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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
EP. 1365 The 8th Wonder is Here—Don’t Fear, It’s Water…….?
Discover why waterproofing is regarded as the "eighth wonder of the world" in property management with our remarkable guest, Cleo Withear. With a wealth of experience spanning over 15 years, Cleo sheds light on the intricacies of waterproofing, sharing her journey from navigating challenging rooftop scenarios to understanding the hefty costs associated with non-compliance and aging buildings. As the trend of house flipping continues to rise, Cleo explains why waterproofing has become a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of property management.
Join us as we delve into practical advice on spotting potential waterproofing issues when purchasing property, such as bubbling walls and problematic terraces. We also explore the financial implications this can have on strata plans and owners' corporations. But it's not all doom and gloom; Cleo highlights effective temporary solutions like those offered by Mega Seal and the Shower Repair Center, which can help mitigate damage in older units. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone involved in property management or considering a property purchase, offering solutions to tackle one of real estate's most pressing challenges.
Guys, the eighth wonder of the world. You are probably going to be shocked by this. It's a new one. It's come up the last couple of decades In property, one of the biggest problems that we're having, and it is a wonder, and we've got some great tips for you today. Stay tuned. Real estate property manager expert, cleo Witte. Good morning to you, morning, mark. How are you good, good, good um. So, cleo, where with this morning, we started saying look, what are we? What are the? What's something you want to talk about with people, educate people, help people in property, particularly in property management, and you brought up waterproofing, the dreaded w word wow, and it's not great.
Speaker 1:You reckon the seven wonders of the world are mostly greek, do you?
Speaker 2:that well, I don't, I don't reckon it's actually fact um. But the eighth wonder is definitely waterproofing in property management world I think, and how.
Speaker 1:How did this happen? So you've been a property manager for 15, 20 years. Um has this, has this sort of evolved? Is Is there there's more of? Why is there more of it now? These issues.
Speaker 2:I believe it's due to compliancy, age of properties. And you know this whole unique thing where everyone's you know a house flipper, now a renovator they want to buy something. Add value, flip it, sell it, make money on it. Add value, flip it, sell it, make money on it. And waterproofing is a huge part of bathrooms, balconies, and to get that compliance certificate you have to have waterproofing and it has to be certified and then there's a warranty period and all these things that I never knew when entering the wonderful field of property management.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember a job I started with a unit in Lagoon Street, narrabeen, and it had a rooftop terrace and those planter boxes that went all around the top of the roof, sort of like the hanging gardens of Babylon that's one of the seven wonders and you could see it from the outside and it was beautiful.
Speaker 2:You know it looked like a tropical oasis but on the side you looked at the render and it was beautiful. You know, it looked like a tropical oasis but on the side you looked at the render and it was black and starting to drip down. And I managed a unit and the cornices inside the lounge were hanging off and it was all to do with these planter boxes and waterproofing. So, um, I became very um educated very quickly on that whole process and I didn't realise how much money it actually costs to do this. So we talked in our last segment about special levies and how they're raised. Well, this is one of the reasons Waterproofing is a huge expense to a strata plan and an owner's corporation. So that was, you know know, one example of waterproofing maintenance yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you're buying, um, keep an eye out for bubbling walls, keep an eye out for, uh, embedded built-in planter boxes or trees or stuff into your building, because, um, or large terraces, actually large terraces, um, because if that, if that underneath that, that membrane fails, um, you could be up for a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of a hell of a lot of money, but, um, there's a solution, there's a quick fix that you guys use, which I love, this company.
Speaker 2:I don't know why they're called mega seal yeah, they're very good for bathrooms and showers, and there's also the shower repair center. There's a lot of solutions and sealants that you can do a temporary fix for, especially in bathrooms. You look at a unit that was built in the 60s or 70s and you will often see concrete. Even though it's concrete, you'll see the effects of the shower leaking. Over time. It's all bubbled and the paint starts to come off the concrete wall and that's due to the? Um shower floor or tiles being compromised.
