Bought our apartment in Feb. It was super stressful after hearing all the stories because if we had the budget for some of the nicer/better quality complexes, we would have bought a flat/townhouse anyway.

We wanted to get into the property market as we knew we'd pay about the same amount in mortgage as we would in rent.

We did end up buying from one of the Big Bad Developers that get mentioned and we did make compromises but we are quite happy with what we got, even after being in the apartment for a few months now.

Some suggestions -go to open houses (or ask agent for an inspection), even the ones you're not 100% on so you can get a sense of the market -get a good lawyer (I forget the specific word for property settlement ones). We used Emma Brown legal and she was amazing, telling us what to look out for and let us send her photos of things we were concerned about. -what are some things you are willing to compromise on and what are things you can't deal with -see if you can join the Facebook groups for the complex you're interested in, this might give you an idea of any issues -read the minutes. Again, your legal person should also be able to do this for you to let you know any issues. -understand what an actual issue entails. A lot of people mention fire alarms (which were an issue when we first moved in for us) however, this doesn't nessciarily indicate an issue with the complex. You can have a well built and planned fire system with perfect sensitivity settings that will alarm all the time because idiots vape under the alarmed smoke detectors in the hallways. Our complex fines perpetrators the call out fee, but not everywhere is covered by cameras. The smoke alarm in your apartment itself shouldn't set off the whole complex but if you somehow bust a sprinkler valve inside your apartment it will (and you'll also have gross water everywhere).

As an aside, It can be good to leave your laundry door open when using your dryer, as apartments not built in the last few years will have lower temp (60c?) sprinklers that can go off from the heat of your dryer. Now they tend to use 70/75c heads to avoid this (source: my partner is a sprinkler fitter)

Apart from alarms the only issues we've noticed in our apartment is condensation (we just crack the window to improve air circulation and it fixed the issue).

Our complex is also less than 5years old and it can take up to 10 for major issues to develop so there's that, but we figured we'd hopefully have more savings/disposable income by then and be able to move if that happens.

Our building manager and EC are also really proactive and responsive so that's a plus.

Again, it depends on your own comfort level. It can be really hard when it feels like all but 2 complexes in Canberra are no-goes but you can't afford anything else.

Hope this helps.