Old unit with parking at $1m, or new at $1.5m with none?

Market analysis · Strata

One bedroom, two risks — the real strata choice at 6 per cent

Around $1 million buys an established one-bedroom apartment with parking in Bondi Junction. New stock starts near $1.5 million — often with no car space at all. Each purchase carries its own risk, and at today’s rates, neither owner has a buffer left for the building’s surprises.

By Alan Weiss  ·  Weiss Real Estate  ·  August 2026

Here is what the Eastern Suburbs unit market actually offers a buyer right now. Around $1 million buys a one-bedroom apartment in a building that is 20 or more years old — and in Bondi Junction, that money typically comes with a car space, a secure building and amenities. New stock starts closer to $1.5 million, and at that price, frequently without parking at all. Two very different purchases — and each carries its own version of the same problem: at today’s rates, the owner has no buffer left for the building’s surprises.

The money first. The cash rate sits at 4.35 per cent after three increases this year, and the average new owner-occupier variable rate is running at roughly 6 per cent, per the Reserve Bank’s lenders’ interest rates data. Everything below uses that figure, principal and interest, 30 years, 20 per cent deposit.

Buyer one — $1 million, one bedroom, 20-plus years old, Bondi Junction

The loan is $800,000. The repayment is about $4,800 a month — $57,500 a year. In the first year, roughly $47,700 of that is interest; barely $10,000 reduces the debt. Add ordinary levies, council and water, and the apartment costs its owner close to $68,000 a year while everything goes right.

For that money, in a suburb like Bondi Junction, the buyer typically gets a car space on title, a secure building, and established amenities — a package the new market cannot match at any comparable price. What they inherit alongside it is age. The builder’s warranties expired long ago. The building sits outside every modern protection — no developer bond, no Building Commission compliance powers, which apply to buildings completed in recent years. And it is entering precisely the age at which the expensive systems fall due together: waterproofing membranes, balconies, concrete spalling, lift replacement, fire-safety upgrades to current standards. There is no developer to chase. The owners are the only source of money the building has.

So suppose the block — 24 lots — confirms membrane failure and the remediation quote is $1.2 million. The capital works fund holds a fraction of it, as underfunded schemes usually do. The special levy is $50,000 per lot, and the owner has three ways to find it.

Pay cash. To clear $50,000 after tax, an owner on a 39 per cent marginal rate (including Medicare) needs roughly $82,000 gross. A $50,000 levy is an $82,000 problem in salary terms.

Add it to the mortgage. Refinance $50,000 at 6 per cent over the remaining 29 years and the repayment rises about $300 a month — manageable, which is why most people do it. But carried to the end of the loan, it accrues roughly $55,000 in interest. The membrane costs this owner about $105,000. The levy doubles; it just does so slowly enough not to hurt on any one day.

Let the building borrow. Strata loans are unsecured commercial finance, priced well above home loan rates, repaid through everyone’s levies for years. The debt is relocated, at a worse rate, and the owner pays it anyway.

Buyer two — $1.5 million, new building, no car space

The loan is $1.2 million. The repayment is about $7,200 a month — $86,300 a year, of which roughly $71,500 is interest in year one. That is $28,800 a year more than buyer one is paying, before levies — and new buildings with lifts, basement services and facilities rarely run cheap levies.

For the extra half-million, the buyer gets less apartment in every measurable way except age: no car space, and a building with no track record. And this is where the second, quieter risk lives — overpaying. An older unit in Bondi Junction is priced by the resale market: dozens of genuinely comparable sales, in the same building or the street behind it, visible to anyone. A new apartment is priced by the developer — off construction costs, finance costs and marketing, sold in an environment built to remove comparison. There is no resale history in the building because there are no resales. The evidence from the last supply peak supports the caution: CoreLogic — now Cotality — reported that at the end of June 2019, 62 per cent of Sydney off-the-plan apartments were settling with a valuation below the contract price. My assessment, from watching this cycle repeat across the East for three decades: the first independent verdict a new apartment ever receives is its first resale, and it is not unusual for that verdict to land below the original contract price. The premium paid for newness is the one cost in this entire article that no levy notice ever announces.

What does the new buyer get in exchange? In theory, compliance-era construction and modern protections: the developer must lodge a bond with NSW Fair Trading against defects found in the first two years — lifted from 2 to 3 per cent of the contract price from 1 July this year — and Building Commission NSW holds real enforcement powers over recent buildings.

In practice, the odds are sobering. The Commission’s own 2025 Strata Defects Research Report found 53 per cent of surveyed buildings registered between mid-2018 and mid-2024 had serious defects in common property — waterproofing the most common at 22 per cent, fire safety systems next at 16 per cent. Roughly a coin flip, in the very stock commanding the $1.5 million price. And a 3 per cent bond is a fraction of what a serious waterproofing failure across a large building actually costs to fix. The protections are better than nothing — I’d rather have them than not — but they are a deposit against the problem, not insurance for it.

The honest comparison

Set the two side by side and the asymmetry is hard to ignore. Buyer one pays $1 million for parking, security, amenities and a price verified by decades of resales — and inherits a maintenance cycle the owners alone must fund. Buyer two pays $1.5 million for none of those things, a materially heavier debt, a one-in-two statistical chance of a serious defect somewhere in the common property, and a purchase price no independent market has ever tested.

What decides the outcome in both cases is the same thing: the scheme’s governance, and the diligence done before exchange. The levy history over five years — a suspiciously cheap levy is a starved capital works fund, and a starved fund is a special levy on delay. The fund balance against the 10-year capital works plan every NSW scheme must keep. Three years of AGM and committee minutes, where defect disputes and insurance blowouts leave a paper trail long before they reach a contract. For new buildings, the bond position, the defect inspection reports — and the resale evidence for anything remotely comparable nearby, because that, not the display suite, is what the apartment is worth. For old ones, the last engineer’s report on the membranes, the lift, the concrete.

After 35 years and more than 1,000 sales across the East, my rule is blunt. At 6 per cent, with no slack in anyone’s budget, the gap between a well-governed scheme and a poorly governed one — and between a market-tested price and a developer’s price — is no longer a rounding error. It is the whole investment case.

Methodology & sources. Cash rate 4.35 per cent per the Reserve Bank of Australia, effective 17 June 2026. Average new owner-occupier variable rate of approximately 6 per cent per RBA Lenders’ Interest Rates data, June 2026. Defect prevalence figures per the 2025 Strata Defects Research Report, Building Commission NSW in partnership with Strata Community Association NSW (buildings registered July 2018 – June 2024, four storeys and above; 520 responses). Off-the-plan settlement valuation figure per CoreLogic (now Cotality) research to end June 2019. Strata building bond per the Strata Building Bond and Inspections Scheme, NSW Fair Trading. Loan calculations are arithmetic at the stated rate and term; the 24-lot remediation scenario, levy amounts and marginal tax rate of 39 per cent (including the Medicare levy) are illustrative assumptions. Assessments of market behaviour, new-apartment pricing and the outlook for rates are my own, based on my experience in the Eastern Suburbs market, and are not sourced forecasts.

Disclaimer. This article is general commentary only and does not constitute financial, legal or property advice. Figures are indicative and subject to change. Obtain independent professional advice, including a strata records inspection and legal review, before purchasing any strata property.