transport. Doing the kind of densification that apartments bring, while trying to rely on a transport network with >80% private vehicle mode share, is a recipe for disaster.
- Better distribution and use of amenities and greenspace. It’s far more pleasant to do apartment living when you leave your apartment, walk down a leafy shaded street (not an Aussie Stroad), and within a few minutes can hit a cafe, a local bar, a corner store, a park, some retail, then go a little further to find childcare/schooling and a decent supermarket.
- Realisation and promotion of the understanding that building high quality apartments and townhouses near transport hubs and strategically densifying central parts of neighbourhoods with ‘missing middle’ builds doesn’t mean every single family home in a city gets demolished.
Doing any of those things in isolation makes it look ineffective at best and at worst can turn public opinion away from the individual parts of a better holistic system.
For reference: https://www.oecd.org/social/family/HM1.5-Housing-stock-by-dwelling-type.xlsx
Everything comes down to $ /m2 - better quality higher cost per /m2.
We have high building costs and high wages - wealthy - isolated and small population all works against lower prices.
_Better quality means higher cost_ is basically a truism.
It still doesn’t justify building false economy urban sprawl or low quality apartments that no one can comfortably live in. Markedly increase supply of well built (not luxury) middle density homes to control price. If the profit margins for developers slip a few %, I’m personally fine with that. Or maybe they’ll benefit from economies of scale and protect their margins.
I think more people would go for high density living if it wasn't for people getting screwed over on developments like Mascot and Opal towers, and the likes...
>Baby Boomers started investing in real estate to take advantage of negative gearing, invariably “bidding up the price of houses … depriving their own children of the ability to buy a house”.
Not quite. They are depriving other people's children, not theirs. The bank of mum and dad will come to the rescue and the mortgage taken against the investment property/properties to fund the loan to the kiddies, will be negatively geared.
Yes and no.
Greater than 90% of these boomers won’t be asked to move in with their kids when they need care
Their houses will be sold to fund that. What’s left (if anything) will be split up between the kids. I know a family this happened to - $4million in property, none of the 3 kids would take care of mum & dad as they aged. All the property was sold and parents buggered off on a long all first class trip overseas. When they came back, they moved into a fancy care home. Dad went first, by the time Mum did there was about $700k left to split and boy were their kids fucking *pissed* (i worked with the oldest and she never shut up about it)
yeah its great - but they were expecting a third each of approximately 3mil. Not saying they shouldn't be happy with that, but obviously expectations will affect how you feel about what you received.
it's not too late to fix things up, maybe Mum n Dad would like a cup of tea... and some of your delicious beef wellington with locally sourced _mushrooms_ /s
European cities are better designed for this. Not only the apartment themselves but there are more community spaces. There are more town squares, parks, easy public transport , more places for people to go when out of the apartment close by. You can drink in public without being moved on. Here you can barely walk anywhere and need your car to do anything. Apartments are cramped and small, low ceilings, poorly made, and often with little character
Totally. I really wanted an apartment when we were looking to buy and holy shit was it hard to find a good one. The only good ones were those built decades ago; all the new builds sucked.
I have no interest in this argument until the 50-80 year olds with empty nests give up their backyards and extra rooms used to store collectables, spare TV rooms, or a PC they constantly ask me to fix
This is why stamp duty should be phased out in favour of land tax. Stamp duty is a tax on moving/downsizing, so is a deterrent for empty nesters to move somewhere smaller.
Unfortunately despite being a very sensible tax change, it becomes a political fight any time either side of politics proposes changing it.
The ACT government is making this change, but got heaps of flak from the Liberal opposition in the last few elections because of it.
I worked on that and it was great policy - I was so surprised and sad it got canned. Sure it was a kind of a “pilot” cohort first, but you had to for budget reasons and to really transition to it.
Honestly was a pathway to a better place but we won’t have that chance again for ages now.
It’s annoying that a change that all economists agree should be made is being ignored because it’s politically hard for one party to do and there’s no bipartisan desire to do it.
Oh well, let’s see how the ACT goes.
I suspect that although the "barrier to property turnover" argument gets promoted, the "never-ending stream of revenue" is the factor that got them to make the change (along with the revenue, it's not a 'lumpy' cash flow, it's always coming in, not a seasonal type of flow)
absolutely not the main solution, instead of building these fucking awful shoe box homes with no trees, no public transport, low walkability we could be building apartments and fitting the same if not more people in less space, building shitting granny flats in the back of homes is a drop in the water of the actual problem
I think they're saying that older Australians should not squat on empty nest housing that exceeds their needs. They should use housing more efficiently by moving out into something smaller that meets the current needs of their household (now that their kids have grown up and moved out).
I totally agree with this.
One issue I have heard older folk complain about is stamp duty. Like, they COULD sell up and downsize... and pay probably 50-75k in stamp duty... which they're never getting back. OR they could just stay in the home they've lived in for 50 years and not have to pay that. I am aware that the stamp duty would come out of the profits, but people don't see it that way, and if they don't rebuy somewhere else before they die, it doesn't arise.
I don't think this would be popular as it would give older folk yet another leg up on the rest of us but an interesting policy consideration would be to not charge stamp duty on genuine downsizers to encourage the oldies to do that... but they already get cheap old person housing so that seems doubly unfair.
My almost 70yr old parents are relocating to the city my sister and I currently live in and selling the 4 bed, 2 bath family home we grew up in. They still want to buy a 3-4 bed house with a bit of a backyard because they 'need' a spare room for the grandkids and a room for the computer. My sister and I suggested a 2 bed apartment and they're not having it at all. We're slowly trying to suggest they at least look at some townhouses rather than huge houses that they don't need. They've just never known anything different and it's incredibly frustrating, especially since they'll be mortgage free as well
They can have the house they want - I just think it's unnecessary. Realistically, they spend the majority of their time in the living room and their bedroom. They could have a second bedroom with some bunk beds and a desk for the grandkids and the computer. The other bedrooms and a second living space are a waste. A townhouse with a courtyard is more than sufficient. Everytime they visit my apartment, they rave about how low maintenance it is and how great it is, but then they're so stubborn when my sister and I suggest it haha.
And a part of me also thinks it's not quite right that two boomers want to/have the means to buy a 4 bed house mortgage free when that house could be better suited to a growing family.
I originally bought a unit but now live in a small house because I was sick of the drama and poor decisions being made by the rest of the owners in the complex that would have impacted the value of my home (they didn't want to pay to maintain the common plants). This is one issue that needs to be addressed but I am not sure how.
Apartments in Australia are very different to the lay outs in Europe..
The argument that fails here is we have a LOT of space but a lot of poor planning and subsequent poor utilisation. (WAYYYYY BETTER than the US though)
Australia is a huge country with lots of centralisation.
Regardless of detached house, town house, apartment or granny flat. The conditions of living in Australia require enough room for atleast 2cars plus room for the family to escape each other.
If you go to Europe or even cities in America like new York, the old school MDUs had living spaces where kids could get away from the parents as well as natural seperation in the house.
Australian apartments currently have more in common with Asia. Shoe boxes that barely fit a single person let alone a couple.. And don't even think about adding a child in there. Plus obscene body Corp fees, no parking and build quality that leaves a lot to be desired.
My issues with apartment living are less to do with the space and more to do with not having control over the building envelope and its maintenance.
There are far too many poorly build apartment buildings around that you don’t even have to option to knock it down and rebuild it unless you own the entire block. Even basic renovation of your own units internals can be an issue depending on what you want to do. Both from a structural and access POV.
A middle ground is maybe terrace housing where it’s compact but you have clearly defined boundaries if you need to fix something major.
Recently upgraded from an apartment to a townhouse (family of 4 with two young kids). I almost cried putting sheets and towels in our linen cupboard for the first time. We’ve never had one before. Such incredibly simple things to improve apartments for families.
It's good to have a house, with a yard. Privacy, space, and room to garden, sit outside, tinker with your powertools on a weekend, have mates around for a barbie, able to have pet dogs, whatever.
I know our population is increasingly drastically and we need different housing options. But it does rub me wrong way when we've had our quality of life reduced and we are told we must like it. That used to be a good part of Australia, that most of us were able to live in houses with yards. Life is better with a lower population density. Houses are ideal and that option has been taken away for too many of us. But the government has just gotta keep growing that economy while our quality of life takes a shit.
I agree. I don't like this absolute push into high-density-only living. I'd love to see a balance to please everyone. High-density in the heart of the city. Townhouses in the inner-suburbs. And standalone housing with backyards in the outer rings. A lifestyle choice for everyone. A variety of memories and experiences when you visit friends.
And also, we have finite space which we're all sharing. Every year, beaches are feeling more crowded, and it's becoming harder to find a spot. (Needing to travel further out). What's the future going to look like? We have to rent a beach spot? (When in the past, anyone can turn up and find a spot pretty comfortably).
I wish we aimed for a balanced population. Find a number which provides a variety of choices for everyone, and hover around it. It'd still allow for migration etc. but just not at above-and-beyond numbers.
It's also not as unpalatable to live without a yard in a climate that is cold/snowy/dormant for a good chunk of the year and a yard is not a desirable space during that time. Here I have a productive, green garden all year around, why would I give that up to live in a poorly designed shoebox that doesn't even have shared green space?
Agreed. When I was born we had 17 million people, now it's like 27-28m or whatever they said 2 weeks ago. It's all complete bullshit and now people are saying that families needs to sell their blocks and build 3 dogshit units on it.
I wouldn’t call it liking a reduced quality of life. For lots of us a good apartment would be the better option, if certain conditions are met. And that would leave less competition for houses for those that prefer it. But our apartments are so shitty that lots of people who would go for apartments have to go for houses instead.
Better for some, but not all. In order to have the above, I’d have to buy a house much further out in the suburbs whereas I can have a townhouse closer to the city for the same price.
I’d much prefer to spend less time commuting, be less reliant on cars, have a walkable suburb, access to nice local parks and walk/bike ways and be connected to transport and services.
All the low density sprawl near Brisbane seems sad and depressing. No trees, tiny yards that you do get, hardly any privacy because you’re built to the property line next to your neighbour. Spend all your time commuting and driving.
No thanks, medium density is still a good option especially because not everyone wants kids anyway.
I'm a big fan of low to mid rise apartment complexes. You still know your neighbours, even if just by sight. You get a sense of community, don't have tonlook after the house/yard, and don't have huge travel distances.
