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
‘We’re getting left behind’: Young people suffer under coronavirus two-track recovery
Matthew Elmas and Matt Johnston The New Daily (No paywall)It’s a discouraging forecast for recent nursing graduate Joshua Hermans, who wants to save for a deposit but won’t be in the market any time soon. Mr Hermans, 22, faces fronting up with a much larger deposit in five years’ time after current policy settings push up prices. “It’s frustrating,” he told The New Daily. “I feel like we’re getting left behind.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/01/25/coronavir…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Young people.‘Competitive advantage’: Call for curbs as property sector ramps up political donations
David Crowe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The property industry has ramped up its political donations to a fresh peak that takes its total funding to $54.2 million over the past two decades, finds new analysis that calls for curbs on the way big companies buy influence. ... [Geoffrey Watson, SC, diector of the Centre for Public integrity says] "Property developers rely on permits and licences to do business. This means that those companies with greater access and political favour are more likely to gain competitive advantage.” The Meriton Group met NSW ministers on at least 18 occasions between January and September last year, the analysis says, including talks on housing supply, the construction industry, tenancy relief, planning policy and the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more ...
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/competitive-advantage-ca…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Regional property price rises set to continue
John Collette The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The way COVID-19 is changing how people work is helping strengthen a trend that is seeing some regional house values track capital city prices higher. The coronavirus pandemic has made it more feasible for white-collar employees to work from home. Many are coming into the office for just one or two days a week. That appears to have reinforced a pre-COVID-19 tendency of people leaving big cities to take advantage of cheaper housing and a more attractive lifestyle. However, not all regional areas are seeing higher prices.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/regional-property-price-r…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Regional NSW.Private rents fall in UK's biggest cities by up to 12% amid Covid crisis
Rupert Jones The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Private rents in some of the UK’s biggest city centres have fallen by up to 12% in a year but have risen sharply in parts of northern England as some tenants swapped an urban life for the suburbs, smaller towns and villages.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jan/27/private-rents-fall…
# International, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.New Productivity Commission data prompts calls for more housing investment
Luke Michael Pro bono Australia (No paywall)Homelessness groups warn that Australia’s housing system remains in urgent need of repair. More than half of low-income private renters are spending unsustainable amounts on rent, despite the temporary boost to income support reducing the number of households in rental stress by more than 150,000.
New data from the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2021 shows that 50.2 per cent of low-income households privately renting face rental stress – defined as paying more than 30 per cent of their income towards rent. Read on ...
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2021/01/new-productivity-co…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Housing market.Report shows Sydney unit values shrinking as house prices reach record high
Jamie McKinnon ABC (No paywall)House prices in Sydney reached a record high at the end of 2020, but the harbour city's units have lost the most value of all capital cities, according to a new report.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/nsw-sydney-property-sees-…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Regional NSW.Sydney house prices reach record high, outstrip pre-pandemic levels
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Sydney house prices have reached a record high and outstripped pre-COVID-19 prices by nearly $50,000, with median prices jumping by six figure sums across in-demand pockets, new data shows. Sydney’s median house price is now a whopping $1,211,488 after surging by 4.8 per cent during the December quarter alone, the latest Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday, revealed. ... Apartment prices have also stopped falling, with the median nudging 0.2 per cent higher to $729,840 – still $20,000 short of the median recorded in the pre-pandemic March quarter.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-price-report-1020801/
# NSW, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.It’s our turn to borrow now as recovery plan shifts
Alan Kohler The New Daily (No paywall)The economic recovery plan has shifted from the government borrowing money and handing it to people and businesses, to the government offering to help with the deposit on a new house. In other words, the government is putting the brakes on its own borrowing by getting households to borrow instead.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/01/28/alan-kohl…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market.