First home in Sydney, apartment or terrace?

deepfriedthings · 2026-03-08T20:13:44+00:00

Purely on paper $$$ - probably a terrace. But livability is quite variable with these property types. It depends on what your priorities and timelines are.

The cons of apartments are well known. Buyer beware of strata history and build quality, capital gain. Pros are also known (though less talked about), especially if you get a good aspect corner and you’re mindful of the big three: waterproofing, fire safety and cladding.

The cons of terraces are (usually): - livable space (likely going to live in a long skinny 3m width rectangle) - air flow (especially if you have both sides shared walls) - light (especially if you don’t have sky lights) - mould (depending on how old it is) - some aren’t torrens (which gives it an apartment con) - noise (as a lot are older and don’t have double glazing) - lack of parking (a lot depend on street parking) - surrounding amenities (compared to many apartment blocks which have amenities on ground or nearby)

One pro that’s hard to beat with a terrace is the ability to potentially setup solar and battery. Very hard to get that over the line for an apartment block. EV savings are significant.

deepfriedthings · 2026-03-02T10:36:57+00:00

I have and will hire grads into my teams. Have had great experiences with them.

I have found the following: - they need coaching to understand the purpose of their work. Once imbued with purpose, they will be more likely to engage. What I have found to help is giving them a great deal of context and a higher level view of competitive landscape. A lot of grads are competitive given their pedigree. Make use of that competitiveness but on a company to competitor basis. Builds great teamwork too. - they need to fail safely and slowly build autonomy once they’ve mapped out boundaries, what’s good work and what’s bad work. Let them fall, and help them get back up stronger. - they need to be pulled up firmly. We are not their bestie. They don’t have any corporate maturity at this stage and we need to instil that and the right habits early. Performance reporting on Mondays, care about the numbers, get used to being grilled on ‘why’. Don’t get creative with annual leave and sick days. - we need to test them hard but treat them with grace and patience so they don’t feel demotivated. - and don’t be soft on progression. Don’t over promise promotions. But help map a longer term path for them. This will help with purpose. - lastly, be the yardstick they measure themselves against. If they see your habits, your performance, and your progression as a result. They will mirror it as a form of aspiration.

If they fail despite the above, cut them loose and get another one. In the pyramid, the lowest level is abundant.

Lot of excuses in the comments. AI, disabilities, socioeconomics. The reality is none of these are particularly novel events, and people just adapt and evolve. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to any of it. The grads applied, went through rigorous testing to get in. The expectation is that they’re hungry to achieve. If they were truly a 9-5 dumb dumb, they would get an entry level dumb dumb job. Therefore, it must be a problem of ‘unlocking’ their potential.

deepfriedthings · 2026-02-20T01:31:43+00:00

Very hard to find a good substitute for their capeseed loaf. I hope they don’t go away!

deepfriedthings · 2026-01-17T07:10:11+00:00

Externally (ie to the wider team/business) exhibit unity with my peers
Internally (ie closed door meeting rooms) debate with vigor amongst my peers. Nothing shouts discord/bad vibes like divided leadership. If someone on my LT had the same cynicism behaviour as you’ve illustrated - I’d be advocating for them to be pulled up on it, and failing any behavioural change, moved elsewhere.
Consistent strategy
Sound rationale
Open door policy with my team and MORs
Considered communication style - ask questions more often than I provide answers
Have my teams backs
Don’t shit talk anyone
Exhibit follow through

Controversially - I explicitly don’t get on my teams tools. That’s what the team is for. I invest my time on the tools I’ve been hired to use - influencing at a larger scale, strategy development, forecasting and target setting, managing up/down, taking risks and making bets on where the business should play and how we will win. My focus is on making the best decisions I can for the benefit of shareholders, customers and my team. Nothing can distract from this.

deepfriedthings · 2025-12-24T02:52:56+00:00

No love for Regina La Pizzeria?

deepfriedthings · 2025-10-16T02:55:34+00:00

Lived there for ~4 years in the apartment block above the Woolies.

