FLAT CHAT WRAP
FLAT CHAT WRAP
Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams
Podcast: Covid toolkit and the lure of Zoom rooms
29 minutes Posted Jul 19, 2021 at 1:42 pm.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Show notes
Covid kicks off the podcast again this week, unfortunately, but with both Sydney and Melbourne shut down it’s the first thing that springs to everyone’s  mind.
However there are some new talking points – like the surprisingly handy Strata Covid Toolkit produced by the NSW government last weekend, which we highly recommend.
Then, just when they’ve final acquired some Flat Chat Brownie points, the NSW government goes and stuffs it up by issuing Public Health Orders about who can work where, completely ignoring strata and the people who run it.
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The in some non-covid chat (praise be!), we talk about some of the astronomical prices being paid for apartments in the Crown tower at Barangaroo.
And we recall spending a night in one of the poshest (and worst laid-out) penthouses in Sydney.
Then we discover “zoom rooms”, the new name for that awkward corner of apartments that developers don’t know what to do with. 
Too small to be a study, too impractical to be anything other than a cupboard, now it’s the potential hub of your burgeoning media career.
As our picture of US broadcaster Ira Glass (purloined from Medium.com) shows, you don’t need a special room – just a wardrobe with a desk and lots of noise-absorbing clothes.
Sue also introduces us to once-desirable areas where rents are 30 per cent lower than they were five years ago. 
And we get the inside running on the sale of a disgraced League player’s Parra pad.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
TRANSCRIPT IN FULL
Jimmy 
I feel like we're in double duty this week, because we were on Amanda Farmer's podcast, where everybody actually got to see us for a change.
Sue 
Yes. Amanda looks so glamorous and we both looked like we just got out of bed.
Jimmy 
Well, you had! She does look very glamorous. It was interesting and quite challenging, the three of us trying to speak, all at the same time, often. We still managed to get through a fair bit of material. Today, we've got a few things to talk about. We've got the new strata toolkit from the New South Wales Government. I noticed it's branded 'government,' not health and definitely not Fair Trading. We've got some confusing messages coming out in the public health orders and you've got some stories about rents and the sales of fabulous apartments.
Sue 
Yes, that's right.
Jimmy 
I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.
Sue 
And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.
Jimmy 
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
Late on Friday night (which seems to be when they release anything that has to do anything with strata), the New South Wales government released its strata managers and committees COVID-19 handbook.
Sue 
Fantastic.
Jimmy 
I'm sorry, it's a toolkit. It's not a handbook,