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
Bali tourism leaders push for crackdown on illegal rental villas
Paul Stevens Short Term Rentalz (No paywall)Indonesia: Tourism leaders in the Indonesian province of Bali are set to launch a crackdown on holiday rental villas being operated illegally without the correct business registration documents. Villas in Bali are required to be built according to Indonesian safety standards, while the businesses operating those properties must pay tax in Indonesia and employ staff in line with Indonesian law in order to be legally recognised.
https://shorttermrentalz.com/news/bali-crackdown-illegal-holiday…
# Hot topic International, .Squeezed out of the market: Why is renting so difficult in the Netherlands?
Eleanor Butler Euro News (No paywall)The Dutch government is rolling out a law to cap excessively high rental costs. Economists are divided on the subject. Speak to housing experts in the Netherlands and many will paint you a gloomy picture. As in other EU countries, rental costs are skyrocketing, supply is constrained, and homeownership remains unattainable for many. According to the most recent data from the country's national statistics office, rents rose by an average of 5.4% year-on-year in July 2024. That's the largest average rent increase since 1993.
https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/12/13/squeezed-out-of-the…
# Hot topic International, Rent.The Sydneyist - Is Sydney becoming a ghetto for the rich?
East Side FM (No paywall)Is Sydney becoming a ghetto for the rich? The Selwyn Street boarding houses have become a test case for affordable inner-city living. Mike Mannix has been leading the fight to save them, and the 30 people they house. Tonight Mike Mannix joins Elizabeth Farrelly on The Sydneyist to give us the latest in this battle for fairness and decency.
# Audio NSW, .John will be evicted from his ‘forever home’. He has nowhere to go
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Retired postie John Patmore looks sadly around his cluttered single room in a Paddington boarding house and sighs. “This was meant to be my forever home,” said Patmore, 70, gazing at the table covered in his worldly possessions, the rickety screens hiding his bed in the corner and the tiny kitchen alcove he has to inch into sideways to get past the fridge. “I thought I’d be able to live here ’til the day I die after my super started to run out. But now … This place is going to close on January 31, and we’re all being kicked out. I’ve got nowhere to go. It’s just so overwhelming.” Patmore is one of 32 battlers living in two old boarding houses on Selwyn Street which have been bought by a developer who plans to turn them into four luxury houses and has notified all residents the power will be cut off and the locks changed on February 1.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/john-will-be-evicted-from-h…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers.Rental pressures in the Northern Rivers
Monica Adair NBN News (No paywall)Real estate agents in the Northern Rivers say even more locals are getting into share house arrangements to cope with the cost of rentals. It comes as prices jumped again – in the last three months of the year.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2025/01/14/rental-pressures-in-the-no…
# Video NSW, Rent, Share houses.I’ve had four housemates in three years. And I’m not the problem
Meg Kanofski The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)I’ve had four housemates in three years. And I’m not the problem. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is doing away with the company’s fact-checkers at the very time we need them most – to verify applications for the role of roommate. Gen Z likes to claim Facebook is their parents’ domain, but there’s one thing they do use it for: tracking down a place to live. Penry Buckley reported this week that the popular “Inner East & West housemates” group, where Sydneysiders can find or fill a spare room, boasts more than 55,000 members.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-ve-had-four-housemates-in-…
# Must read NSW, Rent, Security and safety, Share houses.‘You’re competing with so many others’: Inside the weird world of rental speed-dating
Penry Buckley The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)“We are seeking someone mature (25+), tidy, and looking to make a long-term home,” reads a recent post in a Sydney housing Facebook group with more than 88,000 members. The post, which has dozens of likes and comments, continues: “We are pro-Palestinian liberation, and queer, SW [sex worker], and neuro-spicy [neurodivergent] friendly, so maybe don’t apply if you’re not okay with those things.” Long lines outside inspections have become a fixture of Sydney’s rental market, but for those looking to find or fill a room on an existing lease, a stranger phenomenon has emerged.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/you-re-competing-with-so-man…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Share houses.Jackie was sick of the Sydney rental market, so she moved to London
Daniel Lo Surdo The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Jackie Olling swapped Darlinghurst for London’s East End last year, realising the ambition she dreamt about in the years of pandemic lockdowns. Olling, 31, was paying $400 per week for her two-bedroom Darlinghurst terrace, just behind Oxford Street. She now lives a few kilometres from the London namesake, with the $65 in additional rent easily offset by the 50 per cent pay rise she secured landing a marketing job in the UK.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/jackie-was-sick-of-the-sydne…
# NSW, .