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
I’m retired and sick of strata fees. Should I sell up and rent instead?
Paul Benson The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Is there a point in life where it makes sense to stop owning property altogether? I’m retired and live in a 20-year-old unit where rising strata fees and special levies are making it financially unsustainable. I’m considering selling and either buying a house (using more of my super), renting and investing the proceeds, moving to another unit or staying put. I’m usually being asked how one can secure a home in a market in which affordability is challenging, so it is interesting to get your alternative perspective.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/i-m-retired-an…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Strata.‘People don’t want state-owned homes’: Coalition overhauls its housing policies
Ronald Mizen Australian Financial Review (Paywall)The Coalition will completely overhaul its housing policies with everything up to be changed or scrapped, and new housing spokesman Andrew Bragg says the party will oppose Labor’s $10 billion new home building fund and expanded home guarantee scheme. “The idea the government will become a massive property developer and build 100,000 houses, and the idea the government will become Australia’s largest mortgage insurer, this is really wild stuff,” Bragg told The Australian Financial Review in his first interview since being appointed on Wednesday.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/liberals-to-upend-housing-p…
# Hot topic Australia, .Can there ever be a renter’s market in a landlord’s world?
Gabi Lardies The Spinoff (No paywall)“I’m struggling,” long-time landlord Peter Ambrose told The Post in February. It had been difficult to find a tenant for his six-bedroom rental in Aro Valley, part of a “significant portfolio” that in the past has been “snapped up”. The scene was set by the headline, “Rents fall as landlords face up to changed reality”. Data from Trade Me property listings was used to illustrate that demand and supply dynamics in the market had changed – residential listings nationwide were up 40% year-on-year. The rent prices on Trade Me had stayed flat, but Ambrose said he’d dropped the rent on his six-beddy by 20%.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/21-05-2025/can-there-ever-be-a-…
# Must read International, .Spain blocks more than 65,000 Airbnb holiday rental listings
Inti Landauro Reuters (No paywall)Spain has ordered Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab to withdraw more than 65,000 listings for holiday rentals which it said violated existing rules from its platform as part of a general crackdown on a business blamed for contributing to the housing crisis in the country. Most of the Airbnb listings to be blocked do not include their licence number, while others do not specify whether the owner was an individual or a corporation, the Consumer Rights Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spains-consumer-rights-mini…
# Must read International, .Britain’s broken housing system means living inside a sick joke
Eloise Hendy The Independent (No paywall)A fortnight ago, my partner and I asked to renew our tenancy. In reply, the property manager prompted us to “confirm” how much more rent we could “comfortably afford” – because, of course, tenants must be responsible for fluctuations in the housing market, and costs must be passed on to them. We said that there was no increase we could “comfortably afford”, and now we’re waiting – to see if we can stay, or if we’ll be priced out. Anyone whose home life touches the sharp edges of the housing crisis is probably intimately familiar with this kind of waiting, because the experience of dealing with both precarious labour and insecure housing is so unsteady.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/britain-housing-rent-la…
# Hot topic International, Rent.My rent has gone up £300 a month’: Pain of soaring costs and zero hours contracts
Joe Middleton The Independent (No paywall)Urwah Chaudhary is one of millions of Britons struggling with the cost of living and record-breaking rent price increases. The full-time student, who works as a call centre agent on a minimum wage and on a zero-hours contract, has faced a monthly rent increase from £900 to £1,200 in the space of a year. Inflation, the increase in prices in the rental market in her local area, and a struggle to afford the mortgage after successive Bank of England interest rate hikes, were the reasons given by her landlord for the hefty additional monthly outlay.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rent-prices-cost…
# Hot topic International, .Lawsuits test Airbnb’s alleged liability in carbon monoxide deaths
Jenna Greene Reuters (No paywall)Sebastian Mejia died in the shower of an Airbnb rental in Brazil in 2022, the alleged victim, opens new tab of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty water heater. A Fulbright scholar, the 24-year-old Florida native was studying the country’s indigenous communities. That same year, an American woman staying at an Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab in Croatia allegedly shared his fate, as did a trio of American tourists at an Airbnb in Mexico City, a man on a work trip to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and a Loyola Marymount graduate student at an Airbnb in Guadalajara in late 2021, court records show.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-lawsuits-test-ai…
# Must read International, Rent, Security and safety.West Auckland tenants ordered to pay for fire damage after rubbish blaze
Hannah Bartlett NZ Herald (No paywall)A tenant had no explanation for a rubbish fire at the West Auckland house she rented, which caused damage to windows and weatherboards, other than to suggest it was a “rough area” with “gang members” living nearby. However, the landlords suggested there was an obvious explanation for the fire at the Kelston house, as it happened hours after they’d emailed asking for a pile of rubbish to be removed. After the fire, Karlee Eileen Naomi Thompson and Sarge Rolly Te Tonga were taken to the Tenancy Tribunal by their landlords, who were granted name suppression, over damage caused at the rental property.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/west-auckland-tenants-ordered-to-p…
# Hot topic International, Rent.