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
The history of housing bubbles
Stan Correy ABC (No paywall)Housing bubbles have a tendency to burst—look no further than the experiences of Ireland, Spain and the United States in recent years—and the aftermath can be serious; the US collapse plunged the world into economic crisis. So is there a house price bubble in Australia’s capital cities? Stan Correy takes a look at the lessons from history. (ABC Rear Vision)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-his…
# History Australia, Housing market.The Enduring Fiction of Affordable Housing
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal (No paywall)From the United States ... These public-private partnerships skate by on their complexity and branding, but they undermine a future where housing is a right. ... Affordable Housing is a policy paradigm encompassing a number of financing strategies, from government grants and subsidized loans to tax breaks, local bonds, density bonuses, and other incentives. To use these benefits, developers are required to temporarily restrict rents on some of what they build, producing what is called “Affordable Housing:” privately owned, publicly subsidized rental housing. ...The financing strategies of Affordable Housing constitute the government’s total effort to produce new housing specifically for those who can’t afford market rents. They account for billions in government expenditure and foregone tax revenue. Yet they’ve largely avoided public scrutiny. (The New Republic)
https://newrepublic.com/article/161806/affordable-housing-public…
# International, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Landlords and agents, Tax.Rental scammers target desperate tenants during COVID-19 pandemic
Chelsea Heaney and Isabel Moussalli ABC (No paywall)Multiple strangers have shown up to Poppy Melas' home, ready to move in. But there is one major problem — her family home for over three decades is not for rent. Ms Melas' Darwin address has been picked up by online scammers who are preying on desperate and distressed people during the COVID-19 pandemic housing squeeze, and national statistics show the situation is getting worse. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said rental scams increased by more than 32 per cent from 2019 to 2020.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-03/nt-rental-scammers-target…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Hobart housing affordability is as bad as Sydney’s: NHFIC
Tawar Razaghi Domain (Paywall)Low-income earners in Hobart are unable to buy or rent the majority of properties on the market with the housing affordability crisis on par with some of the country’s most-expensive cities, new research reveals. The bottom 40 per cent of income earners in Hobart and Sydney are unable to afford to buy or rent 90 per cent of properties in either markets, according to the National Housing Finance Investment Corporation. Renters or potential first-home buyers who earn slightly more money are not much better off — even the bottom 60 per cent of income earners are only able to afford to rent or buy just 10-20 per cent of properties.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/hobart-housing-affordability-as-b…
# Research alert Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market.HomeBuilder fuels record house approvals
Colin Brinsden The New Daily (No paywall)Approvals to build private homes struck a record high in February, fuelled by the federal government’s HomeBuilder grants program which is due to end on Wednesday. ... HomeBuilder has driven strong demand for new homes across the country,” Housing Industry Association chief economist Tim Reardon said. ... The HomeBuilder scheme was introduced during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and late last year was extended to March, although the size of grants were trimmed from $25,000 to $15,000.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/03/31/homebuild…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.HomeBuilder: Cost of materials spikes as property market runs hot
Euan Black The New Daily (No paywall)Rampant demand in the renovation and home building sector is hitting customers with significant delays and pushing up the price of materials. And disruptions to international supply chains are only making matters worse.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/03/31/home-buil…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.Indigenous communities should dictate how $1 billion infrastructure investment is spent
Kerry Black The Conversation (No paywall)We finally have a chance to get it right. For the first time in history, Canada has launched a $1 billion investment dedicated to First Nations, Métis and Inuit infrastructure. The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) is establishing the Indigenous Community Infrastructure Initiative (ICII), which will enable the building of new infrastructure projects in Indigenous communities and help generate investments in projects that are vital to economic growth and environmental protection.
https://theconversation.com/indigenous-communities-should-dictat…
# International, Planning and development, Race and ethnicity.Down and out in Johannesburg: Understanding homelessness
Harriet Perlman and Sarah Charlton (No paywall)Sunday 21 March is Human Rights Day in South Africa. One of the rights in our Constitution is the right of ‘everyone to have access to adequate housing’. And yet homelessness is growing. In a series of articles being published over the next three days, Maverick Citizen asked homeless people to write about their experiences. First, an overview of the homeless crisis in Johannesburg.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-17-down-and-out-…
# International, Homelessness, Housing market.