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
NSW floods could expose underinsurance. Here’s how to protect yourself
Matt Johnson The New Daily (No paywall)Another year, another ‘once-in-a-century’ natural disaster. Flooding on New South Wales’ mid-north coast has thrust non-insurance against climate change risks into the spotlight after the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) declared a catastrophe.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/your-budget/2021/03/22/underi…
# Australia, .Risk of 'abrupt stop' in housing market, economist says
Susan Edmunds (No paywall)From New Zealand ... New Government policies intended to shift the balance of the property market more in favour of first-home buyers risk bringing it to a “more abrupt stop” than intended, a leading economist says. A range of new measures were announced on Tuesday, including $3.8 billion for infrastructure, an extension of the bright-line test that means some investors pay tax on their gains when they sell properties, and the removal of interest deductibility. This last point will be important to many investors. ... ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said '... In my view it’s well worth sacrificing a bit of economic activity at this point to head off house prices that are doing so much damage to our society'. (Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300259437/risk--of-abrupt-stop-…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.'The worst I've ever seen': The appalling and 'unliveable' council housing conditions some have endured during lockdown
Daniel Hewitt (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... It is impossible to put into words the appalling conditions we found people living in, in Croydon, south London. Not even the pictures you can see below do justice to the dangerous squalor residents, some of them young children, have been forced to endure for months. Before you even see the black mould and the damp inside the flats, you can smell it in the corridors. (ITV)
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-22/the-worst-ive-ever-seen-the-…
# Video International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Mould.Flood insurance costing $30,000 highlights which areas should not be developed for housing
Michael Janda ABC (No paywall)Thousands of the people enduring the heartbreaking sight of their homes sinking beneath a rising brown tide across the east of NSW are doing so knowing they don't have insurance coverage. ... The reason so many are uninsured is either that their insurer won't offer flood protection at all, or that it is prohibitively expensive, with residential premiums of up to $30,000 a year being cited. ... State Emergency Service planner and former deputy commissioner Chas Keys has [said] ... "We are putting thousands and thousands of people on flood plains between Penrith and downstream of Windsor in the valley of South Creek and the valley of the Hawkesbury proper," he said. "Now flood plains are bound to flood, they are designed by nature to flood, and we are aiming to double the population of the Hawkesbury-Nepean over certain years, to me there is a certain insanity in that."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-23/flood-insurance-costing-3…
# NSW, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government.Targeting New Zealand's property speculators is popular, but won't fix the housing crisis
Bryce Edwards The Guardian (No paywall)Property speculators have become public enemy number one in New Zealand’s rampant housing affordability crisis. Those buying, selling and renting out multiple properties have become wealthy at the expense of those in the middle and at the bottom of the market, who are paying high rents and struggling to afford to buy decent housing. It is no surprise therefore that the housing announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues on Tuesday was firmly focused on reining in those investors driving up the prices – with the most significant elements of the package designed to hit investors with increased tax responsibilities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/23/targeting-new-zeal…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Melbourne house prices tipped for biggest surge in a decade
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)House prices are tipped to grow at their fastest pace since the late 1980s, with Melbourne prices expected to lift by 16 per cent this year, the largest single-year increase since 2010.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-house-prices-…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.We need not live on the edge, where fire and flood will overrun us
George Morgan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)One of the hallmarks of western “civilisation” is our belief that we can master the forces of nature through the power of reason. Ever since our ancestors first gathered in cities about 6000 years ago, they believed that engineering know-how would make us less vulnerable than those in the hinterland. But at certain moments this belief seems like hubris. ... The extreme weather associated with climate change has thrown into question the way we build our cities.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/we-need-not-live-on-the-edge…
# Hot topic NSW, Planning and development.How to improve public health, the environment and racial equity all at once: Upgrade low-income housing
Jonathan Levy The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... As an environmental health researcher, I have studied ways in which inadequate housing influences health and disproportionately affects low-income families and communities of color. In my view, retrofitting low-income housing in particular is a high-leverage way to tackle some of our nation’s most pressing health, social and environmental challenges.
https://theconversation.com/how-to-improve-public-health-the-env…
# International, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Health, Housing market, Human rights.