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
Cars hired for a place to sleep, Lake Macquarie homelessness forum hears
Sage Swinton (Paywall)The online forum involved more than 60 people from various groups and organisations who deal with homelessness. Providers, including Nova for Women and Children, Hunter Tenants' Advice and Advocacy Service, Cardiff's Our Backyard, Hunter Community Alliance and Baptist Care, spoke about the dire situation they and their clients currently faced. It's pretty much in crisis at the moment. We've heard people are sleeping in their cars, but also hiring private rental cars and sleeping in those because there's no other option. There's only around a 0.2 per cent vacancy rate of rental properties and the rental market is well above the affordability rate. It should only be around 30 per cent of a person's income, but it's much higher than that at the moment and it would be causing a lot of financial distress to families. It's really middle income earners that are affected, people who haven't been homeless before. It's not just low socioeconomic people who are impacted. There's people who are landlords themselves. They're leasing out those properties and renting themselves, but they're being evicted from the place that they live in so they're sort of between a rock and a hard place. (Newcastle Herald)
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7322375/cars-hired-for-…
# NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, Regional NSW.This new refuge in Melbourne is providing much-needed support to older homeless women
Gloria Kalache SBS (No paywall)Providing women aged over 50 a safe haven and access to services helping them rebuild their lives, The Gardenhouse is believed to be the first facility of its kind in Australia.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/this-new-refuge-in-melbourne-is-prov…
# Australia, Homelessness, Older people, Women.Chinese foreign investors have cooled on Australian properties, but overseas buyers are tipped to return
Nssim Khadem ABC (No paywall)Chinese foreign investors who abandoned the Australian property market last financial year could soon return, according to real estate agents and analysts who say enquiries and sales are on the rise. But they predict Australian property is likely to be a more attractive option for overseas buyers who want to move here and buy land or large homes when our borders reopen, rather than foreign investors who face high taxes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-02/chinese-overseas-buyers-a…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Paris court fines Airbnb $9.6 million for illegal listings
Romain Dillet (No paywall)A court in Paris has fined Airbnb, the popular marketplace for vacation rentals. According to the court, the tech company has failed to comply with local regulation when it comes to listing your apartment on the platform. Airbnb should pay $9.6 million (€8.08 million) to the city of Paris. This decision has been years in the making. Like many major cities around the world, Airbnb has had some impact on the housing market in Paris. Many apartments disappeared from the housing market as they became full-time Airbnb apartments, leading to high rents. (TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/01/paris-court-fines-airbnb-9-6-m…
# International, Rent, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.Construction watchdog: Body corporates are not reporting known defects
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW construction watchdog has major concerns that body corporates are underreporting serious defects in high-rise apartment buildings to government officials charged with cleaning up the construction industry and restoring public confidence. A survey of more than 500 buildings in NSW built in the past six years found that 36 per cent had serious defects. Of those with defects, just 17 per cent of the buildings had already been reported to the regulator.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/construction-watchdog-body-c…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Opposing view: a homeless man’s million-dollar vista
Frank Robson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sam’s tent faces east across the sea towards a gap between two offshore islands. On the best days, when the air is clear and light winter westerlies smooth the water, the blue-black ridges of the islands are etched sharply against the sky and everything appears closer than it is. At other times, great banks of cloud roll in from the south bringing squalls that whip up dangerous waves and cloak the islands behind columns of hard-driving rain. ... A ridge behind his campsite is lined with expensive glass-fronted homes and apartments, and some of the owners aren’t happy about Sam enjoying the same views as them.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/opposing-view-a-homeless-man-s-m…
# Australia, Homelessness, Personal stories.Remaining Miami apartment building to be demolished, nearby units evacuated after review
ABC (No paywall)Worries have intensified over the past week that the damaged structure could come tumbling down on its own, endangering the crews below and complicating the search for victims. ... Meanwhile, residents of a North Miami Beach high-rise loaded clothes and valuables into suitcases, laundry baskets and wagons and wheeled them to waiting cars after they were forced to evacuate the building when it was found to be unsafe. An audit prompted by the collapse of Champlain Towers South in nearby Surfside found that the 156-unit Crestview Towers in North Miami Beach, about 8 kilometres away, had been deemed structurally and electrically unsafe in January ... Check out further reports on Champlain Towers South and Crestview Towers at: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/03/miami-condo-collapse-board-debate] and at: [https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/another-florida-apartment-tower-declared-unsafe-evacuated-20210703-p586iz.html]. ... and the latest news at: [https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/demolition-crews-take-over-from-rescuers-at-collapsed-florida-tower-20210704-p586qj.html]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-04/miami-building-demolition…
# International, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Developer forced to fix serious defects in two Parramatta apartment towers
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The developer of two 22-storey apartment towers in Parramatta’s CBD has been issued with orders preventing it from allowing owners and tenants to move in after serious defects were discovered. ... The developer, Merhis Group, is the same company that was responsible for a 16-storey apartment building in Auburn that was issued orders last year to resolve major defects. ... [NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler] issued a prohibition order on Wednesday for the Parramatta towers after inspectors found “serious defects” in an internal load-bearing part of the complex, as well as in its waterproofing and a fire-safety system.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developer-forced-to-fix-seri…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.