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
The suburbs bucking the trend of falling house prices
Justine Kearney ABC (No paywall)While Australian home owners may be feeling a tad nervous after hearing house prices have fallen for the first time in 20 months, buyers will be sitting up and taking notes. ... Despite the country's most populous city leading the trend for house price declines, there are still pockets where growth is happening.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-02/suburbs-bucking-trend-fal…
# Australia, Housing market.Buy back of flood-prone homes should happen now, NSW mayor says
Michael McGowan and Christine Tondorf The Guardian (No paywall)Mayors and residents in flood-affected parts of northern New South Wales have called on the state government to push ahead with voluntary land buybacks without waiting for recommendations from an inquiry into the disaster. The premier, Dominic Perrottet, said this week that he would adopt recommendations from the independent inquiry, including any proposals relating to the possible relocation of homes in flood-prone areas.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/03/buy-back-…
# NSW, Housing market.It’s down tools as NSW government backtracks on Sunday construction
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW government has quietly backtracked on plans to permit Sunday construction just a month after telling builders and developers it was being examined as a means to alleviate pressures on the industry.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-s-down-tools-as-nsw-gover…
# NSW, Housing market.Rental crisis sees Dog Rescue Newcastle calling for more carers
Sarah Iuliano (No paywall)As people grapple with a housing crisis in the Hunter, man’s best friend is suffering too, with dozens of animals handed to welfare agencies in the past week. Dog rescue volunteers are calling for more foster carers, while tenants’ advocates want reform to prevent rental agreements banning pets. Listen to Nicole Grgas of Hunter Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service. Runs for 1:50 minutes. (NBN News)
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2022/05/17/rental-crisis-sees-dog-res…
# Video NSW, Discrimination, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.A grand housing alliance looms at last – if our new PM has the will
Michael Pascoe The New Daily (No paywall)In a speech this week, the RBA’s Assistant Governor (economic) Luci Ellis went to great lengths to explain what has not been normal about demand trends of late, starting with the surge in people moving out of their parents’ homes and share houses in search of space as the pandemic hit. It is an interesting speech for anyone interested in some of the more intriguing nuts and bolts of the housing market, but ... not once in 3500 words did she mention the stampeding herd of elephants in the room – the critical shortage of public housing. ... On the same day Dr Ellis delivered her speech, a NSW study showed the nationwide scarcity of social housing has meant people waiting as long as 10 years in some areas for a home. “A study by the UNSW City Futures Research Centre has revealed a 42 per cent drop in the number of households allocated social housing in the past three decades,” the SMH reported. “Meanwhile, the number of applicants with the greatest need has soared by almost 50 per cent in the three years to 2021.” The track record of state and federal governments is damning – half-heartedly semi-outsourcing public and social housing, barely maintaining existing numbers of homes while population and demand have soared and real, take-home wages have fallen. It’s another area where a change of government can change the nation. ... Opportunity is knocking for the new federal Labor government, supported by Greens and independents, to form a grand coalition with the states to seriously tackle the crisis for the first time, to agree to jointly add tens of thousands of public and social homes each year, not over several years.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2022/05/28/housing-policy-mic…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.Wollongong mum, three kids move into caravan park amid rental crisis
Tareyn Varley Illawarra Mercury (Paywall)A 44-year-old single mum who runs her own successful business and has an impeccable rental record is now homeless after failing to find a place for herself and three kids. Heather became another victim of the Illawarra's rental crisis last week when she was forced to find emergency accommodation at a caravan park in Towradgi. ... Tyler Filippi of MMJ Wollongong real estate agency has witnessed firsthand the increasing desperation of locals as hordes of Sydneysiders, no longer chained to their office desks, continue to migrate to Wollongong.
# NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Regional NSW.Smoking and social housing: Supporting residents, addressing inequalities
Action on Smoking and Health and the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... This joint report by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN) outlines the case for reducing rates of smoking in the social housing sector and the action needed to achieve this. The report is the product of collaboration between the public health and social housing sectors and aims to equip both sectors with the information required to progress action on smoking and improve the support available to people who smoke and live in social housing. The report also identifies Improvements that could be made at a national level which would better support local action on this important issue.
# International, Public and community housing, Health.Rent control: principles, practicalities and international experience
Ken Gibb and Alex Marsh (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... This short briefing paper provides examples of the range of contemporary international rent control or rent regulation practice as operated in the private rented sector (PRS), highlighting a small number of European examples in a little more detail. The paper considers and reflects on the evaluative criteria used to assess and appraise these policies, and reflect on what this means for the Scottish debate on an effective national rent control policy. This is a revised version of a briefing prepared at the request of the Scottish Government in January 2022, in relation to their ongoing work aimed at ‘introducing a national effective system of rent control’. Read the original full report entitled: 'Rent control: A review of the evidence base' (23 February 2022) at: [https://housingevidence.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/220215-Rent-control-web-ready.pdf].
# International, Rent, Housing market.