FLAT CHAT WRAP
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FLAT CHAT WRAP
Tenants' pets unleashed and flat-finding for a friend
We are getting into two of the topics that cause most angst in apartment living, this week: pets and buying property.
Firstly, we take a spin around the question of landlords in NSW no longer being able to ban renters’ pets for no good reason – and how that will affect the more than 50 per cent of apartment residents who are tenants.
This is a question I asked in the Sydney Morning Herald: Will our apartment blocks suddenly be awash with furry friends?
Or will property investors – confronted by the other regulation changes, both recent and impending – decide “stuff this for a game of Monopoly” and sell up or switch to Airbnb and its ilk?
Then we look at a story Sue wrote for Domain (also in the SMH) about how she went looking to find a new flat for a temporarily overseas friend with the instruction to spend up $1million.
What’s it like flat hunting for a friend, knowing that if you have made the wrong suggestion that’s a million bucks worth of misery for them and you?
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap?
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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.
Jimmy
I got an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald this week.
Sue
Very good. What was it about?
Jimmy
It's about, well, it's kind of, it's not really about apartments really, well, but it is, it's about how residential rental laws are changing so that landlords cannot unreasonably refuse to allow pets.
Sue
Oh, like owners in apartments.
Jimmy
Which means, since 50% of apartments are rented, that we're just going to be awash with animals. And we're going to hear about your story, which has been hugely popular, about house hunting for a friend, or flat hunting to be more accurate.
Sue
Yeah.
Jimmy
I'm Jimmy Thomson. I edit the flatchat.com.au website.
Sue
And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the AFR and Domain.
Jimmy
And this is The Flat Chat Wrap. So, I've been writing about the new pet laws. It's quite interesting because these laws basically say that you cannot, as a landlord, just say no pets allowed.
Sue
Which you haven't been able to till now.
Jimmy
Yeah. So, that brings it into line with Strata law, which says that owners' corporations can't just say no pets for no reason. And which is significant because more than half the people who live in apartments are renters.
Sue
Yes, indeed.
Jimmy
So, it's going to be interesting. Are we going to see a lot of pets in apartments? Or are we going to see people going, you know what, there are other aspects of this, these new laws.
They come in on May 19. There are things like, you can't have no-fault evictions, and you can't charge...
Sue
Oh, that's huge.
Jimmy
Yeah. You can't charge tenants for doing a credit check on them. And you can't have rent bidding.
Sue
Yep.
Jimmy
So, basically, a lot of good things are being done to protect tenants. I think they're all good.
Sue
Absolutely.
Jimmy
But are they going to make people think, stuff it, I'm going to either sell my apartment or I'm going to put it on Airbnb. So, what do you think? Are we going to see a lot more pets in apartment blocks?
Sue
I think we might. But some tenants who have pets have them there anyway, even if their landlord said no.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
We've actually done that in the past too. When we were back then, when we were renters...
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
...our landlord said no pets, and we actually had two cats.
Jimmy
Yes, I remember.
Sue
And we hid them.
Jimmy
We hid them. We tried to hide them.
Sue
Yeah. Every time they inspected, we either left them with a neighbour, but once we left one of them in the bedroom because she was so timid, we thought she'd never come out. And she actually came out.
And I think I've mentioned this before. She ran up his leg.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
Ran up his chest.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
Jumped over his shoulder and then ran down the other side of his body. And it was as quick as a flash. And then she disappeared back into the bedroom.
And the inspector kind of looked at us and looked in the direction of the bedroom and then just carried on as if nothing had happened.
Jimmy
Because we always paid our rent in time. Yes, that's right. And we never asked for anything.
Sue
Yeah, that's right.
Jimmy
We were model tenants and he didn't really care about the pets. But you see, the thing is, a lot of apartment blocks that never wanted pets and found out that they couldn't just refuse them did find that there is a clause that you can have that you can only have pets as a renter if you have the written permission of your landlord.
Sue
That's right.
Jimmy
So that was being used quite extensively to stop tenants from having pets in buildings that never wanted pets at all anyway. I wonder if that's going to change.
Sue
Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Look, it's good having pets in buildings.