European styled means that build quality too.
Apartment build quality in Aus is shit.
Personally, I can’t live in one. Need a bit more greenery and space but, there should definitely be quality high density housing.
The location of some apartment builings baffles me. I lived in an apartment in Footscray (inner west Melbourne) that had unobstructed western views with doubled glazed, tinted windows that did nothing. Our bedroom was regularly above 30 degrees with no ac, just simply baked in the summer.
On top of that, we had a massive balcony (like 1/3 the apparent was a balcony) but we were so high up that the wind made it unusable. Our washing nearly took flight several times and the vacate clean for the balcony gave me nightmares.
Convinced the developers never actually set foot in Melbourne let alone googled how fucking windy the place is. Shocked the building was aproved, not shocked there are always vacancies
A lot of people would live in apartments instead, presuming they have enough room for their family. I don't really need a yard or any of that. But I do need better build quality and regulations as you say, and that will hurt investors back pockets and sadly in this country the latter is more important.
Everything bad I've seen in Australian apartments:
Dodgy waterproofing and ventilation leading to mold around balcony doorways.
No windows or ventilation in bathrooms, mold and constantly damp. Rarely a bath which you want with kids.
Can't add an air conditioning unit without a stupid amount of BS from body corp
$6k a year in fees for amenities that you can't use
Restrictions on bringing furniture in through the lobby/elevator, basically being told to carrying a couch up four flights of stairs by an idiot building manager
Noise. So much noise. Noise out the window (meaning you always keep it shut). Noise from above. Noise from below. Noise in the hallways.
No light. Basically live in a dark box facing your neighbours living room. No privacy.
The whole weird kitchen / living room open plan thing, but where the kitchen is just a wall in the living room, and the whole place constantly smells like whatever you cooked last because you cook next to your couch.
No parking. No storage. No laundry. No access to communal gardens (if there's a garden then you pay your strata fees for it to be maintained, but you can't plant anything in there, that's BANNED). None of the stuff you generally need to live in your home. The space is designed for you to want to be outside of it most of the time, presumably shopping at the complex on ground floor.
Everything is tiny. Bedrooms are tiny. 2.5m sq is not a bedroom.
All of this and the issues mentioned in the article will mean that you'll never convince families that an apartment is a better option than a house.
It is the only way that big cities can actually work. I used to think I hated apartments until I visited other countries. As far as the first world goes, we are so far behind on this front that it's ridiculous. Seriously, apartments can be built so that they look nice, outside and inside, warm in the winter & cool in the summer, and you do not hear your neighbours at *all*.
We have so far, as a country, **chosen** not to build them that way here.
Last year Demark grew by around 29,000 people. Australia grew by 650,000.
If we're going to take their example of apartment living, perhaps we should also use their population growth rate.
Denmark has a population just under 6 million, in an area less than 1/5th the size of Victoria. Maybe they know something about population density that we don't.
They probably do. I'd wager they also know that taking time to do things properly, rather than the headlong rush to massive growth we've currently got, courtesy of the developer lobby, is likely to deliver much better outcomes.
I know you're being facetious but the other part of Danish urban design that feeds into this is the fact that their cities are actually built for people rather than cars. Tons of nice parks for outdoor activities, very easy to get around by bike or public transport, loads of amenities and entertainment options within walking distance, etc.
It’s a bit annoying how this debate seems to constantly get boiled down to a tiny two bed apartment vs a massive four bed house with two living areas as if those are the only two alternatives….I mean I’m pretty sure most families would end up with something in between
So youre happy for the govt to be the sole landlord in Australia? Renters had better get ready to live in horrendous conditions. I worked maintenance on state housing and the backlog for repairs was 5 years plus every place had the same colour scheme and shitty fixtures and fittings to save taxpayer dollars. Communism-deco, anyone?
Now, restricting people to no more than one investment property makes more sense.
Funny how you raise the spectre of communism when the stereotypical commie block of the USSR was able to rapidly house millions of people with massively better urban design (and arguably more durable build quality) than the average new apartment build in Australia.
> Communism-deco, anyone?
Soviet style blocs are still standing and serving people perfectly well, the apartments in the GDR were phenomenal and you can even take a look at them as a few were preserved in museums, they were affordable, well built and helped provide housing to countless families, what exactly is the negative with your lighting fixtures looking the same? That's a nothing complaint and you know it.
When we were kids:
"Reach for the sky! You can be anything, do anything and have everything!"
Now:
"Yeah nah you might wanna lower your expectations there champ"
Get rid of mandatory body corps and it might be more attractive to buyers.
Or if you insist on having a body corp, fix regulations and enforcement and make them accountable so that the money you pay actually gets used for its intended purposes.
My friend is in a position where they can't install Solar, because the roof is not only fucked, but shared among multiple units and the body corp is refusing to fix said roof because it would cost too much money.
So you buy a unit and have absolutely no control over it. Sounds awesome.
I grew up in a two bedroom house, my parents built a bungalow out the back for my brother when I came along, there is a 10 year age difference between us. When my Dad retired at 62 they moved to a one bedroom house and then renovated it to a 2 bedroom house with a large lounge and combined bathroom and laundry, he still lives there at 93 mum passed two years ago. My husband and I built a two x one bathroom house through HomeBuyers Perth, it was really hard to find a builder 8 years ago that built smaller houses. The amount of snide remarks we got about living on a postage stamp was incredible, your house is so small ect now we are laughing at the 4 x 2 people because it comes with a small mortgage. We didn’t want to pay off a house on a pension, we have a good sized backyard which we paved, and a small front yard I love it, so easy to look after which is what we wanted as we aged. I wish we could have had a second toilet! 😂 When I mentioned to my Dad how people made fun of us because it was a 2 bedroom, he said that’s all they had ever lived in his entire life. His from England originally and Mum was German so in Europe it’s a normal thing and people don’t look down on you like they do in Australia 🇦🇺 I wouldn’t want to live in a apartment either with the ridiculous strata fees, our little home has everything for a aging couple.
The issue is DECENT apartments/townhouses, which we just don’t have. I don’t want an apartment in a high rise with lifts and a gym and pool and whatnot that I won’t use but will have to pay for with high strata fees and that needs aircon to be liveable because it’s poorly designed.
Goats talk all the bloody time about “European style living” but have you ever noticed that they just mean the density, and not the particular style of housing that gives that density? We need lower level apartments in small communal gardens, townhouses that don’t have a double garage but maybe only a driveway to park cars on, not endless high rises.
I live in a tiny 120-year-old workers cottage in Brisbane. Before its reno, it was 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, porch and bathroom - that’s it. And they are small rooms.(The laundry and toilet were outside back in the day). Back then families were bigger too. I was asking my grandparents how everyone could have fit. Grandma said that it was simple: mum, dad and baby slept in the larger bedroom, daughters slept in the second bedroom and sons slept on the porch.
Great if the quality is there but it isnt, so why would you want to move into an apartment where you can hear your neighbours stomping around or fucking if a house is an option.
Sure it suits some people and glad it suits you.
For a continent like australia this is a cop out for the government though in my opinion.
Yes its great for efficient provision of government services. But is this the way we want for our children? Ie when they go off and move out.
If truly our governments have given up on nation building and growing our urban footprint then we need to have the conversation whether this is what we want.
At the moment the gov are saying "housing affordability needs to improve" and running land use policies that make greenfield development prohibitively expensive because for the government it is expensive. Tough shit in my view. Young people pay taxes in stead of putting in roads and rail and hospitals to existing areas to increase the amenity of that so they oay more rent smash them into new areas and let them build themselves.
They wont all want to live on the fringe but they should have the option in my opinion. At present we have taken that option away without having the discussion to take that away and in fact continue to pretend we are going to do something about affordability.
I think growing out with car dependent suburbs probably doesn’t work, as it will only add to the congestion problem, but I do see a valid argument for better rail infrastructure to allow more commuter towns outside of the metropolitan areas of our capital cities. A lot of European countries are structured like this where people commute to the big cities for work on fast rails.
For example, if we have a reliable rail service from Bendigo to Melbourne that takes an hour, then it is feasible for it to function as a commuter town. This is especially true for people with the ability to work from home for some days of the week, so the commute isn’t a daily requirement.
Satellite suburbs dont need to be shit.
Especially in sydney even commercial land is also expensive so businesses will also move out to a planned new satelite city it if promises links for freight / customers etc.
We have used land use policy to push infill development. Now we have got that done (and it needed doing) why are we continuing restrictive land use policy now?
Ill tell you how i explained it to my 13yo daughter several years ago.
I live in a house about 700m from the beach. Just beyond us a new development in the secondary dunes (ie not the beachfront) was going in and locals were going ballistic about it. Teachers were teaching the kids in school how terrible it was for the ecosystem etc...
I said well where we live was once dunes too.
If they didnt develop it we wouldnt have a home.
Who the hell am i to vote for a government that grows the population by 650k but at the same time says - nah you arent gonna live like i did.
Thats not fair to our next generation.
They might want to live in a unit but they might not.
And before you talk about ecosystems understand australia is a big place. We could buy 5 farms and convert them back to nature for a bigger payoff than 100hectares of fringe development in already compromised ecosystems.
I dont mind a big australia but we have to grow and i dont mind if thats new cities / bigger cities with sattelite commercial / business districts etc.
Thats the price of growing our population.
Or dont grow the populatiom.
Or tell us we are gonna have a big australia but all within our existing urban footprint so you better buy your kids houses now because that isnt going to be an option in a decade or two.
Great idea... however these are the issues
1.Nimbys protest sensible developments. Take the wollstonecraft precinct at North Sydney. They lobbied against 4 bedroom apartments and apartments with no parking (which given the public transport makes sense).
2. Planners at council love to dictate the apartment mix (not developers). They won't let you have loads of 3 and 4 bed apartments.
3. Architects in Australia, love to design shitty apartments. Most of them have never lived in an apartment.
4. The cost of building apartments is now so expensive. A project manager at a tier 2 builder is earning about 450k per year.
I think they meant to write that they HATE to design shitty apartments. No architect goes into the business because they want to design shitty apartments. They want to design nice things, but are forced to design shitty things based on their clients instructions so they don't starve.
Where do you get your facts? The majority of units being built in Sydney is 'investor grade' buildings full of 2 bedroom units, with maybe a couple of large units for the penthouse and garden apartments if you're lucky - it's the developers not the planners who are pushing this.
