Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Affordable housing monitoring
(No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... We've created an affordable housing monitoring tool which can provide clear, accessible, accurate and up-to-date information on affordable housing in Southwark. (Southwark Council)
https://www.southwark.gov.uk/innovate/collabrative-project/affor…
# International, Affordable housing, Local Government.Renters left to freeze in poorly insulated homes
Jarni Blakkarty (No paywall)When Alex Bayley moved into their Californian bungalow in the Victorian town of Ballarat in 2013, they had no idea how cold it was going to get. In winter, the temperature inside drops to about 2°C overnight, but without enough money to run the heater, there's no option but to suffer through the cold.
https://www.choice.com.au/money/property/renting/articles/renter…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.House prices: Landlord sells rental to tenant below market value
Ben Leahy (No paywall)From New Zealand ... Arpit and Hinal Patel arrived at a small, Far North unit in 2017 simply looking for a rental. Yet, as they stepped inside the Kaitaia flat, they were actually walking into the first home they would ever buy - they just didn't know it yet. That's because they had chosen to rent from Jane, a landlord passionate in her belief that property investing came with social responsibility. (New Zealand Herald)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/house-prices-landlord-sells-rental…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Landlords and agents.It’s an ‘aged-care budget’... but will it deliver or kick the can down the road?
Rachel Lane The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)In the wake of a damning Aged Care Royal Commission, Prime Minister Scott Morrison set high expectations for a big jump in industry funding in this year’s federal budget when he described it as “an aged-care budget”. However, it now appears that the government is trying to manage those expectations, with informed opinions circulating in Canberra suggesting that an additional $10 billion in funding for the aged-care sector is imminent – but stretched out over the next four years.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/it-s-an-aged-c…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.Social housing waiting list could fill a town larger than Gladstone
Felicity Caldwell The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)There are so many people waiting on the social housing register, they could fill a town larger than Gladstone as Queensland faces a major housing “crisis”. More than a dozen of Queensland’s leading community organisations have launched a campaign, Town of Nowhere, calling for the state government to invest $4.1 billion to build 14,700 homes.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/queensland/social-housing-waitin…
# Australia, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Campaigns and law reform, Families, Homelessness, Women.Economists’ high-rise study a low blow for heritage activist
Tony Moore The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The introduction of high-rise developments in tin-and-timber suburbs do not have a negative impact on neighbourhoods’ character, a Sydney study has found – but a Brisbane community group says the assumptions that led to that conclusion are well off the mark. Centre for Independent Studies economists Peter Tulip and Zachary Lanigan studied five developments in Sydney and found high-density living might transform but not necessarily harm a suburb’s character based on property prices. ... Dr Tulip said while house prices and rents were not social qualifiers, they were “a way of gauging the character of a suburb”. ... [However] In one of Brisbane’s oldest suburbs, Kangaroo Point heritage activist Lori Sexton said house prices were not an effective measure for the impact on a suburb’s character.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/economists-high…
# NSW, Rent, Heritage listings, Housing market.When the coronavirus supplement was cut, single mum Leanne's darkest days returned
Rhiana Whitson ABC (No paywall)It's been almost a month since the federal government drastically reduced the coronavirus supplement to $50 a fortnight from its peak of $550. For anyone, that's a lot of money. But for single parents, many of them women, the extra cash offered them a taste of a better life, says Terese Edwards, the chief executive of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children (NCSC). ... But now, the dark days have returned.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-30/coronavirus-supplements-j…
# Australia, Rent, Families, Homelessness, Welfare, Women.Housing affordability: Rise of Bank of Mum and Dad fuels inequality in hot market
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)We knew house prices were booming, but it’s a shock to see how much. ... Record prices are a reminder we still have a housing affordability crisis, even if it has slipped from public debate in recent years. And the boom risks pushing home ownership even further out of reach for many, making inequality worse. UNSW housing researcher Chris Martin is blunt about the problem: although ultra-low interest rates make it cheap to pay off a mortgage, that’s no help to someone who hasn’t got a deposit. ... "Over the last few months, there have been first-home buyers getting back in [to the market] in a pretty big way,” said Dr Martin, a senior research fellow at the UNSW City Futures Research Centre. “But doing that on the back of rising house prices makes me think they are doing it with a lot of help from people who are already in.” That is, the Bank of Mum and Dad ...
https://www.domain.com.au/news/housing-affordability-rise-of-ban…
# Hot topic Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.