And I think it's good actually knowing which pets live where because then you can actually control them.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
We all know buildings where there's a barking dog and you don't quite know where the barking dog is. But if somebody has asked for permission to keep a dog and we know exactly where that dog is, then it can be traced so much more quickly and the owner can be told, look, your dog's barking. Maybe it's been left alone too much or maybe it's been left on the balcony.
It's got too anxious. It needs to be left inside, that kind of thing. So it's for animal welfare as well as for convenience of other residents.
Jimmy
But also they bring people together. I mean, we see that.
Sue
They really do. They really create a community. People talk about pets.
Like every time we go into the lift and somebody's got a little dog, we pat the dog or a big dog. I think in our building where we've got lots of pets, a lot of people know the names of the dogs more than they know the names of their owners.
Jimmy
I think there are people who would talk to the pets before they'd talk to tenants.
Sue
Some of the snooty people in our building.
Jimmy
We'll talk to the dog, but we don't want to talk to you.
Sue
Some of the tenants have got the best dogs.
Jimmy
Yeah, yeah. But you know, it's a problem because one of the issues, like Victoria, I didn't realise until today, Victoria has had this law for about five years.
Sue
And the sky hasn't fallen in really.
Jimmy
And the first two cases to come up to the VCAT, which is a Victorian version of NCAT, the tribunal. One of them was the landlord was saying he didn't want pets because he felt that the balcony was not safe and the pet, the dog might jump over the balcony and land on people below and kill both itself and the people.
Sue
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but yes.
Jimmy
And he was also concerned that because he had hay fever and allergies, it might affect him if he ever moved back in.
Sue
But a dog would have to jump very high to get over a balcony.
Jimmy
Dogs can jump quite high.
Sue
Yeah, but most dogs are quite smart as well.
Jimmy
Yeah, that's true.
Sue
And if somebody has a really dumb dog, then they know to put netting on the top of the balcony.
Jimmy
Well, that's a whole other issue you've gone into there. Netting on the balcony. You can get netting that's virtually invisible.
Which, I mean, people say, can I put this virtually invisible netting up? And the committee says, no, you can't. And my view is, if it's that invisible, just put it up and no one will see it anyway.
No, that's right. Shouldn't encourage people to breach their bylaws.
Sue
As for allergies, I mean, sure, at the end of a tenancy, you can get a really good deep clean. And get rid of anything that's going to cause allergies.
Jimmy
Well, allergies is your classic excuse used by people who just want to do what they want to do. Like, that's the reason people would say, oh, I've got to lift this carpet and put down tiles because my poor children have terrible allergies. You know, and it's just nonsense.
Sue
Not always, Jimmy.
Jimmy
Not always. But when you say to them, yeah, yeah, you can put down timber floors and you can put down tiles, but you're also going to have to put down this really expensive underlay to stop the noise transmission. And suddenly the allergies disappear.
Sue
Oh, God, that's cynical.
Jimmy
Just a bit.
Sue
Yeah. But that other point you made about, will this put landlords off? This is a point that's been debated a lot.
And people have been saying that in Victoria, there's been a lot of investors leaving the market because, and one of the reasons is, more stringent rights for tenants. So investors are thinking, well, I'm not getting much return. Rents aren't going up much more.
And I have to be, you know, no full evictions, that kind of thing. And so I think it's not going to be worthwhile staying on.
Jimmy
A no-fault eviction is basically saying to somebody, I want you to leave the apartment. You know, here's your 90 days notice, which is another issue, the length of notice. And saying, I just want you to leave because, well, I wanted to put the rent up and you refuse to pay more rent.
So I'm going to let you play out your 90 days, your three months. And once you're gone, I'll re-let the apartment at a higher rent. So it's to stop that kind of thing.
Now, people say, well, does that put a limit on how much you can put the rent up? The limit on how much you can put the rent up is what the general rent for a similar apartment is in that area. But then there's another limit limitation come in, which is you can only put the rent up once a year.
And a lot of landlords, I mean, they're looking at a very hot market and thinking, you know, I could put the rent up every three months and, you know, and just be on the average figure. And they're saying, well, no, you can't do that. So obviously the government has embraced the idea that long-term renting is an option and maybe the only option for a lot of people.
Sue
Mm, that's right.
Jimmy
And so they're going to make it reasonable for everyone.
