What Do You Need to Know About Strata Living in Australia?
Anyone who’s ever invested in real estate will tell you about the importance of always making informed decisions. Before you find the right property and close any deals, you need to make sure that you know everything about what you’re investing on.
Now if you are in Australia, you might have heard about strata living, which is essentially a type of property ownership where you own a unit—a penthouse, townhouse or apartment—within a building. In fact, there’s now a strata living guide that helps homeowners and potential investors to understand what this type of arrangement is like. But what exactly is strata living? Here are some key elements that you need to know about:
You own your property but not entirely. When it comes to investing in strata living, you are the full owner of your individual lot, which could be an apartment or townhouse. But all the other amenities and shared spaces within that building or complex will be shared ownership among all the other owners of those individual lots. This includes the gardens, swimming pools, hallways and other common areas.
You will be working with a strata company. Since you’re not the only owner of the building where your property is located, it’s very important to work with a strata company that will manage the entire property on behalf of the owners. You’ll also have a strata committee that you’ll be electing as a group to help the strata company in managing your shared property. Some living spaces even hire strata managers to look after the day-to-day operations of the property to ensure that rules are followed properly for the convenience of the owners.
You need to abide by the rules of the scheme. A scheme is created by the strata company and strata committee to make sure that organisation and peace are maintained within a property. While you have the freedom to create your own rules within your property, you need to abide by the rules and regulations specified in the scheme. This means limitations in doing renovations for shared spaces, making sure that pets are secured and keeping your noise low as a sign of respect to other owners.
You may be required to pay fees and contributions. Aside from paying for your unit and maintaining it, you may also be required to pay fees that will help cover the cost of maintaining the common areas within your property and the payment for the strata company that manages your shared property. Some strata companies also open a sinking fund from the contributions of owners. This will help you take care of the expenses related to managing, renovating and maintaining the property.
Strata living is definitely a good option if you want to invest in a property that you can live in but also has a huge rental potential. So if you want to learn more about this investment option, get in touch with our team.
