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
How planning is failing to address race inequality in housing
Jess McCabe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United KIngdom ... Black people are more than three times as likely as white people in England to experience homelessness. Shelter research earlier this year concluded that one million Black adults (57%) in Britain and 1.8 million Asian adults (48%) do not have a safe or secure home, compared with 33% of white adults. .... One answer that has not had enough attention ... lies in the planning departments of local authorities. A new report by Amy Bristow ... sets out how planning has, in fact, been contributing to the problem instead.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/how-planning-is-…
# International, Public and community housing, Local Government, Planning and development.Miami's best real estate is under threat from rising sea levels, so the wealthy are moving to higher ground
Emily Olson ABC (No paywall)When an apartment building collapsed just 25 minutes from his home, Ivory Artis was grappling with the potential loss of his own apartment in Miami. As sea levels rise, prime beach real estate has been losing its cachet. Developers have started looking inland, in marginalised communities like Ivory's, to build luxury homes for the coastal elite. This February, a California-based capital firm bought the three-storey building where Ivory has kept a one-bedroom apartment for over 16 years. In May, the new manager notified the tenants they had 60 days to vacate the property.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-14/miami-building-collapse-c…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Climate change, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.Increased housing supply is dependent on profitability of developments: AHURI
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Investment in major infrastructure projects, streamlining development approvals and reducing the cost of developments are some of the ways governments can improve housing supply around Australia, a housing expert says. ... [Australia Housing and Urban Research Institute director Steven Rowley] said while there was plenty of residential construction around Australia, it was unevenly spread. Not enough was built in areas of demand, causing upward pressure on prices during lockdown.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/increased-housing-supply-is-depen…
# Australia, Housing market, Planning and development.Inner West: Strathfield home featured as part of 2021 Sustainable House Day
Daniel Lo Surdo (No paywall)A Strathfield South home has been featured as part of 2021 Sustainable House Day. The house, named the PassivCourtyard, is a Passive House, meaning that it is nearly airtight and highly insulated to allow the temperature to be kept stable throughout the year.
https://cityhubsydney.com.au/2021/09/inner-west-strathfield-home…
# NSW, Climate change, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.House prices jump $52,600 in three months, and the Reserve Bank says it can't do much about it
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Australian house prices are now 19 per cent higher than they were before the pandemic, but the Reserve Bank of Australia won't be lifting interest rates to dampen them. RBA governor Philip Lowe said he had said it before, but it was not the role of monetary policy to target house prices. "Ever-rising housing prices relative to income, I don't think serves our collective good very well, it's something that as a citizen I would like to see addressed, but as a central bank we can't do anything about," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-14/house-prices-jump-52600-i…
# Australia, Housing market.We’re back to record property price growth, so what’s being done about it?
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)Australian homeowners are hocked up to the eyeballs, the federal Treasury says. "The house-price-to-income ratio has indeed risen, Treasury's director of the domestic demand, Crystal Ossolinski, told a parliamentary economics committee. "Back in the early 1990s, you were looking at 2.5 times, and now you're looking at just over six [times]." What that means simply is that Australians are borrowing amounts of money many more times their annual income, which is fuelling property price rises.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-15/house-prices-grow-what-is…
# Australia, Homelessness, Housing market.Planning alone will not fix Sydney’s housing affordability crisis
Rob Stokes The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Federal Parliament’s inquiry into housing affordability and supply may well find some new insights, and I hope it does. But I’m sceptical it will find solutions not already found in the Henry Tax Review of 2010, the Productivity Commission’s inquiry of 2004, or the Prime Minister’s Home Ownership Taskforce of 2003, among other much-vaunted inquiries. All of these included recommendations – never taken up by the government of the day – which recognised the Commonwealth policy settings could have a substantial effect on affordable home ownership.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/planning-alone-will-not-fix-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, State Government, Tax.The great shed revival: why thousands are finding solace in the backyard shack
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Every day, marketing company boss Kate Toon used to commute for four hours from the Central Coast to her office in Sydney’s CBD. Today, she strolls in her pyjamas for five seconds to a shed she’s set up in her backyard as her HQ. ... “There’s a real boom in backyard sheds going on,” says Daniel Rutland, the head of digital purchasing at EasyShed, Australia’s largest shed producer. “We seeing the biggest demand coming from the cities where space at home is at a premium, and house prices are high, so it’s much more affordable to have a shed than to move to a bigger house."
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-great-shed-revival-1084237/?u…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.