We’ve had the hottest temperatures ever recorded, devastating bushfires, cyclones, floods and even a few snowfalls. But we’re still here, and looking at property news this week we notice some interesting trends in building materials, as well as in the Great Australian Dream - is it still a house with a garden in suburbia?
If you want to buy real estate well, rule number one is to remember who is working for whom. The selling agent will appear to have your best interests at heart however the truth is what they are really interested in is selling you a property they have for sale and selling yours if you have one to sell. Read more
After the devastating storms and floods of the past few months, Cleaning up Australia has perhaps never been more important. So if you see people wandering around your neighbourhood this Sunday wearing gloves and carrying white and yellow rubbish bags, feel free to wade in and lend a hand...
More Australians are finding their dream home is an apartment rather than a house, according to research released this week by Bankwest.
The Bankwest Housing Density Report reveals that two in five Australian home approvals over the past 12 months were for medium density* dwellings, compared to fewer than one in three only five years ago. Why is that?
You’ve sold your house, but haven’t yet found the one you want to buy and live in – what are your options now?
You’re in a great bargaining position, because you now know exactly how much equity you have to work with, but if settlement dates do not match you may need to find another place to live for a while...
Is this the future of apartment building in Australia? An apartment block made almost completely of timber and chock-full of sustainable features has been released this week by multi-national property developer Lend Lease.
The 10-storey Forté building in Melbourne is being touted as the highest timber apartment block in the world, with its walls, floor and ceiling all made of a super strong yet lightweight material called cross-laminate timber (CLT).
There have been a few tales over the years of homeowners leaving their estates to their beloved cats, so that the pet can live out its life in its own home.
Now a lovely tale has come out of the United Kingdom of the elderly woman whose twenty cats continue to live in her home and be cared for, even though she has been in hospital for over a year.
Sixteen years ago, Shirley Maynard and her late husband Michael turned their home into the St. Francis Hospice for Cats, a registered charity offering a safe haven for elderly or sick cats to live out their lives in comfort. However, the twenty furry residents have had the run of their owner’s house since she was hospitalised in 2011.
Luckily for the cats, the charity has trustees and supporters – including the local vet - who have rallied around and worked out a roster to clean, groom, feed and play with the cats. They even have their own website (sfhfc.org.uk ) if you want to offer a donation.
Finding the previous story about twenty cats in one house made us think of the never-ending issue of litter. So we went looking for alternative methods – and found that while some brands work better than others and some are kinder to the environment, all of them increase the weekly shopping bill and need constant cleaning out.
A Sydney inventor, however, has come up with a possible solution with the Litter Kwitter, a 3-step training system designed to have your cat using the household toilet. Drawing inspiration from the movie Meet The Parents, where Robert De Niro's character trained the family cat to use the toilet, the theory is that by using three disks with increasing-sized holes, you can eliminate the need for litter trays in around 8 weeks.