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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Expensive and in bad shape: how housing precarity makes life hard for older Australians
Piret Veeroja, Margaret Reynolds and Wendy Stone The Conversation (No paywall)Australia’s ageing population is colliding with a housing system under strain. More older Australians are facing multiple, often overlapping forms of housing precarity, including homes that cost too much or fall short on basic standards – or both. New research, launched today at Parliament House and commissioned by Housing for the Aged Action Group (HAAG), shows that such forms of housing precarity are affecting the health, wellbeing and financial hardship of mid-life and older Australians. They are also harming private renters and women the most.
https://theconversation.com/expensive-and-in-bad-shape-how-housi…
# Australia, Rent.How Ruth, her mum and her friends joined up to beat the housing crisis
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)When her ageing mother said she’d like to move interstate to be closer to her grandchildren, Ruth Giles had a dilemma. With no room in their townhouse and no space for a granny flat, she could try to find her mum an apartment somewhere close, but there wasn’t anything suitable around. Then she had a brilliant idea: what about getting together with a bunch of like-minded people, pooling their finances to buy land and then building a block of units that would suit them all?
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/how-ruth-her-mum-and-her-fr…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Landlords warned against big rent rises despite low vacancy rates
Anthony Keane The Australian (Paywall)Rental vacancy rates have been tightening across Australia, putting the nation’s 2.3 million property investors in a stronger position to lift rents, but real estate specialists suggest many landlords should take a different view. Despite investor frustrations following Reserve Bank interest rate cuts stalling after just 0.75 percentage points of cuts since February (having surged 4.25 percentage points in 2022 and 2023), the benefit of a good tenant usually outweighs any short-term cash boost. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show average rents rose 23 per cent between September 2020 and September 2025, after increasing just 1.1 per cent in the previous five-year period.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/wealth/property-investing/landl…
# Hot topic Australia, .Unaffordable rents no longer just a city problem as crisis engulfs regions
Cameron Micallef news.com.au (No paywall)Australia’s brutal rental crisis is spreading with unaffordable areas moving from the cities to regional parts of the country. Perth and regional Australia’s affordability have plummeted in the past 12 months, fresh figures from National Shelter, SGS Economics and Planning, and Housing All Australia show. SGS Economics Planning principal Ellen Witte told NewsWire that rental affordability was no longer an issue for traditional inner city suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne. “Over the years rental affordability was just in the cities, but as time went on and the crisis deepened we saw this spread to the suburbs, outer suburbs and now very regional areas,” she said.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/budgeting/unaffordable-ren…
# Australia, Rent.Dire housing affordability widening the wealth divide
Michael West Media (No paywall)Housing affordability has sunk to record lows, exacerbating the divide between Australia’s haves and have nots. Since March 2020, home values have climbed by 47.3 per cent, lifting the median dwelling value $280,000 to $872,500, property data firm Cotality found in its annual Housing Affordability Report on Tuesday. Over the same period, the median annual household income increased just 15 per cent to $104,390. Three out of four of Cotality’s affordability metrics – the price-to-income ratio, years to save a deposit, and the share of income needed for rent – have hit record highs.
https://michaelwest.com.au/dire-housing-affordability-widening-t…
# Australia, .Aussie housing is broken and these sold prices prove it
Brooko Moves (No paywall)These sold prices are pretty unbelievable when you consider these properties wouldn't have been worth even half just five years ago!
# Hot topic, Video Australia, .A Housing Complex Designed to Tackle Loneliness Wins Britain’s Best Building
Linda Poon Bloomberg (No paywall)Britain’s best new building is more than just a senior living center. The Appleby Blue Almshouse, which won this year’s prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize, brings one of the UK’s oldest forms of social housing to the modern era by incorporating designs that tackle loneliness and social isolation among older adults. The project is a modern enlarged version of an almshouse, a kind of charity-run social housing for low-income seniors that dates back to medieval times. Traditionally almshouses are tucked away on side streets or built in the countryside, with the idea of offering residents a quiet retreat from society. But leaders behind Appleby Blue felt that can leave people feeling disconnected from their communities.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-11-06/london-senior…
# International, Rent.Could new tenants’ rights usher in rent controls? Here’s why that wouldn’t necessarily be a positive
Nikhil Datta and Jan David Bakker The Conversation (No paywall)Housing and high rental costs have been a major issue for the UK in the past decade. While other countries have moved towards protections for renters, rent control has not been a widespread feature of the British rental market for over a generation. But now the new Renters’ Rights Act introduces provisions to protect tenants in England against rent increases. While the UK government says it “does not support the introduction of rent controls”, the act does allow tenants to appeal rent increases if they are above market rents.
https://theconversation.com/could-new-tenants-rights-usher-in-re…
# Hot topic International, Rent.