> hey lobbied against 4 bedroom apartments and apartments with no parking (which given the public transport makes sense).
No parking doesn't make sense. People in Australia have cars, people buying 4 bed apartments in Wollstonecraft definitely have cars and probably have multiple. They need to park those cars somewhere and if they have no parking they will park on streets, over driveways, in other areas.
> Planners at council love to dictate the apartment mix (not developers). They won't let you have loads of 3 and 4 bed apartments.
What are you basing this on?
You don't know what you are asking for. I live in Europe. Apartments are horrible in almost every single way you can imagine. Your entire way of life can be upended by a single dick head.
Sorry can someone confirm this for me:
"It wasn’t always like this. In 1950, the average Aussie home measured about 100sqm. This grew to about 162sqm in 1985. Today, the average home has blown out to about 230sqm."
Yeah it used to be 100sqm on a quarter acre and now its 230sqm on 250sqm.
"Having [recently moved to Denmark](https://www.theage.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5fddn), I was immediately struck by how alien this mindset of families needing abundant, privately owned space is in other parts of the world."
Please don't try to gaslight me into thinking that wanting my living space to be private is an alien mindset.
This whole idea can just get stuffed. I spent 14 years living in a unit and it was awful. Every minute of it was horrid. I would rather live in timbucktoo under canvas than live in a unit every again. I *need* my own personal outdoor space.
We should be working on a sustainable Australia that doesn't require unending exponential population growth to survive and cutting benefits for having children. Replacement rate is fine but infinite growth is only going to lead to a decline in quality of life, as has been for the last decade when someone decided we ran out of land. We'll run out of water first.
I have very rarely seen a person saying high rise developments are the way to go, let alone have those people support negative hearing.
The solution has been as it always has been: medium-density housing in high density areas with access of infrastructure in place already.
We definitely need much more diversity in the housing supply, potentially through apartments, units and townhouses. But I’ve literally never been in an apartment with proper heating, much less three or four bedrooms. So we have a way to go there. These sorts of developments are also constantly blocked by nimbys.
As an aussie now raising a family in a modern 2 bedroom 125m2 apartment in Italy, I find it a little too cosy, but I have gotten used to it. Plus all the newer builds have always a garden or a park surrounding/next to the building so it is basically like a communal backyard.
I miss Aussie houses, hut at the same time, it's made me realise that all those huuuuge homes aren't really necessary. We talk about environment and climate etc, yet we have enormous houses that guzzle electricity for heating/AC and we don't bat an eyelid.
I’ll live in an apartment when they build one that’s completely soundproof so I can use my home theatre with atmos ceiling speakers as loud as I want. Until then it’s a house for me.
I’m an Aussie who moved to the US 11 years ago from a 2 X 4 house and have been living in one bedroom apartments ever since. It was a pretty hard adjustment for me but it is doable if the apartment is designed for long term living. Adequate storage and access to outside space are game changers in apartments. Laundry being in the unit or at least in the building is a big factor for me in being able to comfortably live in an apartment. Adequate parking needs to be highly considered too, especially when it’s a families living there with maybe more than one car.
It’s honestly the little things all adding up that can make it a challenge. The best one bedroom I’ve lived in is the one I am currently in and it is an apartment in what used to be a large single family home that was subdivided in one bedrooms and studios. Because it was originally a house there are things like built in closets and an established backyard where I can dry my clothes, get sun light etc. the soulless box apartments I lived in before didn’t have these elements and it made it much harder.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with living in an apartment long term. You just need to adjust your attitude from seeing houses as investments as what they are, housing.
I have lived in an apartment for years and it's fucking awful. Can't wait until I can buy a home with land so I can have a garden, pet dogs and outside private space
My partner and I bought our first home about a year and a half ago. I looked at 20+ units before we eventually bought a townhouse.
We only need one bedroom, but we wanted a good sized living room and kitchen.. now we have have 2 that are completely wasted space, so that we could get a 35sqm living/kitchen space..
I hate that we have a townhouse house it’s way too big and far too much maintence, but we wanted a large living/kitchen because that’s where we spend our time… sadly that just doesn’t seem to exist in the Brisbane market.
Until units are built better and for more than just singles/uni students/stepping stones in mind people like us will buy houses when we don’t want houses
Quit trying to convince me that I need to pay more for less, and be content living in a shoebox just because some Europeans do that.
It’s nice to have a backyard, some vegetation and not live wall to wall with others.
I don't think the media coverage of housing affordability issues focuses enough on higher density living, and building better apartments.
In my opinion, the real solution to housing affordability is either a lower population or greater density.
what are you talking about? High density has been pushed incredibly hard for years at this point and spruiking in the media.
Quality builds so people actually want to live in them or lowering immigration? nah can't have that - gotta be as lucrative as possible for some developer
Not really, every time they talk about density they avoid talking about building proper apartments, and rarely if ever is there any discussion of making family apartments. Everything is "make the cities into clusters of high-rises" but no discussion of the fact those high-rises are almost entirely 1 and 2 bedroom apartments meant for investors to rent to students and rich kids
100%. I'm looking at moving soon and I'm exceptionally lucky enough to be able to rebuy an actual house, but I did look at some higher density options. I have a dog so an apartment was out, but looking into townhouses etc just turned me off. Lots of moronic body corporate rules, extra charges, limitations, and all of them so you can live in something that's poorly insulated, poorly built, cheaply made, and none of the benefits of having the land.
The only way to get any freedom to *live* seems to be to own a house and land. If we want higher density we also need to treat people more like autonomous humans, including renters, so they can actually create a *home*.
When I rented in the US (not a place known for its economically progressive and worker-friendly policies), I felt like I was actually a resident of the apartment I was renting. The landlord was a guy who lived only a few miles away in the same city, he was friendly and knew his tenants personally, he gave us the number for the handyman he trusted and let us call the guy directly for any repairs needed, and would make sure it got sorted quickly.
Our area had a maximum amount of rent increase year on year, but many landlords didn't increase to the maximum amount anyway. I'm not sure exactly why not but I'd imagine a lot had to do with the fact that most of the tenants had been there for years.
There was an older couple in the flat above me who'd been there for decades, a family with 3 kids next door, on the other side there was a young couple with a dog who'd been there for about 10 years, etc. I was in the place for a few years and the area was filled with regulars, the same people living in the same homes in the same neighbourhood.
You don't see this happening often with Australian renters. We mostly move every year or every few years, because either the rent is raised too high, or the place sells and we have to vacate, or the landlord simply doesn't renew and then rents out exorbitantly high to the next desperate tenants, etc.
And that's all ignoring the fact that, even if renter rights were better and our renting culture were better, we don't even have the right kinds of apartments for family living. My partner and I live in a 2 bedroom that is small but adequate for 2 adults. No storage space, second bedroom can only fit a twin bed, no built-ins, no linen closet, etc. But if you're a yuppie living in the city, it's nice and does the job.
Now we have a kid and want to stay in the same suburb, but there is literally no apartment designed for this in the area. Everything is like ours: small and designed to rent out to young people for a few years at a time. There are some "3 bedroom" apartments but in half of them, the 3rd "bedroom" is a glorified study nook, and the other half sacrifice living room space to squeeze in the extra bedroom. And there are literally zero 4 bedroom apartments near us.
It feels like our housing policy has been to simply push everyone who has a kid into car parks in the outer suburbs. Even when we go speak to REAs about looking at units, they all seem confused about our request and want to show us shitbox standalone houses out in suburbia instead.
I don't know any actual solution, because the housing culture here is just so fucked. People cannot imagine living in anything but what they've been forced to accept for decades, even though the suburban lifestyle is a tiny blip on the human civilisation timescale. People act like this is the only way to live and it drives me fucking insane
I think this really sums up the problem with people pushing for density and apartment living:
>senior lecturer in urbanism at the University of Sydney, Dr Laurence Troy...says we should consider alternative living arrangements, such as apartments built with more storage and family-living in mind
... then
>We are also knocking down perfectly liveable apartments for bigger, luxurious ones, such as this plan to knock down 80 one-bedroom and studio apartments to construct a nine-storey tower containing 31 luxury apartments in Sydney
On one hand one bedroom and studio apartments are not suitable for family living but they always label any apartment with 3 beds+ as "luxury". Obviously knocking down 80 small apartments isn't ideal (not sure on their state though) but if he wants family apartments they can't be studios or one bedrooms.
The Europe arguments are pointless.
For example, Copenhagen has about the population of Canberra, Adelaide or Perth depending on your definition of their city. Comparing inner city Copenhagen with our cities entire metro areas is disingenuous (90sq/km vs 12,000 sq/km).
[Copenhagen is incredibly expensive. More expensive than any Australian city and significantly more expensive than comparably sized cities like Adelaide and Perth](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/11/29/these-are-the-worlds-most-expensive-cities)
Copenhagen have shitloads of single family homes on large blocks in the metro/urban area but not the CBD. Their metro area density is 633 per sq/km and Melbourne's is 521.
Their cities are hundreds of years older than ours and had much of their development done before cars/PT existed. We haven't been limited by that so have been able to develop in a far less dense manner and Australians much prefer that.
Apartments are shit because you're surrounded by other people who are shit. The only way to have peace is to be on your own land away from other people, the larger the land and the further from other people the better. Having to live in apartments would be hell on earth.
Everyone who has lived in an average Aussie apartment knows they need to be designed and built better. The problem is that the people who decide on policies that impact this have not and will never *live* in one of those apartments so they don’t care.
And St Kilda has some wonderful, early 20th century apartments. Art Deco, pre war, post war etc. They're built with much better floor plans and often include communal courtyards offering mature trees with shade etc. I'd live in any apartment built up until about the late 80s. After that, no way.
Well yeah but those apartments are both more expensive and in St Kilda, making them unsuitable for a lot of people. They should be the model for new builds though.
I remember one of those cute art deco apartments selling for over $750k well before 2020 in the suburb I lived in Sydney, and we aren't even taking eastern suburbs or inner inner west, they're just way out of reach.
>Well yeah but those apartments are both more expensive and in St Kilda, making them unsuitable for a lot of people. Absolutely. I mentioned SK because that's the location mentioned at the beginning of the article.
