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
These Melburnians dreamed of a ‘communal approach’ to housing. The local council had other ideas
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)When a group of Melburnians banded together with a plan to build their dream homes, they did not envision the barriers they would face from local council. The proposed development of 21 townhouses overlooking a creek in Eltham, on Melbourne’s fringe, promised environmentally-conscious design, plenty of shared space and respect for heritage and the local neighbourhood. According to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, it was the type of project that “could and should have been supported and fast-tracked”, an “exemplar of an innovative approach” to dealing with the state’s housing crisis. Instead, the Brougham Street co-housing project was “met with substantial delays and opposition” from the local Nillumbik Shire council and residents group, in what VCAT said was a growing issue across the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/12/m…
# Hot topic Australia, .What's the link between low rental vacancy rates, housing crises, and unoccupied home taxes?
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Last week's federal budget included a special chapter on Australia's housing crisis. It was 42 pages long, and contained over 20 graphs, with Treasury officials taking time to explain the problems in our housing system. One graph showed Australia's rental vacancy rate hit a record low recently. But what is the vacancy rate actually signifying? If you think it's telling you about the total stock of rental properties in Australia's housing markets, that's not quite right. 'Vacancy' and 'unoccupied' are not the same thing. To visualise what we're talking about, this is the graph Treasury officials used in the budget to show the decline in rental vacancy rate. They say the number of dwellings available for rent has been falling in Australia since early 2020.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-19/housing-crisis-low-rental…
# Must read Australia, .'Little to no evidence' interest rate hikes are causing rent rises, no quick fix for housing crisis, RBA says
Daniel Jeffrey 9 News (No paywall)Surging interest rates have not caused rental prices around the country to skyrocket to record highs, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Thirteen increases have pushed the cash rate up from 0.1 to 4.35 per cent in the last two years, which has been cited as a factor in weekly rents growing at a rapid pace. However, RBA assistant governor Sarah Hunter has said there is no evidence to suggest landlords are directly passing on the rate hikes to their tenants, and that any link between rising rates and rents is a case of correlation rather than causation.
https://www.9news.com.au/finance/housing-crisis-australia-intere…
# Hot topic Australia, .Australia's housing crisis in 10 graphs, from the federal budget
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)The Albanese government knows Australia has a housing problem. It says the country is suffering from “historic underinvestment” in housing that's created a significant supply shortage. In its 2024-25 budget, it has dedicated an entire chapter to the crisis — a sign of how seriously the issue is considered. "Australia's housing system has been unable to build enough new housing stock to keep up with the needs of our population," it warns. "This has caused a growing supply deficit, resulting in worsening affordability for both renters and first-home buyers." In the special housing chapter, Treasury officials have illustrated the problem with more than 20 graphs. Here are 10 of the most illuminating ones.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-15/federal-budget-housing-cr…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Campers in central Victoria face eviction from own land by Mount Alexander Shire Council, despite rent crisis
Fiona Parker and Emma D'Agostino ABC (No paywall)Single mother Beck Meyers has a place to live, on land she owns, and she is quite comfortable and happy living there. But her home is a camp-style set-up that doesn't adhere to council regulations, so she, her two primary school-aged children, and her friend Nathaniel Muller, who co-owns the land with her, have been ordered to pack up and leave by the end of the week. Ms Meyers and her children have been living at the bush block at Campbells Creek, near Castlemaine, since September, when the lease on their rental property ended and they could not afford anywhere else. Mr Muller has lived at the site for longer. Now, they fear they will end up homeless. "It's absolutely bureaucracy gone mad," Ms Meyers said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-15/campbells-creek-property-…
# Must read Australia, Eviction, Rent, Security and safety.VIDEO: Renter says budget fails to address housing crisis
ABC News Breakfast ABC (No paywall)Adelaide renter Jo Newbury has been struggling with rising rent and says the budget has failed to adequately help the housing crisis. "I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we're a little bit disappointed, it was a bit of an out of touch response from the Treasurer in regards to what the renting crisis actually looks like for low-income earners."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-15/this-wasnt-the-early-30s-…
# Hot topic, Audio, Video Australia, .Cost of Living Secrets: Renting
Ricardo Goncalves, Peggy Giakoumelos SBS (No paywall)Rents have reached a record high in Australia as demand outstrips supply in some areas, elevating cost of living pressures for tenants. So what can be done about it?
In this episode of Cost of Living Secrets with Ricardo Gonçalves and Peggy Giakoumelos we speak with Emma Power Associate Professor in Geography and Urban Studies from Western Sydney University who shares her tips on: How to re-negotiate a rental increase; how to save money on energy bills while renting; what legal protections are in place for renters; the joys and pitfalls of share housing; and where to get help if you're struggling financially.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/cost-of-living-secre…
# Audio Australia, Rent.Single parents and domestic violence victim-survivors squeezed out of the tight rental market
Libby Hogan ABC (No paywall)When Megan's ex-husband locked her and her children out of their house, the mother-of-two suddenly had no home and no source of income. She said her family had been working and living on the farm in rural Victoria for more than a decade, until her ex-husband became increasingly abusive because of financial pressures. All of a sudden homeless, Megan and her children walked for two hours to reach the nearest police station with nothing but the clothes on their backs. "I just focused on getting the police officer's help … to go back to the house so we could get my son's school uniforms and books," Megan, who is using a pseudonym in this story to protect her identity, said. "And I needed to get my cancer medication as I was getting my nutrients through a feed tube."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/rise-in-single-mothers-th…
# Must read Australia, Domestic violence, Rent, Security and safety.