Post to Facebook on 8/4/2019 at 7:18 PM
Commenting on "Owning a house is the Australian dream, but I miss my apartment"
https://www.domain.com.au/living/why-i-miss-my-apartment-816316/
Why do apartment owners keep thinking that owning a house means more work in maintaining the garden, or more chances of burglary?
Instead of paying the owners corporation to look after the common area compound, including the garden, lawn, paths, stairs and lifts, foyer, passageway, heating and cooling and may be gym, swimming pool, sauna, etc., most of these the owners do not use or enjoy personally, but spend on maintaining a garden and security monitoring service of a house, won’t the latter come out better?
The following is included in short blog in Facebook
Selling apartments was not my strength, because I could not and still cannot convince myself in owning or living in an apartment long term. I have stayed in several apartments when I used to work in Hong Kong for short assignments, and when I visited friends in SE Asia, China and Canada. In fact staying in hotels is no different from experiencing apartment living.
A friend of mine lived in an apartment in Vancouver, Canada. Her next door neighbour's apartment was broken in, and precious items were stolen. It was not known how the burglar managed to get to the 20th floor. My friend sold that apartment and moved somewhere else.
On several occasions, I could gain entry to apartment buildings by following the residents. I was never questioned whether I stayed in the building. In fact many apartments are tenanted, and the tenants do not take security seriously.
New buildings are likely to use electronic gadget or swipe card / token to activate the lift to get to the appropriate floor. There are likely to have CCTVs monitoring the movement of people entering and leaving the building.
What if the apartment is used to run some quickie business, or Airbnb? What guarantee is there the visitors are of good character? It is very difficult to legislate and monitor the usage of the apartments, or even by the owner's corporation.
So, it is important not to assume living in an apartment is safer than in a house.
Commenting on "Owning a house is the Australian dream, but I miss my apartment"
https://www.domain.com.au/living/why-i-miss-my-apartment-816316/
Why do apartment owners keep thinking that owning a house means more work in maintaining the garden, or more chances of burglary?
Instead of paying the owners corporation to look after the common area compound, including the garden, lawn, paths, stairs and lifts, foyer, passageway, heating and cooling and may be gym, swimming pool, sauna, etc., most of these the owners do not use or enjoy personally, but spend on maintaining a garden and security monitoring service of a house, won’t the latter come out better?
The following is included in short blog in Facebook
Selling apartments was not my strength, because I could not and still cannot convince myself in owning or living in an apartment long term. I have stayed in several apartments when I used to work in Hong Kong for short assignments, and when I visited friends in SE Asia, China and Canada. In fact staying in hotels is no different from experiencing apartment living.
A friend of mine lived in an apartment in Vancouver, Canada. Her next door neighbour's apartment was broken in, and precious items were stolen. It was not known how the burglar managed to get to the 20th floor. My friend sold that apartment and moved somewhere else.
On several occasions, I could gain entry to apartment buildings by following the residents. I was never questioned whether I stayed in the building. In fact many apartments are tenanted, and the tenants do not take security seriously.
New buildings are likely to use electronic gadget or swipe card / token to activate the lift to get to the appropriate floor. There are likely to have CCTVs monitoring the movement of people entering and leaving the building.
What if the apartment is used to run some quickie business, or Airbnb? What guarantee is there the visitors are of good character? It is very difficult to legislate and monitor the usage of the apartments, or even by the owner's corporation.
So, it is important not to assume living in an apartment is safer than in a house.