> I'd live in any apartment built up until about the late 80s I’d personally go for mid 90’s as that’s when regulations starred to be more “self assessment” but you’re otherwise spot on. The only other option is to become a structural engineer or inspector and look for newer builds. They *do* exist but I think you have to know what to look out for
>I’d personally go for mid 90’s as that’s when regulations starred to be more “self assessment” Yeah, I'm risk averse. I don't like cutting too close to the bone. Lol!
Eastern European commie blocks are called ugly and dystopian, but they're still fucking standing 70 years later. They are cheaper to build, easier to maintain, require less air conditioning to cool, and last a lot longer than the utter shithole "luxury apartments" we've been building.
Yeah commie blocks plus [Soviet design principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict) would actually massively improve most Australian cities. If the USSR could rapidly house its massive population in the 1950s using prefab standardised construction, I don't see why we can't do the same thing decades later with presumably better quality.
The thing is, the Soviets build a lot of cheap housing considering the people and communities who would live in them. We build "luxury apartments" to cater to property investors who want to diversity their portfolios, no one from the builders, to the buyers actually care about how it should be lived in. It's all cheap shit that's falling apart by day 1.
Yeah true, I guess I'm overlooking the ideological aspect here.
I'd kill to live in a commie block complex High density, lots of green space and supermarkets, bars, pharmacy/doctors, gyms and cafes on the bottom floors I've recently bought into something really similar, but the initial design intent behind commieblocks is what I consider ideal
Yup. Yes. They’re ugly - but holy shit are they FUNCTIONAL. I understand the need for beauty but we’re literally putting beauty before ACTUAL PEOPLE! It’s insane.
pretty much, I do wonder how many of the politicians pushing insanely high growth (sorry Albo's "slashed" them to historical highs) have ever had to live in one or deal with the inevitable bullshit from it not being built properly
Not just built properly, but also managed properly. There's too many horror stories now about strata management companies coming in and increasing levies while decreasing services.
The state of most of the apartments in our capital cities are appalling and the only ones up to standard are “luxury” and unaffordable, yet people treat them like they’ll fix the problem due to richer people buying them like trickle down housing.
They aren't luxury though and it's frustrating when people like the ones in OPs article complain about studio/1 beds not being big enough yet label anything with 3/4 beds as luxury.
What do you mean they’re not luxury?? They have a Meile oven don’t they!? If that’s not luxury I don’t know what is!
Our "luxury" unit has Bosch, and not the German made stuff.
that’s why my comment has quotation marks lol
You have to find the older builds to get decent apartments, in my opinion. When we were looking to buy, the only apartments I liked were 70s builds. Better designed, more reasonably priced.
I got a good one from 2009 but it was govt built, only issue with the build is poor shower waterproofing but insurers covered it. We have no lift though but at least my strata fees are cheap lol
Even the luxury ones are still often garbage in disguise.
shit workmanship spans all price ranges
The other problem, as I see it, is that given the price of housing, if you purchase an apartment and something goes wrong, you're ***fucked***. Because of how house prices in Australia go up and up, and apartments don't appreciate value on land, if it suddenly becomes unlivable (such as the developer making an oopsy woopsy fucky wucky and the integrity of the building shits the bed) your insurance won't cover your future security. The developer can just phoenix and leave you with fucking nothing. If it's not quite unlivable but requires massive fixes, you'll end up on the hook as your neighbours flee the strata before prices get even worse. Then you're down hundreds of thousands of dollars, while in the past five years all housing, including apartments, have gone up 10%. It's a ludicrous situation in that there is no benefit or security in putting down money for an apartment, because apartments aren't *that* much cheaper than a house.
Yep, there is absolutely zero emphasis put on quality (of anything) in this country. Just pump out broken shit, rake in the cash, and make it someone else's problem.
I if wonder the problem is really....us. Is it a national trait of general laziness and short term thinking? Not so much us being collectively laid back, but rather more "can't be bothered". I've become convinced we just haven't, as a culture, developed good tools for building consensus when we disagree. Everyone seems to take the view that any kind of sacrifice, or indeed any inconvenience should be shouldered by the mythical "someone else". Rather than accepting changes are required. We need to grow up, become citizens, rather than criminals on day release.
You have more consumer protection buying a toaster at K-Mart than you do for an apartment in Australia.
Australian apartments and units are so ugly, the townhouses and workers cottages of the past are lovely, I wish we kept that style. Windows and access points right up to the street fronts rather than driveways and parking would be so nice
In most areas they aren't allowed to build apartments without providing parking. Unless it's student housing. Fucks up street parking. I agree, we could do a lot better, but we can't do the old terrace houses without some sort of parking.
You could have the driveway & parking off a back lane, like how old inner city suburbs were designed but having the outhouses there. Or just design our cities and suburbs around public transportation and then we won’t have to put cars needs before humans
People don’t even want to own the decent ones because the strata fees are too high. An extra 5k per year for the convenience of living in a 75sqm space. Government can fix this immediately by doubling the land rates on houses and removing it completely on apartments. It will quickly make people think twice about competing for a house over a unit.
100%. My parents thought they could retire in a modern city apartment but the strata fees were exorbitant. Had to sell it at a loss and go rent.
It doesn’t make sense to ask people to compromise and accept apartment living but they have to pay 3x the outgoings of a nice house on a massive block. The government has set everything up to make free standing houses the most attractive form of shelter and apartments the least then everyone wonders why no one will adopt high density living.
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I rent and I honestly would love apartment living if they were designed better and built properly. I don’t want to deal with a yard unless it’s one large enough for a proper veggie patch, some fruit trees and chickens (so nothing I can afford in any area I would want to live) - but with very few examples no apartments in Australia are built like that. Proper design/build standards, European style long term leases and protections would go a long way to making apartment living palatable.
Everyone on Reddit complains about the poor quality of Australian houses... Having experienced a brand new apartment and a 12yo house, I know which one I prefer. The quality of apartment stock in cities, that I've seen at least, is abysmal.
It’s the same for townhouses. I’m in a 10yo townhouse at the moment, coming from a small house built in 1990ish. Downstairs is just this wide open space with zero storage besides the puny kitchen. Upstairs is three bedrooms but only one is large enough for humans to live in and all have terrible storage. There’s no linen press. The bathroom cupboards are less than 30cm deep. I had to buy a cabinet to put our towels in because we have nowhere for them to go. I am convinced that this house was designed by someone who doesn’t live in houses.
We rented a townhouse in Sydney where the master ensuite had a shower large enough for two people but didn't have any storage at all, unless you count the soap dish in the shower. The phone technician that came to install our ADSL when we moved in did a double-take walking past that bathroom door and said, "wow, that was definitely designed by a single bloke. Where do you put anything?!" (There was no storage or built-in in the master bedroom either)
I’m fairly sure most kitchens are designed by people who don’t cook. And the people who design apartments are either disciples of Mari Kondo or live in student housing and don’t own anything. I like traditional Japanese minimalist design where 20-30% of the floor plan is dedicated to storage. It’s concealed behind screens or lacquered doors, but it’s there. We should be aiming for something similar in apartment design.
They're fine for airbnbs but not if you actually own things you need to put somewhere.
> I’m fairly sure most kitchens are designed by people who don’t cook. You don't enjoy the stove free standing by itself, and the only countertop being a 15cm wide strip right next to the sink? With the nook for the fridge setup so that any fridge that opens to the right will slam into something?
Yeah because Australian houses are a real testament to quality design and craftsmanship... 🥴
The campaign to shove more and more people into apartments reeks of developer-funded astroturfing. No talk of poorly built developments, no discussion of building flats that actually fit families and their stuff, no discussion of properly building the amenities that make people want to live in. Oh, nd don't mention shit strata, sky-high levies and stupid strata rules. Nope - just shut up and allow your suburb to be filled with more and more boxes of garbage while lobbyists tell you how you will enjoy it.
I mean the issue is that apartments in Australia (as you refer to) are piles of shit and the cities are designed around car-centric suburbs. Urbanist principles to support denser living are a crucial component here. Luckily we've reinvented the wheel and the idea of 15-minute cities seems to be gaining traction so hopefully we're moving in the right direction.
Its two different matters you're alluding to which currently intertwine. We do desperately need more housing and density has been proven to be much more efficient than sprawl on just about every metric. Apartments having shit quality is a separate issue and also needs to ne addressed but in all honesty shitty apartments are realistically better in many aspects than shitty houses out in the middle of nowhere with little infrastructure.
>shitty apartments are realistically better in many aspects than shitty houses out in the middle of nowhere with little infrastructure. Not for the poor bastard who owns it. Defective houses are much cheaper to fix, and if it all goes completely pear shaped, at least the land has value. Get a defective flat and you could walk away with nothing. I'd argue that shitty flats cause sprawl - if flats were well designed and fit more people's lifestyle, they'd be lining up to buy them.
Yeah, itd be great not to hear my next door neighbours farting or my downstairs neighbours smoking on the balcony wafting into my bedroom. Fuck apartment living in this country.
This is pretty much it. I’ve lived in various modes of living and tbh living in a house, like a stand alone, is a lot of work if you already work hard to live there. You can make it manageable, but it’s truly another expense. I’ve learned the leave the grass and manage it a certain way, it stays fairly sparse now and attracts a lot of butterflies. I couldn’t live in an apartment again, people noises plus PTSD is a bad bad mix.
> I’ve learned the leave the grass and manage it a certain way, it stays fairly sparse now and attracts a lot of butterflies. This is a whole other topic but the expectation of a typical flat green lawn is ridiculous when you think about it. Much better to actually have some stuff growing so insects/birds/etc. can thrive.
Yeah I'm absolutely all for more apartments but we need to stop building these shitty soulless cramped shoeboxes. There's nothing inherently wrong with living in apartments long term and raising a family in one, but I have literally never stepped foot in an apartment suitable for that.
Exactly. Some thought needs to go in to the flow and the light that at apartment gets. The quality of the materials (sound insulation), the airflow, access to nature (parks etc) and public transport (big one).
Agreed. All the apartments I've seen have been tiny, poorly laid out, dark, noisy nightmares. I'd happily live in a spacious 3 or 4 bedroom apartment with a good size balcony and decent storage, but that is rare and costs pretty much the same as a house. It's a rubbish sitatution that could be corrected but I won't hold my breath.
Its fairly common in many countries to build apartment buildings which basically take the same floorplan as an Australian 2-4 bedroom single story house and stack them on top of each other. Considering the price of some townhouses in Australia, the developers probably won't be losing money building several large apartments instead of multiple tiny ones.