Sue
Sure. I mean, I was talking to a property investor expert the other day and he was saying, it's great having more renter's rights. That's a wonderful thing.
But there are landlords who say it's really difficult for them. It's really hard now to get rid of a bad tenant. And he said, we need a few more laws for landlord protection.
And that would be against a bad tenant, you know, somebody coming in and setting up a meth lab or something.
Jimmy
Or just breaking furniture and...
Sue
Yeah, and it can be quite hard to get rid of a bad tenant. So maybe the laws need to be strengthened a little bit in favour of the landlord sometimes as well.
Jimmy
It's interesting. One of the exclusions for reasons that you can refuse pets is if the pet is likely to cause more damage than would be covered by the bond. So you're not allowed to charge an extra bond when people say they've got a pet.
But if the pet is likely to cause more damage than would be caused by the bond. I mean, what are we talking about? A rhinoceros a year or something like that?
I've got a rodeo bull staying in the spare bedroom.
Sue
My goodness. Yeah, and sometimes kids do a lot more damage than animals do anyway.
Jimmy
That's true.
Sue
And we can't do anything about kids in apartments. We're inviting more kids into apartments, really. We're saying to families, yep, come and stay.
Apartment life is great, especially if you're near a park, especially if you have amenities like swimming pool and lots of areas where you can kind of sit and have a barbecue and things. We need to get more families in apartments. And as a result of that, more developers are doing three bedroom apartments, bigger ones, kind of with house-like dimensions that are a lot more spacious for families.
And it's good to have a big mix of demographies in apartments.
Jimmy
Yeah, absolutely. And pets too. But I do think, I mean, one of the issues that is coming up, you read on the social media related to Melbourne, is should we tell the landlord before, when we're applying to get the new apartment, that we're going to want a pet?
Sue
Yeah.
Jimmy
Or should we take a chance and just get the rental and then say, okay, by the way, we're applying to have a pet, even though we've probably got the pet in there already.
Sue
You'd have to say the second, wouldn't you? Because...
Jimmy
I think so.
Sue
The landlord might, between somebody with a pet and somebody without a pet, the landlord might immediately go to the one without the pet.
Jimmy
Yeah, just because it's easier. Just because it's easier. I mean, you wouldn't go along and say, hey, I'm thinking of setting up a meth lab.
How do you feel about that?
Sue
No, probably not.
Jimmy
When we come back, we're going to talk about your adventures buying an apartment for a friend. How weird is that? That's after this.
So you've written a story in the Sydney Morning Herald in the domain section, and it was all about going and hunting for apartment on behalf of a friend. And apparently it's been rating its socks off.
Sue
Yes. I think there's lots of people who can identify with the misery of going and looking for a new apartment.
Jimmy
Oh, God. It used to be awful.
Sue
And it was funny because this friend, she's Australian, but she's just gone to Britain for...
Jimmy
She's dual nationality.
Sue
Yeah. But she's just gone over to Britain for six months. She wanted to buy a place in Sydney and she just left.
And a couple of places came up that she was suddenly really interested in. She'd been looking while she was in Sydney. And she said, could I possibly go and have a look?
And so she gave me a list of, I think, five apartments.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And they were all on the low North Shore.
Jimmy
That's kind of it.
Sue
Well, she said to me, to be fair, she said, oh, look, you probably only have time for two of these, perhaps. But these are the ones I really like. And maybe, you know, see how it goes.
So I thought, okay, I'll spend the whole day looking because they were on at different times. The opens were different times of the day. And oh my God, how traumatic it was.
I mean, anybody who's looked for an apartment will know how miserable it is. But it was just revisiting that.
Jimmy
But you're like, okay, how can it be traumatic? You're just turning up. There's somebody, a nice person in a shiny suit hands you a leaflet and says, go to room 14 and don't steal anything.
Sue
Yeah. Well, in some ways it's less traumatic because you're doing it not for yourself. So you don't get so emotionally involved.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
But on the other hand, it's an area I wasn't very familiar with, low North Shore. So I didn't know where anywhere it was. And it took me ages to find each of the apartments.
And I ended up walking something like 24,000 steps.
Jimmy
Oh, you got your steps up.