Speaker 2:There might not be any waterproofing at all, actually, um, but mega seal shower paste and they come in and they basically seal the whole shower, the, the tray in particular, and that seems to work for a good five or ten years, like it's, and they are um, very good at coming back if you do get a reoccurring leak. Um and um, I can't recommend them enough for bathrooms. Um, but the thing people don't understand with water and anything to do with waterproofing, it's not always just a one one shop stop, it's always. You know, a thing that has to be checked and it's reoccurring water can travel very far in a property where the problem could be the bathroom, but you're not going to see the. You know the water effects. It could be down the hall, it could be, and there's all these companies and people that have to get involved to kind of search where this leak is or where water is.
Speaker 2:It's really tricky and it's yeah, leak detection, and you know a terrace or, like you said, a big balcony. It's very obvious because it's going to be the roof and you can see it coming down from the roof. I've got a job that's been going on in fresh water for two years now. There's no solution. The rent is really low because the tenant's bathroom has a hole in the ceiling with exposed pipes and it's a leak. That only happens in extreme weather conditions and it's got nothing to do with the bathroom upstairs. It has nothing to do with the pipes. There's water coming through and it's taken many, many people to try and figure out. We've figured out that it's to do with the balcony door frame, so that has failed, and that waterproofing around the frame or whatever they use, the flashing um, so the door needs to be replaced and that's the reason that the bathroom in our unit we manage has leak.
Speaker 1:It's taken two years to find that wow, and I've seen some of these leak detection guys. They'll use like a blue dye or a red dye or something and then they'll actually try to penetrate where the leaks. They'll try to achieve that leak and then if they see blue dye, they go bang, that's where it's coming from. So they'll change the colour of their dyes and they'll change where they're trying to sort of create that problem. So this has been around for a long time, but why is there more of it? Like I don't understand, because growing up, you know, it didn't seem like there was as much around, whereas lately, the last 10, 20 years, it's like there's shit, tons more of it.
Speaker 2:You know what it's? A cash cow? It's a cash cow for all these companies that do these remedial works. I know they do a good job, but gosh, it's expensive and it's really time-consuming and you're kind of at the mercy of them.
Speaker 2:When you have a leak in a property with a strata plan, you have to get it fixed. The strata plan when you go to buy property and you ask the strata report if it has anything to do with water or leaks, it's. It's something that will put buyers off sometimes. So it's not a job that you can avoid or do. Why it's come about so much, I think, also to do with compliancy. Once you look at one thing and you start to rip it around, you find this certain you know other jobs or other compliancies that you don't have, and then strata make the owners corporation become compliant. It's like I'm this the smoke alarm, upgrades and all of that.
Speaker 2:We have a property where the waterproofing failed on the rooftop penthouse terrace. But they've figured out that now the railing isn't compliant, the joints aren't compliant because the way they've drilled into the slab will compromise the waterproofing. So now they're going to do all the railing quotes and it's blown out to like almost half a million dollars. And it's like, once you peel off one layer, how many layers of onion underneath can they find? And yeah, it's because we are so regulated, I feel, whereas before an owner could just go in and do a little seal.
Speaker 1:It probably holds for 10 years, who knows? Buy something at Bunnings, just fix it yourself.
Speaker 2:Renovate your whole bathroom from Bunnings on your own. Yeah Well, I think that's where this came about as well. A lot of these dodgy renos have caused a lot of problems with bathrooms in particular, so I do understand it, but I don't love it. It's probably one of my bains of maintenance when it comes to strata buildings but I do say talk to a pro.
Speaker 1:Uh, we'll navigate through these things better than people that don't have the experience. So talk to a pro property manager. Strata, manage people that have been through it before they'll. They'll guide you through it. I spoke with Lisa this morning at Property and Freshwater. They had a strata levy of $800,000.
Speaker 2:I mean $800,000. Wow.
Speaker 1:It's like. So, anyway, speak to a pro to navigate you through. Cleo. Thank you very much for discovering the Greek, the eighth, which is also Greek as well. Wonder World. What the poor thing. And it definitely is a wonder for me. It's, yeah, amazing, amazing have a great day everyone. I'll speak to you next Thursday. Lisa says 800 grand per apartment. Yeah, that's out of control.
Speaker 1:Anyway, thanks legend Speak soon, bye. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Have a great week. See you, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. I'm the ringleader, so let's get up.