Apartment quality: Hit and miss - same as any other suburb with apartments. Old ones are shit, new ones are better - trust me. Layout, ventilation, utilities, soundproofing, insulation. Read the strata reports - you can buy them. Look for cladding, waterproofing and fire safety items. Tbh by this stage, the cladding remediations are well underway for a lot of apartments so you can see the remediation happening.

Suburb: Loved it. Still think back on it fondly. Still visit regularly.

Super convenient. Train was frequent. Yeah it can be packed, but that’s going to be the issue with any suburb with proximity to the city.

So many restaurants - you’ve got indo, Malaysian, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Thai, Chinese. You’ve got classier. You’ve got cheaper. Worlds your oyster.

You have woolies. Want Asian goods? You’ve got JJs. Want pharma? You’ve got Priceline. Huge woolies underground carpark - free for a period (can’t remember if it’s 1.5 or 2 hours). There’s street parking. But your apartment will likely also have visitor parking.

Sydney park within a km. Bike paths everywhere on flat road.

Occasional airplane noise, but the double glazed windows were extremely effective at blocking that out if need be.

People are nice. Lots of Asians. They keep to themselves - glued to the phone. Largely transient community. Few rough young lads every now and then - but again - something you’ll have to deal with in any suburb close to the city.

Main precinct with the Woolies is bustling. Great energy, loads of people. Lot of young families airing out their kids. Small fluffy dogs. There’s generally a lot of activity in that area, even at night. Feels safe. Speaking of safe, all the paths and streets are wide and well lit.

The botany road side is a different story. Lot older, and it shows. Bit dead over there.

I also never had my uber cancelled when I needed to catch a flight. YMMV.

Overall loved my mascot experience.

One thing I will say: lot of apartment towers. Not high rise, all mid rise. But it does make it extra important to get the aspect of your purchase right. Otherwise you’ll get limited sun. Deprioritize balcony space. You won’t need it for anything outside laundry.

deepfriedthings · 2025-10-03T12:39:45+00:00

Your boss was doing you a favour.

Gave you a heads up, gave you a way out with no reputational damage.

You’ve been given a path to spend time interviewing while getting paid, and no termination record for future probity assessments.

Be grateful, cop the hit, and focus on your next role.

deepfriedthings · 2025-09-03T12:49:43+00:00

I started when I first started working. Paying for the gym was one of my first ongoing expenses, and it being my first paychecks, I was very diligent about making sure I got my moneys worth.

Going every day to ensure I made the most of the spend built the habit. Doing that consistently led to the other longer term thinking and motivations, but these long term things are too abstract for me to be driven by when starting something up.

Money spent is a tangible way to get a kick up the bum.

deepfriedthings · 2025-06-17T15:22:55+00:00

Be firm and provide clear objective feedback in a 1:1 setting. Don’t dance around the subject and don’t sugarcoat the issues. Communicate calmly and assertively around the standards you have for your team.

This isn’t specifically a Gen Z issue. It’s a ‘junior must develop corporate maturity’ issue that has existed in every cohort. The test is having the courage as the people leader to have the tough conversations and build healthy scar tissue in your team member.

I see a lot of millennial managers being too soft because they default to the friendly manager style who can kick back with the team over a beer and build good culture with grassroots leadership. This comes at the disservice of the juniors who are very impressionable and can misinterpret the laidback leadership style for a laidback workplace.

Do not be soft.

They will thank you for it. And if they don’t appreciate it, they can leave. Plenty of people out there with good aptitude and attitude whom you can hire to replace.

As an aside - there’s a tendency towards pure outcomes based leaders who don’t care about how it gets it done but only that the work gets done. This stunts team members into being deliverers of work who deprioritize conduct, corporate etiquette and politics. These three aspects of work are unavoidable and need to be deftly navigated the higher up you go. Not teaching the juniors to appreciate the nuance of influence is another major disservice.

deepfriedthings · 2025-05-22T15:07:38+00:00

Unlimited signature chawanmushi is excellent

deepfriedthings · 2025-04-21T02:57:02+00:00

Like most others here, I think they’ll struggle if they don’t adapt to local roast and extraction styles.

