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
Rising land prices the main factor blocking new housing, report finds
Ahmed Yussuf ABC (No paywall)Australians might need to shift their thinking on how they live in order to address the housing crisis, experts say. The comments follow the release of a Housing Industry Association-Cotality report that found land prices have risen by about three times more than construction and labour costs since 2000. The report said land was the largest contributor to increased housing costs and found that government policies were impacting prices. "Land prices do not reflect the cost of dirt. They reflect the cost of making land ready for housing," the report reads.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-18/land-prices-blocking-new-…
# NSW, .$1 Auctions Return To Northern Rivers
Mirage News (No paywall)The NSW Government is bringing back one of Australia's most unique house sale programs with the return of the flood buyback auctions for 2026. To date, 130 flood-affected properties, bought by the NSW Government through the Resilient Homes Program, have been offered for sale to be relocated to flood-free land by the new owner.
https://www.miragenews.com/1-auctions-return-to-northern-rivers-…
# NSW, Disasters.Developers are “arborist-shopping”, so they can get on with tree chopping
Huw Bradshaw North Shore Lorikeet (No paywall)Across the North Shore, illegal removal and poisoning of trees in recent years has been rampant. In the last year alone, Ku-ring-gai Council has investigated 717 alleged breaches relating to trees, including illegal removal and suspected poisonings. While the state government has begun to move on illegal clearing — proposing increased fines and penalties — local arborists claim that legal loopholes pose an equally significant risk to trees.
https://www.northshorelorikeet.com.au/p/developers-are-arborist-…
# NSW, .Australian fascists and housing affordability
Mike Brown The Fifth Estate (No paywall)Housing affordability has already been alloyed with immigration by the hard-right and daily sharpened with resentment and deployed to infect and attack our parliamentary democracy. Khalil also charts the common strategies employed by hard-right proselytisers, including the use of internet forums to recruit, targeting the young, stoking resentment, and through appeals to free speech, attempts to shift popular political narratives rightwards by insinuating hard-right ideas into main-stream political discourse.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/australian-fascis…
# Must read Australia, .The radical alternative to Sydney’s $150m civic square plan
Julie Power and Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Woolworths and six other buildings opposite Sydney’s Town Hall would be saved from demolition with a public plaza carved from existing structures as part of a radical “what if” proposal to stir debate around Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s $150 million new public square. As planning accelerates on Moore’s plan, Sydney architects DunnHillam have floated the idea that the seven buildings in central Sydney could be repurposed for another 100 years of use instead of “the wholesale demolition” proposed by the City of Sydney.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-radical-alternative-to-s…
# Hot topic NSW, .How much debt households had when interest rates were 17 per cent, compared to now
Dan F Stapleton Domain (No paywall)Australian households are carrying almost three times as much debt as they were in 1990, most of which is housing debt, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows. Experts said the increased debt load was magnifying the impact of interest-rate movements on household budgets. “Interest rates are essentially the cost of debt, so if households have higher levels of debt, they’re going to be a lot more sensitive to the cost of that debt,” said Tim Lawless, Cotality research director, which crunched the data.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/how-much-debt-households-had-when…
# History Australia, .Is it smarter to have a dumb home? ‘We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets’
Katie Strick The Guardian (No paywall)When the smart home devices Elly Bailey was expecting in the post never showed up at her Gold Coast home, she was frustrated. As a technology reviewer, these products were crucial for her work. When she eventually found the cause, she had to laugh. It wasn’t a sticky-fingered neighbour or a rogue delivery driver causing her to miss parcels but her smart doorbell – the very thing she’d hoped would prevent missed deliveries, and part of exactly the range of internet-connected devices she was meant to be reviewing.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/18/smart-home-v-…
# Australia, Utilities water energy internet.A growing trend saw Max, 23, rent a room with a retiree 54 years his senior
Eleanor Wilson 9 News (No paywall)There's a 54-year age gap between Melburnians Laurie Darby and Max Flett, but the retired teacher had no problems welcoming her 23-year-old gardener into her spare room. With an empty bedroom and rising bills, Darby pitched the unconventional idea of intergenerational home sharing after Flett opened up about his own housing struggles. "She was just like 'I've got a spare room - how about you chuck me some cash and you can stay here as long as you need while you're studying'," Flett said.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/intergenerational-living-spare…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Share houses.