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
‘Not necessarily good news’: Property plunge no panacea for housing affordability crisis
Matthew Elmas The New Daily (No paywall)Hopeful home buyers have been warned that falling property prices won’t improve housing affordability, despite the average time taken to save a deposit blowing out to more than 11 years during COVID.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/05/12/housing-a…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market.Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast property prices cool but Corelogic's Tim Lawless says not to worry
Owen Jacques ABC (No paywall)Australia's most expensive real estate market outside of a major city is cooling but experts say it's not necessarily something to worry about. The Sunshine Coast, stretching north to Noosa and south to Caloundra, has the highest median house price of any regional area in the country at about $1 million after prices rose about 50 per cent through the pandemic. The prices even outstrip the Richmond Valley in northern New South Wales, which includes Byron Bay.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/real-estate-prices-sunshi…
# Australia, Housing market, Regional NSW.Why falling property prices are actually bad news for first home buyers
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Prospective first home buyers’ relief in seeing property prices fall could be short-lived as higher interest rates reduce the amount they can borrow and the gap between what they can afford and house prices widens. ... [Andrew Wilson, chief economist at My Housing Market, says] 'With low rental vacancy rates, investors are in a position pass on their higher borrowing costs to tenants with higher rents.'
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/why-falling-property-pric…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.‘We don’t want to be stuck to 300,000 homes a year target’
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Michael Gove cast doubt on the government’s manifesto promise to build 300,000 homes per year by the middle of this decade. The housing secretary admitted that the government was unlikely to build 300,000 homes this year, adding that ministers are doing everything they can “in order to ensure more of the right homes are built in the right way in the right places".
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/gove-we-dont-want-to-b…
# International, Housing market.St Vincent’s Hospital hopes for healthy return from deceased estate
Lucy Macken Domain (No paywall)The operator of St Vincent’s Hospital is hoping to cash in on the tail end of the Sydney housing boom by listing a row of five Victorian terraces in Darlinghurst for about $11 million. “The major factor for us in selling these properties is, simply, it’s time,” said a spokesperson from St Vincent’s Health Australia, the country’s largest not-for-profit healthcare and aged-care organisation.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/st-vincent-s-hospital-hopes…
# NSW, Housing market.Clive Palmer's United Australia Party is promising to cap mortgage interest rates. Can it be done?
Michael Janda ABC (No paywall)With the cost of living surging and interest rates rising for the first time in more than a decade, a cap on mortgage repayments would come as welcome relief for millions of borrowers. But can it be done and who would end up paying for it? Clive Palmer's United Australia Party (UAP) has been spruiking a 3 per cent, five-year cap on mortgage interest rates as the centrepiece of its election campaign. ... But how would it work?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/united-australia-party-mo…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.Vote to end older peoples' homelessness
Housing for the Aged Action Group (No paywall)It's just ten days until Australians make a historic choice in the Federal Election, and the potential of achieving our demands of More Housing, More Support, and Less Inequality hangs in the balance.
https://mailchi.mp/64aec79ab65c/older-tenants-voice-summer-editi…
# Australia, Campaigns and law reform, Homelessness, Housing market, Older people, Women.Homelessness is common for teens leaving out-of-home-care. We need to extend care until they are at least 21
Phillip Mendes The Conversation (No paywall)Young people transitioning from out-of-home care – whether it’s foster, kinship or residential care – are disadvantaged in many ways. Many have experienced abuse, neglect, family hardship or illness. They may feel long-term grief due to family separation. And while some enjoy stable placements with committed foster or kinship carers, others – particularly those in residential care, supervised by rostered staff – may experience instability as friends or support workers come and go. Most exit the out-of-home care system at 18, or younger, without ongoing support. Unfortunately, however, many such young people quickly encounter homelessness, unemployment and contact with the criminal justice system soon after leaving out-of-home care. Instead of leaving these people to fend for themselves at age 18 (or younger), we need a nationally consistent model of extended care that supports care leavers until age 21.
https://theconversation.com/homelessness-is-common-for-teens-lea…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.