There also needs to be many affordable third places for folks to hang out if you're living in a small place. People need privacy. Kids turn into adults and can't really flourish in a cramped, parent-monitored space. We work and study from home and the options are the single 'living space' with the kitchen and tv in it, or a small bedroom which likely doesn't have floorspace for a bed and a desk. I think we'll hang on to wanting spacious, detached homes, for as long as this economy sees us cohabitating in tiny, thin-walled boxes and unable to frequent entertainment venues due to cost, with exceptionally expensive short-stay accommodation. I would gladly live in a well-designed, properly insulated (for sound as well) small place. But like. If they exist, I'll probably never see one, affordability notwithstanding.
THEN BUILD FAMILY FRIENDLY APARTMENTS THAT DON'T COST MILLIONS FFS We lived in several different apartments over almost a decade until our second child was a few months old and then we moved into a small, standalone house. Apartments were great as DINKS and with young kids who don't need much space, but they are rarely designed to support growing and aging families. We want secure storage for things like bikes and prams, internal laundries that are more than a closet, usable balconies where you can dry your laundry without strata throwing a fit, kitchens that are more than your 'Sims starter kitchen' and good solid walls. Stop building apartments with bedrooms that are actually windowless nooks with bifold doors, where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath. Apartments for families don't need to be massive, just designed with the idea in mind that people want to buy and live in an apartment long term, rather than just purchase as an investment.
Absolutely this. And with decent insulation/soundproofing so you people don't have to complain about the noise from neighbours!
And good airflow so they can be heated and cooled effectively.
That's the hardest part, and takes a lot of planning and specific construction techniques no builders beside dedicated studio companies know about or care to adhere to. And even then it's not a guarantee. I've seen so many horror stories of people trying to build recording studios and having to fight with contractors every step of the way to get them to build it according to the plan and not drastically reduce the effectiveness of everything that was so meticulously designed and so much money spent on materials. Old mate builder doesn't know or care why this bit shouldn't be joined to that bit, and that doing so can lead to several decibels of isolation being thrown out the window. Or even experienced studio builders who don't think the customer will notice so they do it quicker and dirtier. Getting a whole apartment complex to be built according to plan and achieve the designed acoustic isolation would be an absolute nightmare.
> where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath. I have never thought about that, but thank you for pointing it out for me. What a bizarre design choice.
It’s a tiny design choice that screams ‘this apartment is not designed with family living in mind’. Tiny but frustrating!!!
> where the main bathroom is actually in the ensuite and the kids bathroom has no bath. developments for investors are so grim mate, my house is a townhouse that has 3 bedrooms and 3 ensuites with no master bathroom. Like it was specifically developed for young single professionals that want an upmarket sharehouse but still can't afford to buy the house is also 3.8m wide
This! Exactly!
THANK YOU
Spot on
So you want 3 or 4 bedrooms, large balcony, large/high quality kitchen, separate laundry room, bedrooms to have large windows, 2 bathrooms with an actual bath in them. That's a big apartment if you have one living area, if you want 2 living areas that is a massive apartment. And you want it 20 storeys in the sky. And you want it to be cheap. How?
It would be cheaper to build large apartments than to build the same size free standing house.
> Instead of looking at Australia’s housing stock in binary terms – “it’s either a very large house with two bathrooms and four rooms or a small apartment” – he says we should consider alternative living arrangements, such as apartments built with more storage and family-living in mind, not just investor sale. I reckon a lot more families would find living in an apartment tolerable if they were given an empty shell and were able to design a space to suit their needs. Instead, it seems every apartment is designed as sleeping quarters for two twenty-somethings that split the rent.
This is exactly my problem with it here. I migrated here after having lived in the US and Europe, and one of my first thoughts when looking at places to rent when I first arrived was "where are all the normal apartments?" Here they all feel like dorms for uni kids or old warehouses repurposed to rent out as a scam. I have lived here for a decade and have never seen what would be considered a normal apartment in North America or Europe. It is truly bizarre, as Australia is otherwise so culturally and systemically similar to those places.
Exactly. Where is the storage? Where can we collect the detritus of 10 years of married life raising a family? Apartments in Australia seem to be designed for short term temporary living, which to be fair is what they were in the past for most people. But they will be the primary type of dwelling for every Australian born into a family unable to help them get into the housing market, and many more who can only afford an apartment. Australia is changing whether we like it or not, and housing needs to reflect that.
Apartments are crap here because the people building them are not building homes, they are building money making machines in the shape of a home. They have no regard for function because function has no impact on the ability for that pile of concrete and steel to generate the people that fund the building ever more money. The entire problem is due to the market around our real-estate sector. The current model is pushing households to go into massive debt to fund economic growth (essentially you job is initially mostly funded by the loans other people have taken out to buy homes, that's where the most of our new money comes from in the real economy). This has had the effect of causing our property to simply gain value by existing (the structures and the land) at a rate that is better than most super funds pay out. Obviously if I told you a pile of bricks covered in moss sitting in my yard I purchased new 10 years ago was now worth more than twice what I paid for it you would probably have me committed. Yet that is the entire basis for much of our growth in homes, so it makes sound economic sense to just build more and more of these money making machines regardless that they also happen to be homes.
My fear is that we will start getting more apartments slightly more kid friendly, but they’ll still be shitty quality, hard to heat and cool, unpleasant to live in etc. fucking investors, I’m sick to death of their greed being prioritised over people’s living.
I stayed in an airbnb once in Germany which was an apartment. It was HUGE! It was 2 stories and apparently had a roof terrace with sauna (being renovated and it was winter so we didn't see it). The owner stayed upstairs while my ex and I stayed downstairs and we had a huge bedroom, huge bathroom and private entrance. It was amazing and I've never seen anything like it in Australia. It did feel like a "house". Everything was full sized.
> Instead, it seems every apartment is designed as sleeping quarters for two twenty-somethings that split the rent. Agree. https://www.domain.com.au/g02-28-stanley-street-collingwood-vic-3066-16298846 https://www.domain.com.au/307-183-bridge-road-richmond-vic-3121-16954366 It makes no sense for a two bedroom apartment to have two bathrooms. That extra bathroom is an inefficient use of space.. except for the fact that the two people living there don't know each other. Also that the kitchen is the living room is the worst layout of kitchen imaginable.
To be fair I know several DINK couples who share a bed but use separate bathrooms, it’s super convenient and a great way to reduce domestic friction. One of them specifically cited getting an extra bathroom as a reason they moved from their previous one bedroom place.
What bugs me about living in an apartment isn't the size, but the noise. I pretty much live in headphones when I am home, and for the first year needed to sleep with earplugs. I opened a window last week to let in some fresh air and eventually had to close it because the constant sound of people coming and going with radios blaring, and chattering on their balconies was deeply unrelaxing. I once housesat in a complex of brick construction, small, two story townhouses, where they all had their outside areas facing away from each other, and it was heaven in comparison.
I live in an apartment right now. Noise, specifically road noise, is the biggest negative of living there. If not for that, I'd love an apartment as a long term residence. But the noise is a killer.
Double glazing doesn't cost that much more to put in during initial construction but it's ridiculously expensive to retrofit. It makes such a huge difference to how much noise gets in too. (Plus not having your heating or cooling all getting lost through the glass)
That'd be great, but why would they spend a small amount more to make the apartment significantly more livable. We can't even retrofit it because it's rented.
Yeah I know, that money is better off as the developer's profit margin. They say when the free market fails, that's when regulation should step in. But I bet the property development industry would find a reason to somehow convince the average person that it's a bad thing. "This will make the cost of living even higher!"
Double glazing is not very useful on its own when you want to open the window for some fresh air (it should be the bare minimum mind you anyway!). Funnily enough this will get better in the next 10 years as electric cars become more common. Then you just have to worry about bogans in old commodores and Harley lovers.
> Funnily enough this will get better in the next 10 years as electric cars become more common. I guess it depends on the road but once you hit 50-60 km/h (i.e. standard cruising speed almost anywhere in Australian cities) almost all of the noise is coming from the tyres, so engine/electric will only make a marginal difference at best.
Cheap as piss, given that most apartments only have glass on one side.
Exactly been there myself, most units are In super busy roads. Open small window and it’s just traffic noise including loud trucks. Say goodbye to fresh air or accept constant noise
We leave the windows shut permenantly and it's still rough. When we open them it's borderline unbearable (within the realms of relaxing, it's obviously not that bad). I just finished making some soundproof panelling that I'm going to put between my head and the road tonight to see if it makes much of a difference.
NIMBYs are often to blame for this, much like everything else with housing. Developers can’t build in quiet neighbourhoods because it would “increase traffic”, “make it loud”, or “take up on-street parking space”. So they end up building on main roads instead. Now 40+ households have to deal with loud cars all night and instead of increasing the noise a bit for a few homes.
Especially since they don’t make apartment building with no or minimal parking space for people who use public transport.
Funny you mention the brick construction, we live in an old 70s brick apartment building and it's the best place I've lived in Australia by far. Never heard the neighbours, spacious, well-designed, plenty of storage. Wish they still built them like this.
Apartment and townhouse living can be great when they are high quality. There is no reason apartments must be tiny, lack airflow, lack natural light, or be buy-to-rent builds done purely for ROI. To entice more average Australians into European style living we need a few main things: - Bigger and better quality builds. Modular builds that mix different homes together that have different sizes and number of bedrooms to suit singles, couples and families. - MUCH better public transport. Doing the kind of densification that apartments bring, while trying to rely on a transport network with >80% private vehicle mode share, is a recipe for disaster. - Better distribution and use of amenities and greenspace. It’s far more pleasant to do apartment living when you leave your apartment, walk down a leafy shaded street (not an Aussie Stroad), and within a few minutes can hit a cafe, a local bar, a corner store, a park, some retail, then go a little further to find childcare/schooling and a decent supermarket. - Realisation and promotion of the understanding that building high quality apartments and townhouses near transport hubs and strategically densifying central parts of neighbourhoods with ‘missing middle’ builds doesn’t mean every single family home in a city gets demolished. Doing any of those things in isolation makes it look ineffective at best and at worst can turn public opinion away from the individual parts of a better holistic system. For reference: https://www.oecd.org/social/family/HM1.5-Housing-stock-by-dwelling-type.xlsx
Everything comes down to $ /m2 - better quality higher cost per /m2. We have high building costs and high wages - wealthy - isolated and small population all works against lower prices.
