I emailed strata and was advised to notify my nearby neighbors about the resurfacing coz there’s a bit of sound. No approval required. Btw you do need to conduct an asbetos test before the team can commence work. The company recommended a lab in Brisbane that you send the samples in double zip lock bags, express post. Took 24-48hrs for lab to send me the report in pdf. I then forwarded that to Ceiling Resurfacing so they know which technique they’ll gonna do.

the whole house needs attention, Me and my youngest daughter with her Three Boys, live together in a Three bedroom one lounge and one toilet / bathroom, yes we are renting, through housing department, yes the rent is convenient as we pay a minimum of a quarter of our income, just need a better laid out house design with the toilet being a separate room with an extra toilet thrown in, in the laundry area, yes we are blessed to have a roof over our heads, we live in NSW, Australia.

@ minebathroom and @ Luke Buckle, our electrician has informed us that we don't have to put solar panels on our house roof if we don't want to for aesthetics or if for example the roof was old as you mentioned Luke. Panels can be placed on a shed or garage roof anywhere on your property if you are rural like us for example, as the power can be directed into the grid from anywhere the solar panels live and that doesn't have to be on the house roof. We would love to go solar but agree with all your other points @minebathroom, too expensive and expected lifespan and feed in tarrifs are very ordinary but then there's also the back up service too, will the company still be around in one year let alone 10 years. When our electrician got his solar, he got such a fantastic tarrif rate which was offered at the very start of the solar revolution, he was recieving a cheque or refund of something like $500 a quarter but the rates are so low now, there is certainly no chance of recouping some of the instalation costs, although I wouldn't be so fused about that if I thought I would get say 20+ years out of the system before it begun to possibly fail in some way. Things do have to get allot more reliable if nothing else!!

the usual rule applies about buying for location but after numerous renovations and new builds we know that renovating can be a nightmare with unlimited surprise expenses (like hidden asbestos, electrical and plumbing problems before you consider styles of new fittings) so, if budget and time are limited, don't buy anything that needs more than modest cosmetic upgrades (that doesn't include bathrooms that work all needs to be done by professionals while kitchens can sometimes be upgraded with DIY flaktpac cabinets to save costs) but imo the best locations are usually in the older suburbs and for our last big reno we spent about $500K renovating a mid century house that was already in good condition (it's in a great location but we're still not finished) in retrospect it could have been more cost effective to KDR but we love renovating and DIY and don't have jobs and dependent kids to distract us from the endless work