Sue
I certainly did, yes. And it was a really hot day. But while you don't have that emotional investment, which is good, you kind of have this worry about, I need to look at these apartments through the eyes of my friend.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
Who's a very different kind of person to me.
Jimmy
Right. Yeah, very.
Sue
I mean, she was wanting to pay out $2 million. The stress of spending a million dollars for somebody else on an apartment, that's quite acute, really.
Jimmy
Absolutely. I mean, the responsibility, which is still kind of hanging over you because she has not set foot in the apartment yet, has she?
Sue
No, that's right. And she actually phoned me this morning. It was like 11.30 at night in Britain. And she said, I just wanted to check. Do you really think I'll like this place?
Jimmy
Oh, God.
Sue
And she's already put the deposit on and it's all going through and everything. And she suddenly got scared in the middle of the night.
Jimmy
Well, we all go through that.
Sue
And then I got a bit scared too. But it was kind of hard because the first apartment I went to, there were lots of people looking for this apartment as well. And it was okay.
But we were asked if we'd like to go up to the observation deck, which means code for the rooftop.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
I thought it was going to be some kind of fabulous deck somewhere.
Jimmy
Like on the Starship Enterprise.
Sue
Or that weird deck on the Chippendale building.
Jimmy
Right. It's on Broadway.
Sue
Yeah. That's right.
Jimmy
And it's a heliotrope, I think is what it's called.
Sue
Or something like that.
Jimmy
Yeah. And it actually reflects light down onto the balconies so that the plants that they've planted up the side of the building can keep growing.
Sue
Yeah. And it kind of juts out from the building. But this was just a simple rooftop.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And so I went up to the rooftop and there was another potential purchaser also there. And we said, wow, it had fantastic views of the harbour. It was just amazing.
From the Opera House and Bridge all the way out to Manly. And we both said, God, this is lovely, isn't it? We'd put a chair.
We'd put chairs up here. We'd put sun loungers here. We'd put barbecue.
We'd put... And we had all these plans. And then suddenly we both looked at each other and thought, actually, we both want to buy this place.
And then suddenly we kind of transformed from this really warm friendship to deadly rivals.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And then we said, it'd be nice for New Year's Eve. You know, and we sort of said, look, if I get it, I'll invite you. And if you get it, you invite me.
And then we got into the lift and we were going down the lift and a resident from the building got into the lift. And I said to him, oh, we're looking at an apartment here. What is it like living here?
And he said, oh God, it's awful. He said, it's got concrete cancer. We've got all these special levies.
We've got so much work to do. It's so disruptive. And I tried to cheer him up and said, what about that amazing rooftop?
Isn't that fantastic? Well, I said, the amazing observation deck. And he said, oh, what, the rooftop?
And I said, that's amazing. That must make up for a lot. He said, no, because the owner's corporation doesn't allow you to put anything up there, not even a single chair.
And on New Year's Eve, you can't even take a drink up there. So I thought, wow, okay. That was very short-sighted.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
So then went along to the next one. And this woman said to me, what ones are you going to look at? So we swapped lists and sort of compared lists and stuff.
And then we walked and walked and went to another place and then another place. And like every place you kind of thought, oh, I wonder if this is going to be the one. And then you'd get there and I went into one and suddenly there were all these flights of stairs.
And I thought, where's the lift? And of course, there's no lift in lots of small Art Deco buildings.
Jimmy
Yeah, the older ones.
Sue
And my friend is a bit older than me. And I kept thinking, I don't know if she's going to want to walk up all these stairs all the time, really.
Jimmy
Maybe now, but not in the next couple of years.
Sue
Yeah, exactly. And you've got to look at least five, 10 years, really. So everything had a bit of a...
Jimmy
Let's hope she's not listening to this.
Sue
And everything that was nice kind of had a problem with it. Like there was one that had a really lovely courtyard, but it was really insecure. It just led straight out onto the street.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And I said to the real estate agent, could we put up a gate here or could we put a fence? And she said, oh yes, that'd be fine. But you know, you can never rely on a real estate agent.
Jimmy
Oh no, wait till you get to the owner's corporation.
Sue
You've got to have that in the contract. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, that would have been nice, but for a single woman living on her own who goes away a lot, you know, it's not great security, really.
