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
UK rent prices up 9% in record yearly rise, says ONS
Eleanor Lawrie & Sam Hancock BBC (No paywall)The average cost of rent in the UK rose by 9% in the 12 months to February this year - the highest annual increase since records began in 2015. There were price rises in all parts of the country, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In England, London renters saw costs go up the most at 10.6%, taking average monthly rent in the capital to £2,035. A government spokesperson said its Renters (Reform) Bill would give tenants and landlords a "fairer deal". Average monthly rent increases across the UK ranged from 8.8% in England through to 10.9% in Scotland and 9% in Wales.
# Hot topic International, Rent.Our lack of affordable, safe housing is a national crisis. Here are three things Labour can do to fix it
Peter Apps The Guardian (No paywall)The failures in housing policy over several generations are now all too obvious: rising homelessness, families and key workers priced out of cities and a generation unable to move out of their parents’ homes. The next government needs to take radical action to change this picture, rather than make small tweaks to a failed system. These are some of the steps I would take to get there...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/27/safe-affor…
# International, Public and community housing.Ministers Met Landlords Twice As Often As Tenants’ Groups Over Renters’ Reform Bill
Andrew Kersley Politics Home (No paywall)United Kingdom: Ministers met with lobbyists for landlords and estate agents twice as often as they did groups representing renters as they worked to refine new protections for tenants in the landmark Renters Reform Bill, according to analysis by PoliticsHome. At the heart of the government’s initial proposal to reform the private rental sector was a pledge to abolish the practice of ‘no fault ’evictions – the ability for landlords to evict tenants without cause often in retaliation for them making complaints.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/ministers-met-landlord…
# Hot topic International, .Could rent control be the answer to England’s housing crisis?
Vicky Spratt inews.co.uk (No paywall)Scotland’s government has taken a radical leap towards making rent regulation (aka rent control) permanent after its emergency rent freeze trial. If the legislation, being proposed by the SNP government in its Housing (Scotland) Bill, passes, it will cap the amount by which landlords can increase rents for existing tenants. Housing campaigners such as Living Rent Scotland have long argued that rent control is necessary. In England, the renters’ rights and advocacy group Generation Rent celebrated the move.
https://inews.co.uk/news/housing/could-rent-control-england-hous…
# Legal significance International, .Plans Without the People
Sam Wheeler Tribune (UK) (No paywall)Last Christmas I came out of a pub in Manchester city centre with my brother, parents and grandparents early in the evening. I looked up from the base of one of the towers along Great Ancoats Street. 14 stories, 100 or so apartments. I saw four lights on. One supposes this great exodus of the new workforce that occurs around the holidays would have been familiar to President Xi when he visited Manchester in 2015, along with much of the rest of the model. Dengism with Mancunian characteristics. That slightly uncanny feeling came back to me when I read Isaac Rose’s book, The Rentier City.
# International, Rent.Minns slammed over inaction on key election pledge
Aidan Devine Daily Telegraph (No paywall)Renters have slammed the NSW Government for failing to deliver on its promise to ban “no grounds” evictions as new vacancy rate data shows tenants in some suburbs have nowhere to go. Around 30,000 renting households each year receive a no-grounds eviction where landlords ask the tenant to leave their properties without requiring a reason. It's equivalent to one eviction every 18 minutes - or three every hour, every day in NSW, according to NSW Tenants’ Union data. Experts said reform was urgently needed given new data showed rental vacancies were at a record low across the state. Rental conditions were particularly strained in Sydney’s more affordable markets, with only 0.6 per cent of rentals available for tenants in the Sutherland Shire and Canterbury-Bankstown.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/property/minns-slammed-over-in…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media, Legal significance NSW, .Sydney’s first dedicated affordable housing for transgender women to be built in Darlinghurst
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)Sydney’s first dedicated affordable housing project for transgender women will be built in the inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst following the sale of City of Sydney properties as part of the council’s excess land program. The seven properties are being sold “at a significant discount” to Common Equity New South Wales which will partner with All Nations Housing Co-operative to create properties for women within the “highly at-risk” group. Sydney lord mayor, Clover Moore, said she was proud the council was able to help provide affordable housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/21/sydneys-f…
# NSW, Discrimination, Public and community housing.Blue Mountains locals protest housing insecurity, as Airbnb listings rival long-term rental numbers
Tony Ibrahim ABC (No paywall)Julie Nelson stares at the dozen rental homes advertised in the window of a real estate agency in the Blue Mountains – and can't afford any of them. The 65-year-old was issued with an eviction notice after telling her landlord she couldn't cover a $15-a-week increase for her Wentworth Falls home. She was already $50 a week over budget when she signed the lease more than a year ago. To make ends meet, she's worked with a financial counsellor, food charities, borrowed money from friends and cut costs where she can.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-23/blue-mountains-rental-sho…
# NSW, Eviction, Rent.