Mascot Tower apartment evacuation

@balwoges - that makes very little sense unless it's underboring for services not stabilisation.

 

As I said, second hand info ...

 

No.

No standard building policy covers damage due to ground movement, or defective work.
Only chance may be if the building is still covered under some warranty from the builders.
Marg

 

Builders warranty should cover the first 7 years.

Ground movement would be covered under this via the initial soil tests, then engineers reports during the construction period.

In theory, this should mean the building is insured for a reasonable period against builders mistakes. I have no idea if this works in practice though.

 

No it’s not, it’s the norm of a bubble. Pretty much everywhere in the world, living right next to a busy airport is considered undesirable and you get a big discount accordingly.

 

I thought there no longer was builders warranty in NSW for high rise; in any case, the building is already 10yo.

I read the building next door was completed late last year, so maybe it's a different property, or my source was wrong?

 

I rented in Alexandria close to Green square station a couple of years ago and I would not recommend it to anyone. Where so I start, the build quality of those new buildings is horrendous. Every other week we had overhead pipes leaking in the parking lot. We were on level 4 and the foyer wall on one side was always soaked due to some kind of damp issue, to the point where massive had come off the wall. Hot water tap in the bathroom made the worst grinding sound every time it was opened.

As for the suburb itself, basically felt like living in a modern day slum. Open your blinds and you're looking directly in the the opposite building, I guess a bit of entertainment there if you're bored.
Open the windows for some air and you can hear cars zooming by or truck after truck passing by.
Go to the train station and it's over packed with other people in the same situation.

All this just for the joy of living close to Sydney CBD. In my opinion, not worth it.

 

Yes, that does make sense though.
But see the property price in NSW suburbs like: Sydenham, Petersham, Leichardt, Mascot, Botany and Wolli Creek.

They're all steadily upwards in the past 10 years.

 

Yes, and one can only wait at the mercy of the class action lawsuit, or NSW govt legislations suggested by Gladdys after the Opal Tower incident.

 

I don't this is correct. Haven't you seen The Castle?

 

Owners to cop an estimated $5.5 million in fees at troubled Mascot Towers

"One apartment owner in the building has told news.com.au that their bank has declined a new application for a mortgage because of the state of the towers, and they plan to declare bankruptcy"
ouchy

 

Bloody depressing.

At some stage the same will probably occur more often here in Canberra or other cities and all we will hear is words from various Governments.

 

They might as well just demolish the building - what's the point of fixing it

 

I'm not sure why you're saying that. With 122 apartments, that's at most around $40-50K per apartment, and they're apparently worth around $700K each, so... it's much more economical to fix than demolish.

Obviously if there is evidence that there will be further problems, or the building was fundamentally flawed, then demolition may be warranted, but I've not seen any such suggestion at this point.

 

Not anymore...

In all honesty if $5.5m is the initial estimate it's not far from a write-off. If that's the initial estimate you'd have to expect the final bill will be more and that's before increases in ongoing maintenance, insurance and a massive drop in rental demand. You'd struggle to give those apartments away at the moment.

 

On all seriousness, if a valuer had to value it tomorrow, especially for finance.
What would the verdict be?

 

There's no way a bank would accept it as security on a loan right now. I'd say the absolute best case scenario is in a few years you can sell for 50% of the value of a month ago. There is going to be a massive over supply of high-rise apartments in Sydney in the next few years as is so there's absolutely no reason for anyone to buy one already damaged and lock in higher strata fees and lower rents. Obviously this and Opal tower will mean demand for high rise apartments will be smashed (actually this could really help the value of houses and older units).

And that's the best case scenario. Over 170 of Opal Tower's 390-odd apartments still haven't been declared safe and who knows when they will be. At least there they were under warranty so they can go after the builder. Everything falls back on the owners here and I'd honestly be surprised if the best financial decision isn't to just demolish it and sell the land. I'll be astonished if there aren't significant rectification works still ongoing in 2-3 years.

 

I don't think it's that catastrophic. If the repairs are performed properly, there's no reason why there should be ongoing rectification works required. If anything, after such a thorough going-over, the building should be - after rectification - one of the more structurally sound buildings around.

Our insurer wouldn't write off our house for any rectification cost that was less than 100% of replacement cost, and he're we're still talking less than 10% of replacement cost - irrespective of market movements, that's the yardstick they use.

And people's memories are remarkably short. Everybody said nobody would buy in suburbs that were flooded in 2011, yet I'm not aware of flooded suburbs performing any (significantly) differently than the rest of the market in the 8 years since. There tends to be an effect that goes along the lines of: "man, it's going to be bargain buying in those suburbs / that block now, I'm going to get in while the buying's good!", and the influx of "bargain hunters" brings the price back up.

Much like everybody I knew who lived in Sydney was going to "go overseas and take advantage of the cheap outbound fares during the Sydney Olympics". So many people decided to do this, I'm not sure the fares were any cheaper at that time than any other random time, because they pushed demand up.

 

You had the soil checked out? Yeah. what do you know about lead?

 

If you bought in a high risk mining town, you'd think there is a chance of the value drop

Who would have thought if you bought a 5yr old apartment that within a few years the value could drop by 50%!