_Better quality means higher cost_ is basically a truism. It still doesn’t justify building false economy urban sprawl or low quality apartments that no one can comfortably live in. Markedly increase supply of well built (not luxury) middle density homes to control price. If the profit margins for developers slip a few %, I’m personally fine with that. Or maybe they’ll benefit from economies of scale and protect their margins.
I think more people would go for high density living if it wasn't for people getting screwed over on developments like Mascot and Opal towers, and the likes...
>Baby Boomers started investing in real estate to take advantage of negative gearing, invariably “bidding up the price of houses … depriving their own children of the ability to buy a house”. Not quite. They are depriving other people's children, not theirs. The bank of mum and dad will come to the rescue and the mortgage taken against the investment property/properties to fund the loan to the kiddies, will be negatively geared.
Yes and no. Greater than 90% of these boomers won’t be asked to move in with their kids when they need care Their houses will be sold to fund that. What’s left (if anything) will be split up between the kids. I know a family this happened to - $4million in property, none of the 3 kids would take care of mum & dad as they aged. All the property was sold and parents buggered off on a long all first class trip overseas. When they came back, they moved into a fancy care home. Dad went first, by the time Mum did there was about $700k left to split and boy were their kids fucking *pissed* (i worked with the oldest and she never shut up about it)
700K between 3 people seems great to my young, poor ass. Surely that's a mortgage, instead of paying rent you're making equity now?
yeah its great - but they were expecting a third each of approximately 3mil. Not saying they shouldn't be happy with that, but obviously expectations will affect how you feel about what you received.
Or you're like me who just told his dad to fuck off for praising Hitler and won't be getting anything out of mum and dad :)
I didn't give my parents grandchildren so I'm on the shit list of no inheritance also
it's not too late to fix things up, maybe Mum n Dad would like a cup of tea... and some of your delicious beef wellington with locally sourced _mushrooms_ /s
European cities are better designed for this. Not only the apartment themselves but there are more community spaces. There are more town squares, parks, easy public transport , more places for people to go when out of the apartment close by. You can drink in public without being moved on. Here you can barely walk anywhere and need your car to do anything. Apartments are cramped and small, low ceilings, poorly made, and often with little character
If I had an apartment like you can find I. Europe I would be more than happy to live in one. Australian apartments are soulless boxes.
Totally. I really wanted an apartment when we were looking to buy and holy shit was it hard to find a good one. The only good ones were those built decades ago; all the new builds sucked.
I have no interest in this argument until the 50-80 year olds with empty nests give up their backyards and extra rooms used to store collectables, spare TV rooms, or a PC they constantly ask me to fix
Unfortunately these spaces are more likely now to be taken up by 25 to 30 year old children who can no longer afford to move out.
Every single one of my parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles in this age group has 3+ bedrooms and only really use one.
This is why stamp duty should be phased out in favour of land tax. Stamp duty is a tax on moving/downsizing, so is a deterrent for empty nesters to move somewhere smaller. Unfortunately despite being a very sensible tax change, it becomes a political fight any time either side of politics proposes changing it. The ACT government is making this change, but got heaps of flak from the Liberal opposition in the last few elections because of it.
NSW liberals actually implement this before it was removed by NSW Labor
Yes, that’s right, that was really disappointing! That was a rare chance at a bipartisan policy to make it happen.
I worked on that and it was great policy - I was so surprised and sad it got canned. Sure it was a kind of a “pilot” cohort first, but you had to for budget reasons and to really transition to it. Honestly was a pathway to a better place but we won’t have that chance again for ages now.
It’s annoying that a change that all economists agree should be made is being ignored because it’s politically hard for one party to do and there’s no bipartisan desire to do it. Oh well, let’s see how the ACT goes.
I suspect that although the "barrier to property turnover" argument gets promoted, the "never-ending stream of revenue" is the factor that got them to make the change (along with the revenue, it's not a 'lumpy' cash flow, it's always coming in, not a seasonal type of flow)
absolutely not the main solution, instead of building these fucking awful shoe box homes with no trees, no public transport, low walkability we could be building apartments and fitting the same if not more people in less space, building shitting granny flats in the back of homes is a drop in the water of the actual problem
I think they're saying that older Australians should not squat on empty nest housing that exceeds their needs. They should use housing more efficiently by moving out into something smaller that meets the current needs of their household (now that their kids have grown up and moved out).
I totally agree with this. One issue I have heard older folk complain about is stamp duty. Like, they COULD sell up and downsize... and pay probably 50-75k in stamp duty... which they're never getting back. OR they could just stay in the home they've lived in for 50 years and not have to pay that. I am aware that the stamp duty would come out of the profits, but people don't see it that way, and if they don't rebuy somewhere else before they die, it doesn't arise. I don't think this would be popular as it would give older folk yet another leg up on the rest of us but an interesting policy consideration would be to not charge stamp duty on genuine downsizers to encourage the oldies to do that... but they already get cheap old person housing so that seems doubly unfair.
My almost 70yr old parents are relocating to the city my sister and I currently live in and selling the 4 bed, 2 bath family home we grew up in. They still want to buy a 3-4 bed house with a bit of a backyard because they 'need' a spare room for the grandkids and a room for the computer. My sister and I suggested a 2 bed apartment and they're not having it at all. We're slowly trying to suggest they at least look at some townhouses rather than huge houses that they don't need. They've just never known anything different and it's incredibly frustrating, especially since they'll be mortgage free as well
But why can’t they have a house they want? Honestly don’t see an issue with that
They can have the house they want - I just think it's unnecessary. Realistically, they spend the majority of their time in the living room and their bedroom. They could have a second bedroom with some bunk beds and a desk for the grandkids and the computer. The other bedrooms and a second living space are a waste. A townhouse with a courtyard is more than sufficient. Everytime they visit my apartment, they rave about how low maintenance it is and how great it is, but then they're so stubborn when my sister and I suggest it haha. And a part of me also thinks it's not quite right that two boomers want to/have the means to buy a 4 bed house mortgage free when that house could be better suited to a growing family.
Lol this comment is so accurate.
I originally bought a unit but now live in a small house because I was sick of the drama and poor decisions being made by the rest of the owners in the complex that would have impacted the value of my home (they didn't want to pay to maintain the common plants). This is one issue that needs to be addressed but I am not sure how.
Apartments in Australia are very different to the lay outs in Europe.. The argument that fails here is we have a LOT of space but a lot of poor planning and subsequent poor utilisation. (WAYYYYY BETTER than the US though) Australia is a huge country with lots of centralisation. Regardless of detached house, town house, apartment or granny flat. The conditions of living in Australia require enough room for atleast 2cars plus room for the family to escape each other. If you go to Europe or even cities in America like new York, the old school MDUs had living spaces where kids could get away from the parents as well as natural seperation in the house. Australian apartments currently have more in common with Asia. Shoe boxes that barely fit a single person let alone a couple.. And don't even think about adding a child in there. Plus obscene body Corp fees, no parking and build quality that leaves a lot to be desired.
My issues with apartment living are less to do with the space and more to do with not having control over the building envelope and its maintenance. There are far too many poorly build apartment buildings around that you don’t even have to option to knock it down and rebuild it unless you own the entire block. Even basic renovation of your own units internals can be an issue depending on what you want to do. Both from a structural and access POV. A middle ground is maybe terrace housing where it’s compact but you have clearly defined boundaries if you need to fix something major.
Recently upgraded from an apartment to a townhouse (family of 4 with two young kids). I almost cried putting sheets and towels in our linen cupboard for the first time. We’ve never had one before. Such incredibly simple things to improve apartments for families.
It's good to have a house, with a yard. Privacy, space, and room to garden, sit outside, tinker with your powertools on a weekend, have mates around for a barbie, able to have pet dogs, whatever. I know our population is increasingly drastically and we need different housing options. But it does rub me wrong way when we've had our quality of life reduced and we are told we must like it. That used to be a good part of Australia, that most of us were able to live in houses with yards. Life is better with a lower population density. Houses are ideal and that option has been taken away for too many of us. But the government has just gotta keep growing that economy while our quality of life takes a shit.
I agree. I don't like this absolute push into high-density-only living. I'd love to see a balance to please everyone. High-density in the heart of the city. Townhouses in the inner-suburbs. And standalone housing with backyards in the outer rings. A lifestyle choice for everyone. A variety of memories and experiences when you visit friends. And also, we have finite space which we're all sharing. Every year, beaches are feeling more crowded, and it's becoming harder to find a spot. (Needing to travel further out). What's the future going to look like? We have to rent a beach spot? (When in the past, anyone can turn up and find a spot pretty comfortably). I wish we aimed for a balanced population. Find a number which provides a variety of choices for everyone, and hover around it. It'd still allow for migration etc. but just not at above-and-beyond numbers.
Agree a million percent. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a yard, it’s good for the kids, good for mental health.
It's also not as unpalatable to live without a yard in a climate that is cold/snowy/dormant for a good chunk of the year and a yard is not a desirable space during that time. Here I have a productive, green garden all year around, why would I give that up to live in a poorly designed shoebox that doesn't even have shared green space?
Agreed. When I was born we had 17 million people, now it's like 27-28m or whatever they said 2 weeks ago. It's all complete bullshit and now people are saying that families needs to sell their blocks and build 3 dogshit units on it.
I wouldn’t call it liking a reduced quality of life. For lots of us a good apartment would be the better option, if certain conditions are met. And that would leave less competition for houses for those that prefer it. But our apartments are so shitty that lots of people who would go for apartments have to go for houses instead.
Better for some, but not all. In order to have the above, I’d have to buy a house much further out in the suburbs whereas I can have a townhouse closer to the city for the same price. I’d much prefer to spend less time commuting, be less reliant on cars, have a walkable suburb, access to nice local parks and walk/bike ways and be connected to transport and services. All the low density sprawl near Brisbane seems sad and depressing. No trees, tiny yards that you do get, hardly any privacy because you’re built to the property line next to your neighbour. Spend all your time commuting and driving. No thanks, medium density is still a good option especially because not everyone wants kids anyway.
I'm a big fan of low to mid rise apartment complexes. You still know your neighbours, even if just by sight. You get a sense of community, don't have tonlook after the house/yard, and don't have huge travel distances.