And then I went to a newish building and there was a two bedroom apartment and it was fantastic, but it had no views or anything. And it was very expensive and it was over 1 million. And I kept thinking, well, I'm having trouble enough spending a million.
How about if it goes up to 1.4? I think I really shouldn't go there. And then I went to look at one of the places that she said was her favourite, although she'd never seen it.
And it was a quite a new apartment and it was in North Sydney and it had an okay view. And it was actually really nice inside and it was very secure.
Jimmy
Did it have a lift?
Sue
It had a lift. It was modern. It had an air con as well.
Jimmy
Wow.
Sue
And it even had a concierge down there for some of the time.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And I thought, this is the one.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
So I sent her all these pictures and I summed up each place and how I'd found it and stuff. And I said, I really like this one. And that's the one she ended up making an offer on.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
And it was accepted. And now it's the one she's worried about.
Jimmy
Well, there's only one way she'll find out.
Sue
That's right.
Jimmy
Just quickly though, what is this thing with people in the North Shore? Like we said to her, hey, at that price range, you could find somewhere nice around eastern suburbs. And she said, no.
Sue
What was so funny, because when I was walking around the Low North Shore, I saw lots of people who look a bit like my friend. And wore exactly the same clothes and wore the same kind of shoes.
Jimmy
Right.
Sue
And I thought, I know now why she likes the Low North Shore so much.
Jimmy
She's in her tribe. Absolutely. She's in her tribal area.
Sue
And what a good idea to get a friend to go and buy a place for you, really.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
I mean, because you've got none of the emotional worries apart from the one about you're bidding on. But she asked me to take pictures of the inside of cupboards to see how deep they were and how many shelves and check the storage. She gave me lots of lists of questions.
Jimmy
Things to do.
Sue
So, I mean, that was probably quite nice. She was probably reading her WhatsApp messages and looking at all the pictures and stuff when she woke up the next morning and thinking, oh, great.
Jimmy
So you're offering this as a service to flat chat listeners?
Sue
I am definitely not. Right. But I'll tell you what, the next apartment I buy, I'm going to contact my friend and say, Your turn.
Could you, yes, yes. Can you go and have a look at a few places for me? Because honestly, I mean, I really feel for anybody looking for a place.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
Because I haven't actually physically looked for a place for a number of years.
Jimmy
25.
Sue
25 years I've been in this apartment. So it really is knackering. And that was just one day.
Jimmy
Yeah.
Sue
And I cast our mind back to when we were looking and we would go out every single weekend and every Wednesday and Wednesday evenings.
Jimmy
And then you go to the auction and you don't have enough money.
Sue
That's right. So you really feel for people. You kind of think there must be a better way to buy a place.
But really, compared to a lot of other countries, it's much better in Australia because you don't get gazumped and stuff like you do in Britain.
Jimmy
You don't in Scotland.
Sue
No, Scotland's got a good system.
Jimmy
Scotland's got a great system. Basically, you put your offer or your solicitor puts an offer in an envelope and it goes to the vendor solicitor and they open the envelopes and they find the highest price.
Sue
So it's like a Dutch auction.
Jimmy
Yeah. There's none of this stuff of, you know, people egging each other on to pay more than it's really worth.
Sue
Yeah.
Jimmy
Which is hugely inflationary. They should go to the Scottish system.
Sue
Well, they do have Dutch auctions here.
Jimmy
Yeah, but they should make it compulsory.
Sue
It's hard, isn't it? I suppose there's no perfect way.
Jimmy
Well, I'm saying it, make it compulsory. If we were trying to sell this place, I would hate that idea. Okay, we are almost out of time.
Sue, thanks for coming down the corridor and after your exhausting search for a flat for your friend.
Sue
Let's hope she likes it, Jimmy.
Jimmy
Well, so when she comes back and moves into the flat and she calls you and you see her name on your phone, are you going to answer?
Sue
I'm not sure.
Jimmy
I think you go, but you just send her a message saying, text me first.
Sue
Good plan.
Jimmy
All right. And thank you all for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.
Sue
Bye.
Jimmy
Bye. Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Rap podcast. You'll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au. And if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Just search for Flat Chat Rap with a W, click on subscribe, and you'll get this podcast every week without even trying. Thanks again. Talk to you again next week.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.