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
‘This isn’t safe’: NSW renters fight twin battles against mould and landlords
Jordyn Beazley The Guardian (No paywall)Once a month Paul sends his family out of the house. With a mask on and vinegar solution in hand, he gets to work scrubbing the mould off the roof and walls of his home. It’s in his bedroom, in the kids’ bedrooms and play room, the lounge room, the kitchen. A few days after the clean, it starts to reappear and Paul spot cleans the growth until it’s time for next month’s deep clean. Mould has been an issue in his Wollongong home since he moved in with his family a year ago. “It just keeps coming back and we’re getting no help from the real estate agent or the landlord.” ... Reports of mould spreading in homes has soared amid the deluge of rain and flooding across Australia’s east coast. The issue hits renters hardest, with some landlords refusing to do anything about it. “We hear from a lot of reports from tenants who’ve been struggling with mould and report it to their landlords or agents, and they will suggest it’s the tenant’s fault,” said Jemima Mowbray, policy and advocacy manager at the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/29/this-isnt…
# NSW, Rent, Health, Mould.War of words breaks out following new report into Queensland’s housing crisis
The Guardian (No paywall)The Queensland and federal governments are trading blows over the state’s housing after another report on the crisis. A new report from the Queensland Council of Social Services (Qcoss) says more than 50,000 households are currently on the waiting list for social housing. Qcoss warns the list could grow by 10,000 if the federal government proceeds with plans to scrap the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). “Women and children are returning to domestic violence situations and living in cars with newborns because there is nowhere else to go,” Qcoss chief executive Amy McVeigh said. “We need more homes.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/28/war-of-wo…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing market, State Government, Women.Locked out: housing has become a path to wealth, but renters have been left behind
Peter Hannam The Guardian (No paywall)Scott Morrison’s comment last month that “the best way to support people renting a house is to help them buy a house” was seized on by some as a “let them eat cake moment”. ... Groups from the Australian Council of Social Service to the Committee for Sydney have led calls to address housing affordability that have produced little substantial policy from the major parties, at least federally. ... As one senior member of the NSW government told me recently, housing has gone from an essential “roof over our heads” to a commodity for wealth accumulation and speculation. Federal and state policies had largely served to steer ever more money into the sector, favouring those already in the market.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/30/locked-ou…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.The RBA will raise interest rates — but not to the alarming levels the experts are predicting
Ian Verrender ABC (No paywall)Australia now finally is captive to real estate. We aren't the only country to have allowed this to happen. But we are one of the most egregious examples. Our banking system, which for decades has prospered on the back of soaring property prices, has become hostage to a $9 trillion monster. And while our politicians for years berated each other over relatively insignificant levels of government debt, they conveniently ignored Australia's real economic Achilles heel: household debt. That's now hobbled our central bank. It can't raise rates to anywhere near the level it may require without causing utter chaos. Perverse as it may seem, our perilous personal debt situation could be the saving grace for those who recently geared themselves up to the eyeballs. We simply can't afford to have so many go broke!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/rba-will-raise-rates-but-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.The European Responsible Housing Awards 2022: the finalists for Helsinki announced
(No paywall)For the fourth edition of the ERHIN awards, a joint initiative of Housing Europe, the International Union of Tenants (IUT) and DELPHIS, we received 70 submissions across five categories from 20 countries, and so, deciding on five winners and finalists was a challenging task for the Jury. We are delighted to announce the finalists of this year’s European Responsible Housing Awards.
# International, Public and community housing, Climate change, Housing affordability, Housing market, Human rights, Older people.The Mortgage Stress Problem, Discussed On The Radio
Martin North (No paywall)Nothing new, but I was able to contextualize the mortgage and home price issue. Years of poor policy and regulation. (Digital Finance Analytics)
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/the-mortgage-stress-pro…
# Audio Australia, Housing market.Shelter says 227,000 'no fault' evictions in three years is appalling
Charley Adams & James FitzGerald BBC (No paywall)Some 227,000 private renters in England have been served a "no fault" eviction notice in the past three years, a YouGov poll has suggested. Homelessness charity Shelter wants the government to scrap these evictions, saying losing a private tenancy is the second biggest cause of homelessness.
# International, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, Personal stories.First time buyers prepare for rate rises, parties battle over housing
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A quarter of a million home buyers in NSW and another 350,000 in Victoria in some of the country’s key swing electorates will face their first ever interest rate rise if the Reserve Bank, as expected, starts tightening monetary policy this week. As both major parties claimed their policies would help people get into the property market, economists and financial markets expect the sharpest lift in official interest rates since the country emerged from the global financial crisis.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/first-time-buyers-prepar…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.