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
Housing Minister John Carey defends social housing eviction record as Supreme Court action launched
Jake Dietsch The West (No paywall)Housing Minister John Carey has defended the Government’s record on social housing evictions as a Supreme Court action challenging the Department of Communities’ ability to evict public housing tenants without grounds begins. The court action — launched Friday by legal centres Circle Green and SCALES on behalf of tenants facing eviction — seeks to bar the Department from issuing no-fault termination notices for tenants in public housing. One of the cases concerns Aboriginal man Barry Garlett, who is arguing his no-grounds eviction denied him “procedural fairness” and therefore his termination notice is invalid.
https://thewest.com.au/news/court-justice/housing-minister-john-…
# Australia, Rent.Build-to-rent increases pressure for law reform to underpin new housing
Carolyn Cummins The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Build-to-rent developers and industry policymakers are applying the blowtorch on all layers of government to get legislative reform for the burgeoning sector strong enough to attract much-needed investment. While the planned reforms are still being refined, build-to-rent projects are being touted as going a long way to help alleviate the housing shortage. The multifamily sector, as it’s known overseas, is still in its infancy in Australia and has become a sought-after asset class globally. Developers such as Mirvac, Lendlease, Greystar and Novus are active in the Australian market where they build apartment towers and rent the units instead of selling.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/build-to-rent-ups-pres…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Does ‘virtue signaling’ pay off for entrepreneurs? We studied 81,799 Airbnb listings to find out
Jacob A. Waddingham, Jeff Chandler & Marcus Wolfe The Conversation (No paywall)The next time you’re searching through Airbnb listings, you may find there’s more to consider than just amenities and price. To stand out from the competition, some Airbnb hosts tout their personal values – such as integrity, empathy and conscientiousness – in listings for their properties. This sort of display has been called “virtue signaling.” Although the phrase can be derisive, we’re using it here as a neutral description of a business tactic: Virtue signalling happens when a business entity communicates to a target audience that it has a purpose beyond providing a service for profit.
https://theconversation.com/does-virtue-signaling-pay-off-for-en…
# Hot topic International, Rent.‘Urban form’ and the housing crisis: Can streets and buildings make a neighbourhood more affordable?
Cem S. Kayatekin & Lorenzo Uribe Sanmiguel The Conversation (No paywall)As of 2007, most humans live in cities. Though this is a relatively recent trend, many of our settlements contain street, block, and building patterns that have developed over centuries. These patterns – which collectively make up what we call “urban form” – are far from a neutral backdrop: they influence who lives where, what businesses find footholds in which locations, and what makes some areas more diverse than others. “Bottom-up” and “top-down” are terms which are often used to pin down the two ends of the vast range of urban form. Bottom-up refers to neighborhoods which develop naturally and gradually, without a strict masterplan guiding their development. Top-down, on the other hand, refers to urban form that is designed by singular authors, with much tighter controls over, and ideals around, how it should develop over time.
https://theconversation.com/urban-form-and-the-housing-crisis-ca…
# Must read International, .The Towns Outsmarting Airbnb
Corey Buhay Reasons to be Cheerful (No paywall)Late last year, New York City made headlines when it all but banned Airbnbs and other short-term rentals within city limits. Since the pandemic, Airbnb had overtaken an estimated 39,000 rental units, hollowing out neighborhoods and causing already-high rents to grow even higher.
“You would see tourists on the streets in neighborhoods where there weren’t any hotels,” recalls New York-based artist and activist Murray Cox. The sound of rolling suitcases could be heard at all hours. Once tight-knit communities began to feel lifeless. When Cox ran the numbers on his own neighborhood — Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn — he found about 1,000 listings. Cox also heard horror stories from other parts of the city. “People would move into a building and then find that the building was full of tourists day in and day out,” he says. “In some cases, they would be so uncomfortable they’d feel forced to leave.”
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-towns-outsmarting-airbnb/
# Hot topic International, Rent.Hundreds evicted from France’s biggest squat months before Paris Olympics
Angelique Chrisafis The Guardian (No paywall)Police have evicted hundreds of people from the biggest squat in France, in a southern suburb of Paris, prompting fresh accusations from charities that authorities are seeking to clear refugees, asylum seekers and homeless people from the capital area before the Olympics. The squat, in an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine, had been home to up to 450 people, many of whom had refugee status, legal paperwork and jobs in France, but who could not find proper housing. As they left the building they were encouraged to board buses to other parts of France. The early morning eviction by police in riot gear began just as France celebrated the milestone of 100 days until the start of the Paris Games. Charities have said the state and authorities want to clear homeless people from the streets and squats to make Paris and its suburbs look better for the event, which begins on 26 July.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/17/hundreds-evicted-f…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent.Return of renters Bill to Parliament ‘little cause for celebration’
Aine Fox The Standard (No paywall)Landlords have urged MPs to get on with passing long-promised rental reforms as a Bill returns to Parliament next week, but campaigners have warned it could be “waste of time” after claiming it has been watered down. The Renters (Reform) Bill will have its report stage in the House of Commons on April 24, Penny Mordaunt confirmed on Thursday. Plans to consult on new legislation to abolish Section 21 so-called no-fault evictions were first announced in 2019.
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/money/return-of-renters-bill…
# Hot topic International, .The fall of the Queen of Airbnb
Dan Latu Business Insider (Soft Paywall)On a mild Tuesday evening in early 2022, some 150 people packed into the VFW hall in Tulsa to hear the Queen of Airbnb make her pitch. Post-pandemic, with interest rates low and travel once again booming, Airbnb listings had been popping up all over the city. For average investors, the back-of-the-napkin math was irresistible. In Tulsa, you could buy a suburban-style home for less than $75,000 and rent it out for $117 a night. If you booked three-quarters of each month — as hosts were averaging at the time— you could bring in as much as $30,000 a year.
https://www.businessinsider.com/meteoric-rise-spectacular-fall-a…
# Hot topic International, .