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
UK family awarded over $18,000 after renting ‘unliveable’ New Zealand home, landlord seeks rehearing
Hannah Bartlett NZ Herald (No paywall)Broken appliances. A cracked hob. Nails sticking out of the deck with boards that flipped up when you stood on them. A faulty fireplace that sent smoke billowing through the house. And landlords who allegedly spied on them through security cameras. A UK family got more than they bargained for when they came to New Zealand for a new adventure and discovered the rental they’d signed up for, on a 12-month fixed term lease, was what they describe as “unliveable”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/uk-family-awarded-over-18000-after…
# Must read International, Rent, Repairs, Utilities water energy internet.Gap between average rents in north and south of England shrinks to lowest level
Jack Simpson The Guardian (No paywall)The gap in rents paid by those in the north and south of England has closed to its lowest level in at least 11 years, figures have shown. In its latest monthly lettings index, the property company Hamptons reported that the average rent paid by tenants in the north of England in August was £960 a month, an increase of 9.6% compared with the same period last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/sep/16/gap-between-averag…
# International, Rent.Affording a home in the U.S. increasingly seems like an impossible dream
Emily Pandise and Jo Ling Kent CBS News (No paywall)It is a desperate time for many Americans struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Erica Duvall often feels like keeping up with the rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her 9-year-old daughter is an "impossible" task. "I definitely make the most money that I've ever made…and it's still not enough to keep up," the single mom said. Duvall said her rent went up $100 when she renewed her lease in December, and she expects a similar hike this winter.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rent-apartment-home-prices-affordab…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Setting up a fierce debate, city-commissioned report recommends changes that would lower LA rent hikes
David Wagner LA ist (No paywall)In the city of Los Angeles, some 650,000 apartments are subject to local rent control. How much rents can go up each year has been the subject of ongoing controversy between tenants and landlords, who often disagree about what’s fair amid a regional crisis in affordable housing.The L.A. City Council, which sets policy, has been at the center of that tension.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/los-angeles-housing-…
# Hot topic International, Rent.UK house prices hit highest annual growth since 2022
Jack Simpson and Richard Partington The Guardian (No paywall)UK house prices are growing at their fastest annual rate for nearly two years as borrowing costs continue to fall on expectations that the Bank of England will keep cutting interest rates, Nationwide has said. The building society said prices grew by 3.2% in September compared with the same month last year, well above the 2.4% annual growth recorded in August, and the fastest pace since the 4.4% recorded in November 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/sep/30/uk-house-prices-hi…
# Hot topic International, .Landlord fined after tenants allegedly spied on each other with CCTV
Emily Power Domain (No paywall)A tenant who alleged he was spied on with living room CCTV installed by his flatmate has won $800 from the landlord. The spat between the tenants – who were once friends – landed in a tribunal, with their landlord accused of failing to protect the peace and quiet. Both renters installed cameras in the home to record each other, the landlord told the Irish tribunal. One of the renters sought compensation from the landlord of the Dublin house, for failing to act when he reported trouble with the second tenant.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/landlord-fined-after-tenants-alle…
# Hot topic International, Privacy and access, Rent.Most expensive UK city to rent outside of London revealed
Pedro Goncalves Yahoo News (No paywall)St Albans has been named the most expensive city to rent outside of London, with average advertised rents of £2,307 per month. Oxford came in second, with rents averaging £2,237 per calendar month (pcm), while Cambridge is the third most expensive, with average advertised rents of £2,072 pcm, according to figures from property site Rightmove. The national average advertised rent (outside London) is now a record £1,349 per calendar month, 5% higher than last year. This puts the average rent in St Albans some 71% over the UK average.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-expensive-city-rent-outside-…
# International, Rent.Axing negative gearing won’t cause a rental crisis. Here’s the maths
Saul Eslake The Guardian (No paywall)One of the great urban myths of Australian political history is that “rents went through the roof” after then treasurer Paul Keating abolished negative gearing for property investors in July 1985 and as a result was “forced” to reintroduce it in September 1987. In fact, this is an illustration of the saying that if a lie is big enough and you tell it often enough, it becomes accepted as the truth. The truth of this episode is that rents did rise at double-digit rates in Sydney and Perth during this period – but that was because vacancy rates had fallen to barely above 1% in Sydney, and to about 2% in Perth, by the first quarter of 1986.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/21/australia-…
# Must read Australia, Rent.