This week the Flat Chat Wrap podders look at the ridiculous cost of parking spaces, the new forms of flat-sharing and we finish off our chat with Jane Hearn about the proposed short-term letting register – and why Airbnb hates it so much.
First up, JimmyT and Sue Williams talk about why parking spaces are no longer at such a premium (despite one that previously sold at auction for $260,000 coming up for sale).
People who live near transport hubs don’t need cars as much as they used to and the flawed economics of paying for a lump of steel to sit in a car space all week, waiting for you to maybe go for a drive, just don’t add up, especially when there are car-sharing services like Go-Get literally on strata owners doorsteps.
We also touch on parking space sharing and an innovative idea being trialled in multi-story car parks in Brisbane, where empty floors are turned into overnight shelters for homeless people, complete with showers, toilets, security and even hairdressers.
And talking of homelessness, we kick the tyres of a couple of other innovative ideas – next generation boarding houses and co-living spaces.
In both cases, these are blocks where studio units are smaller than normal – with tiny kettle and microwave spaces and small bathrooms – but that’s compensated by large shared kitchens and social areas and other facilities like gyms and swimming pools.
As Sue reports, even luxury apartment developer Crown are looking at getting into co-living in a big way, with plans to add value to the communities with gym, cooking, yoga and music classes. In fact, CEO Iwan Sunito thinks these classes are such a good idea he plans to look at extending them to his residential apartment blocks.
One downside Sue discovered with the co-living and next-gen boarding houses already operating in Sydney is that many of the properties are already listed on holiday letting ewebsites like Airbnb.
So much for easing the affordable housing crisis!
And on the subject of Airbnb, in the second part of their conversation, Jimmy and Jane Hearn, vice-chair of the Owners Corporation Network, explore why the online letting agency is against the proposed register.
We can guess why – a register would expose all the illicit lets, as has occurred elsewhere in the world, with Tokyo seeing a drop of 80 per cent in listings when a register was brought in there last year.
But will it stick? Not without serious penalties and measures to allow owners corporations to check on how the apartments in their buildings are being used, say our podders. And that may be a bridge too far for our pro-Airbnb, anti-apartment resident politicians.