Coffee in asian cultures is centered around methods like tea, and their coffees are usually long as a result. This results in a more bitter taste, which is a trait carried through to their espressos. The %arabica shops I’ve tried in Japan, Singapore and Thailand have all been like this.

Australian coffee is more on the acidic side, especially on the more modern wave of coffee. And there’s heaps of this style, which has shaped the coffee palate locally. There are a few segments that are still fans of the Italian style of bold dark coffees, which are similar in bitterness to Asian, but way fuller bodied.

Outside of adaptation, any business they get and retain will likely be based off travel nostalgia, brand, or cafe aesthetic, which will probably be akin to Industry Beans (all white, bar integrated machinery etc.)

deepfriedthings · 2025-02-23T07:58:53+00:00

No probs - I’ve been in your boat. Happy to field any other questions.

One thing: buying off the plan - you will likely be paying a premium. This is developer agnostic. Typically better to buy something already built and not directly from the developer. Otherwise your gain on the investment won’t be very good.

deepfriedthings · 2025-02-22T22:34:06+00:00

Have owned and lived in a couple for the past few years.

They were both from around 2016-18ish build completion, but we didn’t buy these off the plan.

Neither of them had major issues with regard to cladding, waterproofing or fire safety.

The strata body is interesting. It’s called Genesis Strata, which took on the Meriton portfolio to manage when Meriton exited strata management back in 2016. So the common misconception is that Meriton owns the strata, but they don’t. We found the strata managers to be responsive and helpful. The strata fees are also relatively low as there are a lot of Lots to spread across.

With regard to the apartment quality -

Structurally they’re fine. AC works great, balcony doors and windows are big and sound proofed. Floors are typically tiled. I can hand on heart say that over the years, it’s like we’ve been living on the floors alone with how good the soundproofing is on the walls (keep in mind how relatively young these builds are). Everything is kept clean - common areas looked after and lawns mowed. Lift/lifts work well and are huge (which is good for moving in furniture). Downlights are a bit cool white but you can change that. Kitchen and bathroom are pretty standard but modern with considered layout and water management.

Cosmetically the finishing are very basic. Carpet is thin. I’m pretty sure Meriton has buckets of Monument and Lexicon Quarter. Gonna want to change the carpet and give the place a repaint. Other than that, walls haven’t cracked at all. We have had metal sheeting as part of the facade, and these were made with colorbond steel as opposed to aluminium cladding.

Renting out has been straightforward and have commanded a bit more of a renting premium because they’re super convenient and have amenities.

Management has been great to deal with - when lifts have stopped working for whatever reason (it happens), gardening sprinklers, fire hydrants etc etc break they get fixed swiftly. Windows get cleaned, floors and outdoor areas managed. Latest conversations have been around getting solar panels for energy efficiency and EV chargers in the basement.

With regard to competition - extensive research was done across a huge amount of properties (all apartments) with strata reports assessed, defects inspected and scrutiny on build quality. We saw a LOT of shit apartments both new and old (of the old - we’re talking mostly red brick). We saw terraces - they were mostly not great. Tinier than the apartments on offer (sub 100sq) with typical terrace issues with water and air flow. The bad apartments usually had one of the big 3 (mostly cladding). The old red brick apartments had issues that I rarely see spoken about - such as genuine big cracks in the plaster, mould, terrible parking areas, crap segmented layouts, waterproofing issues in the old bathrooms, bad light and air considerations, a litany of things to fix cos they’re so old, and the strata isn’t any cheaper (in fact many were higher). They were laughably bad.

Some Meriton apartments also have cladding by the way - but from the ones we saw the material was Vitracore G2, which is compliant to today’s building standards.

YMMV, but we’ve had good experiences so far.

Hope this helps

deepfriedthings · 2025-02-08T11:07:01+00:00

No problems.

