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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Archive
Sydney’s heritage homes: take a look inside the historic gems these homeowners have restored for modern living
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)At Australia’s oldest continuously working farm, the 204-year-old Glenfield Farm in Sydney’s south-west, Jennifer French sat at the dining table in her first winter there, wondering if she’d done the right thing buying it. ... Heritage homes in the city are often no less tricky to restore, maintain and live in. Dominic Emmett, a partner with lawyers Gilbert + Tobin, bought a near-derelict “Georgian gentleman’s townhouse” at Dawes Point, close to The Rocks, 10 years ago ... [Read on]
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydneys-heritage-homes-take-a-loo…
# NSW, Heritage listings.Landlord power is not just bad for tenants. It harms homeowners, too
David Renton The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... For some time, it has been government policy to privilege the interests of private landlords over other homeowners. This process began in the mid-1990s when banks introduced buy-to-let mortgages, which assessed buyers’ creditworthiness on the rental yield from the property, rather than their existing income. Easy finance gave landlords an advantage over first-time buyers. Buy-to-let landlords have also enjoyed tax relief: mortgage interest relief, and a wear-and-tear allowance.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/10/landlord-p…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Booming prices send home buyers interstate
Preshant Mehra The New Daily (No paywall)Late last year, Sydney man Matthew Brophy finally found a way around the housing affordability problem. He and his wife decided to relocate, purchasing a house about 13kms from Brisbane’s CBD. Mr Brophy, a school teacher in his early 40s, grew up in Sydney’s northwest and had been keen to settle in the area. ... Mr Brophy is part of a growing trend of prospective home buyers heading interstate.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/04/10/booming-p…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing market.Cord collectors and scavengers: inside the race to rescue hard rubbish
Bianca Hall and Chloe Booker The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)With [hard rubbish] picking, opportunities are infinite. I can be an art dealer, an archaeologist, a PC technician and electronics recycler
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/cord-collectors-and-sca…
# Australia, Health.Sydney’s hamlet tragedy: urban sprawl conquers all
Elizabeth Farrelly The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)We don’t do villages. What we do, with so much wealth and choice, is just two things: developer high-rise and developer sprawl. That’s it. Two building-modes and both – in the absence of anything resembling planning – are developer-driven. The latest instance is Lendlease’s egregious despoliation of Mount Gilead – now rebadged Figtree Hill.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/sydney-s-hamlet-tragedy-urba…
# NSW, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government.‘Sorry Yarra, you had your chance’: Social housing stoush exposes Labor-Greens tensions
Bianca Hall and Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The chance to build social housing next to Collingwood Town Hall is all but lost, after Housing Minister Richard Wynne said he would no longer work with the Greens-dominated local council on a housing project, in a fight that foreshadows the 2022 state election in his marginal seat.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/sorry-yarra-you-had-you…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Local Government.No rent rise threat from Government housing policy, Westpac says
Rob Stock (No paywall)From New Zealand ... Westpac expects house price inflation to flatten over the rest of this year, with “moderate” falls over the next few years as longer-term interest rates rise. But the bank’s economists say renters can stop worrying about the prospect of rents rising significantly, despite threats from disgruntled landlords. Acting chief economist Michael Gordon said some of those landlords might be wise to take the opportunity to sell up to their tenants now. “The planned changes to the tax treatment of property investors are perhaps the most meaningful intervention into the housing market in decades,” Gordon said. (Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124796433/no-rent-rise-threat-f…
# International, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Damage bill from natural disasters to treble by 2061
Matt Wade and Nick O'Malley The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)More frequent and intense natural disasters fuelled by climate change are forecast to cost NSW between $15.8 and $17.2 billion a year by 2061 — more than three times the current damage bill from weather-related destruction.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/damage-bill-fr…
# NSW, State Government.