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
‘Last gasp in rollercoaster ride’: CBA tips property prices to rise 14 per cent within two years
Matthew Elmas The New Daily (No paywall)It could cost you an extra $110,000 to $160,000 to buy a house in Sydney or Melbourne by the end of next year, with prices in capital cities tipped to increase 14.4 per cent over the next 24 months. Those are the latest predictions from economists at Commonwealth Bank, who believe Australia’s latest housing boom will deliver massive price increases across every capital city by 2022.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/02/15/housing-p…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Perth hotel left in the lurch amid bickering over $20,000 homeless accommodation bill
Marta Pascual Juanola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A Perth family-owned hotel has been left in the lurch amid bickering over who will pick up the bill to temporarily house homeless people in the wake of the dismantling of Fremantle’s ‘tent city’. Perth City Apartment owner Eddie Kamil said the hotel was more than $20,000 out of pocket and warned the business was running out of cash to continue housing and feeding the rough sleepers.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-hotel-le…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Behind Sydney’s award-winning urban renewal of the Green Square project
Jenny Brown (Paywall)Twenty years ago, just after the opening of Green Square station, four kilometres from Sydney’s CBD, a relatively young Australian landscape firm, McGregor Coxall, won an international competition to master-plan the town centre of what continues to unfold as Australia’s biggest urban renewal project. Built over the cleared 278 hectares of heavily industrialised land, this massive residential, cultural, work, retail and play suburb is still a dusty, noisy scene of cranes and trucks, jackhammers and Stop/Slow signs.
Terrific bits of community infrastructure are already operational; not only are they well patronised, they’ve won major architectural awards. (commercialrealestate.com.au)
https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/behind-sydneys-awar…
# NSW, Housing market, Planning and development.‘Australia looks like paradise’: Building boss says migrants will queue up
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The head of the nation’s biggest house-building firm believes the country will become a “paradise” for migrants looking to leave their home nation in the post-pandemic world, partly offsetting a slump in population growth that is tipped to drive up Australians’ average age. Stockland managing director Mark Steinert on Wednesday said the post-virus world would not only enhance Australia’s international standing, it was already changing the mindset of locals who were now looking more favourably on middle suburbs rather than CBDs.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-looks-like-par…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market, International.Property prices in university suburbs tipped to keep falling
Rachel Wells Domain (Paywall)Apartment prices in suburbs that rely heavily on university students could feel downward pressure for some time after recording steep falls in 2020, property analysts say. Domain’s latest House Price Report shows many of the biggest falls in unit prices over the 12 months to December 2020 were in suburbs that typically attract large numbers of international students who want to live close to campus.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/student-apartment-market-could-fe…
# Australia, Housing market, International, Students.Banks flag hardship support as deferred loans near end
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The banking industry has vowed there won’t be a sudden wave of foreclosures from next month, once the emergency scheme that allowed struggling customers to freeze their loan repayments ends. The Australian Banking Association will on Thursday say 91 per cent loans that were deferred last year in response to COVID-19 had now resumed repayments, ahead of the scheme wrapping up next month.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-flag-h…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.‘Population shock’ to cause short-term oversupply of housing, inner-city apartments to be hardest hit
Rachel Wells Domain (Paywall)COVID-19 has caused the largest shock to Australia’s population growth since the World War I, triggering a forecast fall in demand for housing of 286,000 dwellings over the next five years. A report by the federal government’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) predicted new housing supply would exceed new demand by about 127,000 dwellings in 2021, and 68,000 dwellings in 2022, with Sydney and Melbourne to have the largest excess supply of housing stock. But NHFIC believes the impact will be largely limited to city based apartments, particularly in capital cities along the east coast.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/population-shock-to-cause-short-t…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.COVID-19: Rental housing and homelessness impacts - an initial analysis
Hal Pawson, Chris Martin and others City Futures (No paywall)States housed 40,000 people for the COVID-19 emergency. Now rough sleeper numbers are up. Alongside protecting rough sleepers, Australian government actions to shield vulnerable renters who lost jobs and incomes in the pandemic were also relatively effective. ... The short-term success of these measures is clear. Despite a substantial rise in unemployment, there has been – as yet – no sign of any up-tick in homelessness. At the same time, though, ministerial advice that tenants with COVID-triggered income losses should negotiate rent reductions with landlords came with few ground rules on how to reach such settlements. [Indeed] Survey evidence shows many property owners refused to reduce rents. Read the summary of the full report and find a link to the full report here.
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2021/02/states-housed…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Homelessness, State Government.