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
Backbenchers push government to take on tax reform
Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Liberal backbenchers are calling for wide-ranging tax reform, including clawing back capital growth from wealthy homeowners, in a bid to repair the budget, increase productivity and bolster Australia’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. ... Liberal MP John Alexander also wants an overhaul of CGT on high-priced homes to recoup large value rises from land rezoning and infrastructure developments, and generous tax benefits for property investors to be curtailed when there is substantial market growth. “[I have advocated for] negative gearing laws to be modified in an effort to bring the market back to a fair market of wage earner competing with wage earner for shelter and not giving investors an advantage,” he said. This would be a form of tax lever changing as required, limiting what percentage of an investors’ expenses are deductible and therefore how generous negative gearing tax breaks are for investors in a hot market.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/backbenchers-push-govern…
# Australia, Housing market, Tax.Towards an Australian social housing best practice asset management framework
Andrea Sharam, Sean McNelis, Hyunbum Cho, Callum Logan, Terry Burke and Peter Rossini AHURI (No paywall)This research examines social housing asset management (AM) in Australia and develops a best practice framework that outlines AM processes and criteria for making decisions; reflects the unique aspects of social housing; is flexible enough to be used by different types of social housing providers; provides metrics to drive organisational excellence; and provides the basis for national regulation and policymaking.
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Landlords and agents.Covid confusion as strata mask orders remain
Jimmy Thomson (No paywall)Building managers are taking down signs requiring residents to wear masks, strata committees are telling tenants and owners that masks aren’t required on common property and everybody in strata land is loving their mask-free lives. The trouble is, the law hasn’t changed. The latest public health order and the advice on the NSW Health website both say the same – masks must be worn on indoor common property areas in residential buildings. The confusion can probably be traced back to the Service NSW government app for smartphones which, in its Covid-19 Resources page says, “You must wear a face mask in all non-residential indoor areas, including public transport.” There is no mention of strata common property areas. ... Jane Hearn, Covid-19 spokesperson for the Owners Corporation Network has confirmed this in a note to OCN members, and she is worried that people aren’t aware that the risk of infections will probably increase as restrictions are relaxed. “I don’t think people understand yet that with more mobility and interaction there will be more infection. The risk has just gone up not down (yet),” she says. (Flat Chat)
# Hot topic NSW, Strata, Coronavirus COVID-19.On brink of evacuation after defects warning
(No paywall)A perfect storm of disagreeing experts, extreme caution, genuine fears for safety, has taken an apartment block to the brink of being evacuated this week. Add in concerns about property values and NSW’s hopeless consumer protections for apartment owners and the residents of the Vicinity apartment tower in Canterbury, in Sydney’s south-west could be in for a rough ride. (Flat Chat) There's an earlier blog on 'Flat Chat' at: [https://www.flat-chat.com.au/unsw-unit-defects/]
# Hot topic NSW, Strata, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.‘I just want to go home’: the locked-out Queenslanders trapped in no man’s land
Susan Chenery The Guardian (No paywall)Hundreds of people are stuck in northern NSW, living in cars and tents – and running out of time. ... Surrounded by cane fields that stretch out to the Border Ranges, the showgrounds in the northern New South Wales town of Murwillumbah are normally spectacularly pretty. But this week, when the ranges were lost in mist and rain was coming down, it was decidedly desultory. In the camping area of the showgrounds, people have set up makeshift homes. Some this week were succumbing to depression and despair. Everything was wet: feet, socks, bedding. Across the border in Queensland 20km away, they have homes, lives, jobs, families. Life goes on mostly as normal. There are estimated to be hundreds of people stuck in the border zone between NSW and Queensland; many living as though homeless, reduced to accepting donations from the community; locked out, helpless, displaced and desperate.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/16/i-just-want-to-g…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Greens promise huge cash splash to build 1 million affordable homes
James Masola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Greens will fight for 1 million publicly owned, affordable homes to be built over 20 years if they hold the balance of power after the next federal election. The cost of the ambitious election policy – which the Parliamentary Budget Office warns is “uncertain and highly sensitive to the speed of construction” – is an estimated $7.5 billion over four years, and $22.9 billion over 10 years. ... Under the plan, a new federal Housing Trust would be established to construct and manage the new housing, in partnership with states, territories and community housing providers. ... Tenants in Trust homes would pay the lower of either 25 per cent of their income or market rent.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/greens-promise-huge-cash…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Federal Government.Northern Ireland social landlords extend agreement not to evict over pandemic-related arrears
Nathaniel Barker Inside Housing (Paywall)Social landlords in Northern Ireland have agreed to extend their commitment not to evict tenants who have fallen into rent arrears as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deirdre Hargey, the region’s communities minister, wrote to housing associations and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) asking them to extend the agreement until 4 May 2022. ... “I have asked the housing executive and housing associations to continue to honour this voluntary agreement until May 2022, in line with my recent decision to extend the emergency 12-week notice-to-quit period in the private rented sector.”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/northern-ireland-socia…
# International, Eviction, Coronavirus COVID-19.'Crime scene': Outrage overe $850pw rental
Alex Turner-Cohen (Paywall)From Melbourne ... Renters are outraged after being asked to fork out $800 a week on a house that is literally falling apart. The expensive rental can boast a ripped up kitchen, a backyard with graffiti on it and dirty walls as well as an exposed light bulb dangling precariously from the stairwell.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/outrage-over…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.