Wysiwyg - I have read about your issues and it did put me off a little to be honest lol. That said the townhouse I looked at over the weekend was fabulous. Much bigger than anything free standing in the same price bracket, has the same amount of land being the end block, and one shared wall running through the lounge, kitchen/dining and main bedroom. It was terribly quiet in the area, though that's not to say people just weren't home when we went looking either. The strata fees have just gone up on the complex to cover maintenance that they have just run, and they have decided to keep them running at this current fee as they didn't have enough for the maintenance originally.

For a 3 bedroom, one bathroom, nothing overtly fancy, in a complex of 14 townhouses the rates and strata came to $3,000 per year.

I'm looking at something for us to live in for the next 10-20+ years lol. I hate moving!

Surprised - There are torrens options, but for the same price I am looking at significantly smaller, with a lot more to be done to bring them up to scratch generally. The one I saw above is ready to move into, no work to be done.

My big issue with 'renovators delight' is that I have no one to help me do the work, and a lot of them are filled with asbestos too. :/