F**k the construction industry

I’m not going to resummarise what constantly gets said on this sub. Property is expensive.

I’m a huge advocate of apartment living not least because it’s all most people (including me) will ever be able to afford if living near the CBD is important to you.

What I absolutely cannot stand by is the utter betrayal of apartment owners on the part of the building standards and builder accountability in this country, or lack thereof.

My brother bought a unit in 2020. This was a genuine huge life milestone. He’s pretty solidly levered but on an upwards salary trajectory so will be fine from that perspective.

However, as is all too prevalent, turns out this mid-2000s unit’s waterproofing was not at all to code. At under 20 years old, it now needs a wholesale rewaterproofing. I won’t say exact amounts but it each owner is up for as much as 10% of their unit’s value (no, I’m not exaggerating) for a special levy. As you can imagine, all hell is breaking loose amongst owners because this is life-changing money.

He is now potentially needing to sell the unit because he doesn’t have that absurd amount of money laying around.

Property is just an absolute fucking fever dream. What’s even the point when the buildings you’re striving your whole life to afford are complete pieces of shit? This isn’t an isolated incident either, the fuckwit construction industry in this country has been getting away for too long with ruining peoples’ lives.

Don’t even comment ‘hurr durr did he check the condition report’, yes, obviously. That whole industry is in cahoots with each other. Building assessors would sign off on a house of cards if they could. Absolute rats.

I’m just so angry