Election the unknown for next year's market (Post 2 of 2)

Posted to The Age (13/12/12) on 16/12/2012 at 2:23 PM
Commenting on "Election the unknown for next year's market"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/election-the-unknown-for-next-years-market-20121212-2b9vu.html

The apartment market in Sydney and Melbourne has been oversupply for many years, and many have not increased in value in real terms. Living in an apartment is a lifestyle choice, so says the apartment dwellers. Apartments used to be called flats in the 60s and 70s, including those high rise housing commission buildings. Like many single syllable word, flat is an English term, while multi-syllable (normally three or more) apartment American. In short, apartments of today are glorified, jazzed up flats.

Unless one has been used to living in an apartment such as those from high-density living places like Asia, it is difficult to understand the mentality of many who choose to swap their more comfortable home for a cubby house. The amount of body corps fee, all other associated costs and lost opportunity in investing a large sum of money for air-space instead of land, should be more than sufficient to have a full time person looking after a family's daily needs.

I still enjoy looking out of my window to see the beautiful flowers in the gardens, taking the shopping out of the car boot and entering through the door from the garage straight into the house, and having my video turned on reasonably loud to experience to the surround sound effect. Oh no, I can't see myself living in an apartment everyday!

Have I lived in an apartment before? Yes, I have stayed at my friend's luxurious apartments / condos overseas on several occassions, but did not like it.

No room for a view

Posted to The Age (14/5/2012) on 14/5/2012 at 3:53 AM, 3:57 AM
Commenting on "No room for a view"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/no-room-for-a-view-20120513-1ykr8.html

Those people choose to live in high rise should have the commonsense to realise that their apartments are not the only one around. Melbourne is slow to adopt overseas trend of high rise in the CBD, and there is no excuse for those city dwellers not to take heed of examples in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.

While many current high rise buildings may be green by design, they are definitely not green in the larger scheme of thing. They are the culprits which make CBD a concrete jungle, contribute towards the wind tunnel effect, shield off sunlight essential for human in the form of Vitamin D, increase flooding due to lack of open “soil” area to absorb rain water, and increase green house gases due to lack of trees and other vegetation.

The higher floor may command better view, if there is not another high rise around to block it, the quality of air may not be as good. As warm air rises, it carries with it other polluting suspension. The fresh air from the open windows may not be that “fresh” after all. Many buildings have passages which receive no sunlight, and fresh air, which means electrical equipments and electricity are needed to provide artificial lighting and recirculate the air 24 hours a day.

Some living in apartments especially on the higher floors may have the misconception that there is not a need to install curtain or opaque blind - they are wrong. When lights are turned on inside the apartment, the other apartment dwellers across facing the windows can see clearly what’s going on inside the building. Privacy may be compromised.

Before buying an apartment, why not leasing one for a year to check out the pros and cons. Landlord pays the management fees and rates, which can amount to couple of years of coffee supply.

Southbank skyscrapers ire

Posted to The Age (24/11/2011) On 24/11/2011 at 11:13 AM
Commenting on "Southbank skyscrapers ire"
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/southbank-skyscrapers-ire-20111123-1nv0z.html

@Ho Hum, do you know that these high rise buildings are called apartments NOT flats? They share excellent bird's eye views of many ugly Melbourne roof tops. The interior of the building might be "green", but these "Five-Finger Mountains" that house the modern primates create the concrete jungle, and likely have much higher carbon emission due to denser population. Be careful, Julia Gillard may whack the carbon tax on all high rise residents. (PS Five-finger Mountains are found in China).