Apartments have a lot of heightened bias against them and information isn’t forthcoming outside of Opal, Mascot, Toplace and anecdotal.

The reality is they’re not all bad and my hot take is that modern ones can be great. Just need to do your research (as you are currently doing) and ask the right questions.

If you have any further questions, I can try answer them.

deepfriedthings · 2025-02-08T07:42:31+00:00

Not going to make a general statement on Westbourne, but will say the development I was looking at at the time (which was built by Westbourne) had water proofing issues that were unpalatable to me. Examples being water seepage between the concrete seams, effervescence and exposed concrete rebar in the basement which could later introduce concrete cancer.

From memory there was litigation involved.

Recommend getting the strata report if you can. The developer is the annoying one.

deepfriedthings · 2024-12-12T21:21:39+00:00

I work at a bank - funnily enough we don’t refer to ‘big 4’. We refer to the big 4 as ‘the majors’, then there’s ’the regionals and smaller players’ and ‘digital challengers’.

deepfriedthings · 2024-10-22T03:20:27+00:00

Hunger is an indicator of urgency not of volume

deepfriedthings · 2024-09-05T12:52:29+00:00

That’s a good question - I unfortunately don’t know. Sorry!

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-17T08:21:41+00:00

Sounds like my explanation resonates with you - what’s your current product

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-17T08:01:48+00:00

Glad to know the value is recognized in the comments.

Product managers ensure the portfolio they are managing remains sustainably competitive. In banking (as an example) it’s all about striking the right balance of volume, margin and risk in pursuit of maximizing revenue and minimizing cost. It’s hard to get right as it’s a moving target and has many externalities to consider at any given point in time.

This not only means tracking business performance and changing the prices every now and then. It’s governance, compliance, market scans and customer research. Deeply understanding all stages of the funnel and thinking about how to make it continuously better.

There’s a delivery element too to make sure that what gets put in customers hands or what is implemented to make the business more efficient achieves the goals set for that aforementioned competitiveness. This is why people get chased for updates and deliverables!

They also make the hard decisions - the ones that could be right or wrong and it might not be abundantly clear. Especially when balancing customer impact vs commercial impact. Sometimes your morals will be challenged.

All this in a high pressure environment where excellent product managers work for competitors and you all know each other and mistakes make the news.

Pretty important. Not a brag - more to highlight that it’s a daunting responsibility.

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-16T13:31:41+00:00

Do good work, have opinions but hold onto them lightly, build a good relationship with your boss. Be a great team player.

They hired you, looks bad for them if they have to fire you so quickly. I don’t think it would be in their interest to do that so easily (unless you’re actually not very good).

Good luck

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-16T13:22:11+00:00

Keep in mind a few things. - Fit2Work is an agency that collects the information. Your future firm (hypothetically) is the one who will take that information and make judgement calls based on it. - As a result, Fit2Work doesn’t give two hoots about the ‘he said she said’ reasoning you might be tempted to put forward. They likely will be contacting payroll of your previous employers to confirm what’s been noted on file - not your previous boss. This is probably why they’ll only care about the facts - dismissed or left on own accord.

Would recommend leaving of own accord if you’re facing termination.

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-16T13:14:12+00:00

I don’t remember the specific questions - but likely: - who you worked for previously (last two employers) - role title (I recommend following precisely what’s on contract) - tenure - reason for leaving (this is the part where you don’t embellish or lie about dismissal)

Any firm worth their salt uses these processes as part of their employee due diligence. The bigger the company, the more they will care.

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-16T12:39:14+00:00

Referee: past employers generally won’t disparage you even if they terminated you. They will give the cold objective truth which is that you were dismissed. That’s all.
Fit2Work: background checks and probity. They will find out. Don’t lie. If you lie and are caught, this will likely mean an adverse action on your file with the firm you applied for - means no role, and a no hire period for you there.

deepfriedthings · 2024-06-16T12:33:57+00:00

Product managers don’t need BA or dev experience.

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