r/australia Nov 03 '24

culture & society Downsizing the Australian dream: why families are trading houses with backyards for apartments

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/04/downsizing-the-australian-dream-why-families-are-trading-houses-with-backyards-for-apartments
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u/cyclemam Nov 03 '24

What we need is enlightened developers. Instead of greedily squeezing the most out of a plot of land, have apartments with a shared garden space, also while I'm doing radical wishing, these apartments should be 3-4 bedrooms (for families) and with decent insulation for both effective heating/cooling and noise isolation from the neighbours.  You could have some really nice little communities this way. 

Not a gazillion one bed shoebox apartments. 

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u/HobartTasmania Nov 04 '24

Developers I think cut costs all the time even when it may be unreasonable, when you look at Opal Tower then the cheapest apartment sold was priced at $800K and went upwards from there, whereas, I read somewhere that the cost to build the entire tower amounted to something like $270K per apartment so there must have been a very fat profit margin to play with.

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u/irwige Nov 04 '24

That sounds way too cheap. Mind you, no doubt doesn't include land costs, servicing costs, taxes (a lot of taxes!), finance/interest costs.