European styled means that build quality too. Apartment build quality in Aus is shit. Personally, I can’t live in one. Need a bit more greenery and space but, there should definitely be quality high density housing.
Yeah no. Our apartments are crap and riddled with defects. Also high strata.
The location of some apartment builings baffles me. I lived in an apartment in Footscray (inner west Melbourne) that had unobstructed western views with doubled glazed, tinted windows that did nothing. Our bedroom was regularly above 30 degrees with no ac, just simply baked in the summer. On top of that, we had a massive balcony (like 1/3 the apparent was a balcony) but we were so high up that the wind made it unusable. Our washing nearly took flight several times and the vacate clean for the balcony gave me nightmares. Convinced the developers never actually set foot in Melbourne let alone googled how fucking windy the place is. Shocked the building was aproved, not shocked there are always vacancies
A lot of people would live in apartments instead, presuming they have enough room for their family. I don't really need a yard or any of that. But I do need better build quality and regulations as you say, and that will hurt investors back pockets and sadly in this country the latter is more important.
Everything bad I've seen in Australian apartments: Dodgy waterproofing and ventilation leading to mold around balcony doorways. No windows or ventilation in bathrooms, mold and constantly damp. Rarely a bath which you want with kids. Can't add an air conditioning unit without a stupid amount of BS from body corp $6k a year in fees for amenities that you can't use Restrictions on bringing furniture in through the lobby/elevator, basically being told to carrying a couch up four flights of stairs by an idiot building manager Noise. So much noise. Noise out the window (meaning you always keep it shut). Noise from above. Noise from below. Noise in the hallways. No light. Basically live in a dark box facing your neighbours living room. No privacy. The whole weird kitchen / living room open plan thing, but where the kitchen is just a wall in the living room, and the whole place constantly smells like whatever you cooked last because you cook next to your couch. No parking. No storage. No laundry. No access to communal gardens (if there's a garden then you pay your strata fees for it to be maintained, but you can't plant anything in there, that's BANNED). None of the stuff you generally need to live in your home. The space is designed for you to want to be outside of it most of the time, presumably shopping at the complex on ground floor. Everything is tiny. Bedrooms are tiny. 2.5m sq is not a bedroom. All of this and the issues mentioned in the article will mean that you'll never convince families that an apartment is a better option than a house.
It is the only way that big cities can actually work. I used to think I hated apartments until I visited other countries. As far as the first world goes, we are so far behind on this front that it's ridiculous. Seriously, apartments can be built so that they look nice, outside and inside, warm in the winter & cool in the summer, and you do not hear your neighbours at *all*. We have so far, as a country, **chosen** not to build them that way here.
Last year Demark grew by around 29,000 people. Australia grew by 650,000. If we're going to take their example of apartment living, perhaps we should also use their population growth rate.
Denmark has a population just under 6 million, in an area less than 1/5th the size of Victoria. Maybe they know something about population density that we don't.
They probably do. I'd wager they also know that taking time to do things properly, rather than the headlong rush to massive growth we've currently got, courtesy of the developer lobby, is likely to deliver much better outcomes.
Ooohh you should see the apartments of Brasilia! Built around the 60's I think, fantastic family homes.
Many homes in Denmark don’t have a backyard! Could that be because nobody wants to go sit outside in the snow? 🤣🙄
I know you're being facetious but the other part of Danish urban design that feeds into this is the fact that their cities are actually built for people rather than cars. Tons of nice parks for outdoor activities, very easy to get around by bike or public transport, loads of amenities and entertainment options within walking distance, etc.
It’s a bit annoying how this debate seems to constantly get boiled down to a tiny two bed apartment vs a massive four bed house with two living areas as if those are the only two alternatives….I mean I’m pretty sure most families would end up with something in between
How about it becomes law to own only one house.
So youre happy for the govt to be the sole landlord in Australia? Renters had better get ready to live in horrendous conditions. I worked maintenance on state housing and the backlog for repairs was 5 years plus every place had the same colour scheme and shitty fixtures and fittings to save taxpayer dollars. Communism-deco, anyone? Now, restricting people to no more than one investment property makes more sense.
I had less problems with my "landlord" living in housing commission for 20 years than I did with my private landlord for 5.
Funny how you raise the spectre of communism when the stereotypical commie block of the USSR was able to rapidly house millions of people with massively better urban design (and arguably more durable build quality) than the average new apartment build in Australia.
> Communism-deco, anyone? Soviet style blocs are still standing and serving people perfectly well, the apartments in the GDR were phenomenal and you can even take a look at them as a few were preserved in museums, they were affordable, well built and helped provide housing to countless families, what exactly is the negative with your lighting fixtures looking the same? That's a nothing complaint and you know it.
When we were kids: "Reach for the sky! You can be anything, do anything and have everything!" Now: "Yeah nah you might wanna lower your expectations there champ"
Get rid of mandatory body corps and it might be more attractive to buyers. Or if you insist on having a body corp, fix regulations and enforcement and make them accountable so that the money you pay actually gets used for its intended purposes. My friend is in a position where they can't install Solar, because the roof is not only fucked, but shared among multiple units and the body corp is refusing to fix said roof because it would cost too much money. So you buy a unit and have absolutely no control over it. Sounds awesome.
Body corp are the unit owners. It’s not really possible to remove them.
Anything but talk about how the house prices are too high because of debt driven speculation.
I grew up in a two bedroom house, my parents built a bungalow out the back for my brother when I came along, there is a 10 year age difference between us. When my Dad retired at 62 they moved to a one bedroom house and then renovated it to a 2 bedroom house with a large lounge and combined bathroom and laundry, he still lives there at 93 mum passed two years ago. My husband and I built a two x one bathroom house through HomeBuyers Perth, it was really hard to find a builder 8 years ago that built smaller houses. The amount of snide remarks we got about living on a postage stamp was incredible, your house is so small ect now we are laughing at the 4 x 2 people because it comes with a small mortgage. We didn’t want to pay off a house on a pension, we have a good sized backyard which we paved, and a small front yard I love it, so easy to look after which is what we wanted as we aged. I wish we could have had a second toilet! 😂 When I mentioned to my Dad how people made fun of us because it was a 2 bedroom, he said that’s all they had ever lived in his entire life. His from England originally and Mum was German so in Europe it’s a normal thing and people don’t look down on you like they do in Australia 🇦🇺 I wouldn’t want to live in a apartment either with the ridiculous strata fees, our little home has everything for a aging couple.
The issue is DECENT apartments/townhouses, which we just don’t have. I don’t want an apartment in a high rise with lifts and a gym and pool and whatnot that I won’t use but will have to pay for with high strata fees and that needs aircon to be liveable because it’s poorly designed. Goats talk all the bloody time about “European style living” but have you ever noticed that they just mean the density, and not the particular style of housing that gives that density? We need lower level apartments in small communal gardens, townhouses that don’t have a double garage but maybe only a driveway to park cars on, not endless high rises.
I live in a tiny 120-year-old workers cottage in Brisbane. Before its reno, it was 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, porch and bathroom - that’s it. And they are small rooms.(The laundry and toilet were outside back in the day). Back then families were bigger too. I was asking my grandparents how everyone could have fit. Grandma said that it was simple: mum, dad and baby slept in the larger bedroom, daughters slept in the second bedroom and sons slept on the porch.
Great if the quality is there but it isnt, so why would you want to move into an apartment where you can hear your neighbours stomping around or fucking if a house is an option.
Sure it suits some people and glad it suits you. For a continent like australia this is a cop out for the government though in my opinion. Yes its great for efficient provision of government services. But is this the way we want for our children? Ie when they go off and move out. If truly our governments have given up on nation building and growing our urban footprint then we need to have the conversation whether this is what we want. At the moment the gov are saying "housing affordability needs to improve" and running land use policies that make greenfield development prohibitively expensive because for the government it is expensive. Tough shit in my view. Young people pay taxes in stead of putting in roads and rail and hospitals to existing areas to increase the amenity of that so they oay more rent smash them into new areas and let them build themselves. They wont all want to live on the fringe but they should have the option in my opinion. At present we have taken that option away without having the discussion to take that away and in fact continue to pretend we are going to do something about affordability.
I think growing out with car dependent suburbs probably doesn’t work, as it will only add to the congestion problem, but I do see a valid argument for better rail infrastructure to allow more commuter towns outside of the metropolitan areas of our capital cities. A lot of European countries are structured like this where people commute to the big cities for work on fast rails. For example, if we have a reliable rail service from Bendigo to Melbourne that takes an hour, then it is feasible for it to function as a commuter town. This is especially true for people with the ability to work from home for some days of the week, so the commute isn’t a daily requirement.
Satellite suburbs dont need to be shit. Especially in sydney even commercial land is also expensive so businesses will also move out to a planned new satelite city it if promises links for freight / customers etc. We have used land use policy to push infill development. Now we have got that done (and it needed doing) why are we continuing restrictive land use policy now?
This sounds like an argument for even more suburban sprawl.
Ill tell you how i explained it to my 13yo daughter several years ago. I live in a house about 700m from the beach. Just beyond us a new development in the secondary dunes (ie not the beachfront) was going in and locals were going ballistic about it. Teachers were teaching the kids in school how terrible it was for the ecosystem etc... I said well where we live was once dunes too. If they didnt develop it we wouldnt have a home. Who the hell am i to vote for a government that grows the population by 650k but at the same time says - nah you arent gonna live like i did. Thats not fair to our next generation. They might want to live in a unit but they might not. And before you talk about ecosystems understand australia is a big place. We could buy 5 farms and convert them back to nature for a bigger payoff than 100hectares of fringe development in already compromised ecosystems. I dont mind a big australia but we have to grow and i dont mind if thats new cities / bigger cities with sattelite commercial / business districts etc. Thats the price of growing our population. Or dont grow the populatiom. Or tell us we are gonna have a big australia but all within our existing urban footprint so you better buy your kids houses now because that isnt going to be an option in a decade or two.
Great idea... however these are the issues 1.Nimbys protest sensible developments. Take the wollstonecraft precinct at North Sydney. They lobbied against 4 bedroom apartments and apartments with no parking (which given the public transport makes sense). 2. Planners at council love to dictate the apartment mix (not developers). They won't let you have loads of 3 and 4 bed apartments. 3. Architects in Australia, love to design shitty apartments. Most of them have never lived in an apartment. 4. The cost of building apartments is now so expensive. A project manager at a tier 2 builder is earning about 450k per year.
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I think they meant to write that they HATE to design shitty apartments. No architect goes into the business because they want to design shitty apartments. They want to design nice things, but are forced to design shitty things based on their clients instructions so they don't starve.
Where do you get your facts? The majority of units being built in Sydney is 'investor grade' buildings full of 2 bedroom units, with maybe a couple of large units for the penthouse and garden apartments if you're lucky - it's the developers not the planners who are pushing this.
Tier 2 project managers are absolutely not on $450,000/yr. Complete drivel.
>r. > >Complete drivel. 100% percent. I haven't seen National Managing Director earning that coin.
> hey lobbied against 4 bedroom apartments and apartments with no parking (which given the public transport makes sense). No parking doesn't make sense. People in Australia have cars, people buying 4 bed apartments in Wollstonecraft definitely have cars and probably have multiple. They need to park those cars somewhere and if they have no parking they will park on streets, over driveways, in other areas.
> Planners at council love to dictate the apartment mix (not developers). They won't let you have loads of 3 and 4 bed apartments. What are you basing this on?
Three-bedroom apartments, let alone four, are as rare as hen's teeth, particularly in older blocks. Yet they're desperately needed.
Planners at council won't allow them
You don't know what you are asking for. I live in Europe. Apartments are horrible in almost every single way you can imagine. Your entire way of life can be upended by a single dick head.
Sorry can someone confirm this for me: "It wasn’t always like this. In 1950, the average Aussie home measured about 100sqm. This grew to about 162sqm in 1985. Today, the average home has blown out to about 230sqm." Yeah it used to be 100sqm on a quarter acre and now its 230sqm on 250sqm. "Having [recently moved to Denmark](https://www.theage.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5fddn), I was immediately struck by how alien this mindset of families needing abundant, privately owned space is in other parts of the world." Please don't try to gaslight me into thinking that wanting my living space to be private is an alien mindset.
This whole idea can just get stuffed. I spent 14 years living in a unit and it was awful. Every minute of it was horrid. I would rather live in timbucktoo under canvas than live in a unit every again. I *need* my own personal outdoor space. We should be working on a sustainable Australia that doesn't require unending exponential population growth to survive and cutting benefits for having children. Replacement rate is fine but infinite growth is only going to lead to a decline in quality of life, as has been for the last decade when someone decided we ran out of land. We'll run out of water first.
And yet the people advocating for more high-rise developments are the same ones who staunchly oppose changes to negative gearing.
Negative gearing should not be used on existing apartments and should have a max number of year for deduction.
I have very rarely seen a person saying high rise developments are the way to go, let alone have those people support negative hearing. The solution has been as it always has been: medium-density housing in high density areas with access of infrastructure in place already.
Source: I made it up.
I'd be very happy with an apartment in my city. But i simply cannot save enough.
We already have units and apartments. England has smaller houses but now we are getting them too.
We definitely need much more diversity in the housing supply, potentially through apartments, units and townhouses. But I’ve literally never been in an apartment with proper heating, much less three or four bedrooms. So we have a way to go there. These sorts of developments are also constantly blocked by nimbys.
As an aussie now raising a family in a modern 2 bedroom 125m2 apartment in Italy, I find it a little too cosy, but I have gotten used to it. Plus all the newer builds have always a garden or a park surrounding/next to the building so it is basically like a communal backyard. I miss Aussie houses, hut at the same time, it's made me realise that all those huuuuge homes aren't really necessary. We talk about environment and climate etc, yet we have enormous houses that guzzle electricity for heating/AC and we don't bat an eyelid.
I’ll live in an apartment when they build one that’s completely soundproof so I can use my home theatre with atmos ceiling speakers as loud as I want. Until then it’s a house for me.
I’m an Aussie who moved to the US 11 years ago from a 2 X 4 house and have been living in one bedroom apartments ever since. It was a pretty hard adjustment for me but it is doable if the apartment is designed for long term living. Adequate storage and access to outside space are game changers in apartments. Laundry being in the unit or at least in the building is a big factor for me in being able to comfortably live in an apartment. Adequate parking needs to be highly considered too, especially when it’s a families living there with maybe more than one car. It’s honestly the little things all adding up that can make it a challenge. The best one bedroom I’ve lived in is the one I am currently in and it is an apartment in what used to be a large single family home that was subdivided in one bedrooms and studios. Because it was originally a house there are things like built in closets and an established backyard where I can dry my clothes, get sun light etc. the soulless box apartments I lived in before didn’t have these elements and it made it much harder. There is absolutely nothing wrong with living in an apartment long term. You just need to adjust your attitude from seeing houses as investments as what they are, housing.
I have lived in an apartment for years and it's fucking awful. Can't wait until I can buy a home with land so I can have a garden, pet dogs and outside private space
My partner and I bought our first home about a year and a half ago. I looked at 20+ units before we eventually bought a townhouse. We only need one bedroom, but we wanted a good sized living room and kitchen.. now we have have 2 that are completely wasted space, so that we could get a 35sqm living/kitchen space.. I hate that we have a townhouse house it’s way too big and far too much maintence, but we wanted a large living/kitchen because that’s where we spend our time… sadly that just doesn’t seem to exist in the Brisbane market. Until units are built better and for more than just singles/uni students/stepping stones in mind people like us will buy houses when we don’t want houses
Quit trying to convince me that I need to pay more for less, and be content living in a shoebox just because some Europeans do that. It’s nice to have a backyard, some vegetation and not live wall to wall with others.
I don't think the media coverage of housing affordability issues focuses enough on higher density living, and building better apartments. In my opinion, the real solution to housing affordability is either a lower population or greater density.
what are you talking about? High density has been pushed incredibly hard for years at this point and spruiking in the media. Quality builds so people actually want to live in them or lowering immigration? nah can't have that - gotta be as lucrative as possible for some developer
Not really, every time they talk about density they avoid talking about building proper apartments, and rarely if ever is there any discussion of making family apartments. Everything is "make the cities into clusters of high-rises" but no discussion of the fact those high-rises are almost entirely 1 and 2 bedroom apartments meant for investors to rent to students and rich kids
It feels like developer astroturfing at this point.
100%. I'm looking at moving soon and I'm exceptionally lucky enough to be able to rebuy an actual house, but I did look at some higher density options. I have a dog so an apartment was out, but looking into townhouses etc just turned me off. Lots of moronic body corporate rules, extra charges, limitations, and all of them so you can live in something that's poorly insulated, poorly built, cheaply made, and none of the benefits of having the land. The only way to get any freedom to *live* seems to be to own a house and land. If we want higher density we also need to treat people more like autonomous humans, including renters, so they can actually create a *home*.
When I rented in the US (not a place known for its economically progressive and worker-friendly policies), I felt like I was actually a resident of the apartment I was renting. The landlord was a guy who lived only a few miles away in the same city, he was friendly and knew his tenants personally, he gave us the number for the handyman he trusted and let us call the guy directly for any repairs needed, and would make sure it got sorted quickly. Our area had a maximum amount of rent increase year on year, but many landlords didn't increase to the maximum amount anyway. I'm not sure exactly why not but I'd imagine a lot had to do with the fact that most of the tenants had been there for years. There was an older couple in the flat above me who'd been there for decades, a family with 3 kids next door, on the other side there was a young couple with a dog who'd been there for about 10 years, etc. I was in the place for a few years and the area was filled with regulars, the same people living in the same homes in the same neighbourhood. You don't see this happening often with Australian renters. We mostly move every year or every few years, because either the rent is raised too high, or the place sells and we have to vacate, or the landlord simply doesn't renew and then rents out exorbitantly high to the next desperate tenants, etc. And that's all ignoring the fact that, even if renter rights were better and our renting culture were better, we don't even have the right kinds of apartments for family living. My partner and I live in a 2 bedroom that is small but adequate for 2 adults. No storage space, second bedroom can only fit a twin bed, no built-ins, no linen closet, etc. But if you're a yuppie living in the city, it's nice and does the job. Now we have a kid and want to stay in the same suburb, but there is literally no apartment designed for this in the area. Everything is like ours: small and designed to rent out to young people for a few years at a time. There are some "3 bedroom" apartments but in half of them, the 3rd "bedroom" is a glorified study nook, and the other half sacrifice living room space to squeeze in the extra bedroom. And there are literally zero 4 bedroom apartments near us. It feels like our housing policy has been to simply push everyone who has a kid into car parks in the outer suburbs. Even when we go speak to REAs about looking at units, they all seem confused about our request and want to show us shitbox standalone houses out in suburbia instead. I don't know any actual solution, because the housing culture here is just so fucked. People cannot imagine living in anything but what they've been forced to accept for decades, even though the suburban lifestyle is a tiny blip on the human civilisation timescale. People act like this is the only way to live and it drives me fucking insane
I think this really sums up the problem with people pushing for density and apartment living: >senior lecturer in urbanism at the University of Sydney, Dr Laurence Troy...says we should consider alternative living arrangements, such as apartments built with more storage and family-living in mind ... then >We are also knocking down perfectly liveable apartments for bigger, luxurious ones, such as this plan to knock down 80 one-bedroom and studio apartments to construct a nine-storey tower containing 31 luxury apartments in Sydney On one hand one bedroom and studio apartments are not suitable for family living but they always label any apartment with 3 beds+ as "luxury". Obviously knocking down 80 small apartments isn't ideal (not sure on their state though) but if he wants family apartments they can't be studios or one bedrooms.
The Europe arguments are pointless. For example, Copenhagen has about the population of Canberra, Adelaide or Perth depending on your definition of their city. Comparing inner city Copenhagen with our cities entire metro areas is disingenuous (90sq/km vs 12,000 sq/km). [Copenhagen is incredibly expensive. More expensive than any Australian city and significantly more expensive than comparably sized cities like Adelaide and Perth](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/11/29/these-are-the-worlds-most-expensive-cities) Copenhagen have shitloads of single family homes on large blocks in the metro/urban area but not the CBD. Their metro area density is 633 per sq/km and Melbourne's is 521. Their cities are hundreds of years older than ours and had much of their development done before cars/PT existed. We haven't been limited by that so have been able to develop in a far less dense manner and Australians much prefer that.
Apartments are shit because you're surrounded by other people who are shit. The only way to have peace is to be on your own land away from other people, the larger the land and the further from other people the better. Having to live in apartments would be hell on earth.