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
It’s not all coffee shops and hipsters: what we get wrong about gentrification
Leslie Kern The Guardian (No paywall)Gentrification feels, sounds and looks familiar wherever you are: young hipsters transforming neighbourhoods according to a remarkably homogeneous global code of taste and style. ... [But] If we truly want to push back against gentrification, we are misplacing our energies by focusing primarily on superficial markers of taste. They are little more than symptoms of much more disruptive forms of urban change that are enriching the few at the expense of the many. The destruction or market-led “regeneration” of council housing is one such form; luxury high-rise development is another. Large-scale eviction processes, accelerated by the end of pandemic-era protections, are overtly enabling gentrification, especially in minority neighbourhoods. The rise of short-term letting through platforms such as Airbnb is helping to raise housing prices beyond the reach of even the middle classes. These processes are driven by the search for new ways to generate capital and wealth from urban space. The developers, speculators and investment firms that push these changes are able to do so because of government policy that not only allows, but often actively encourages, such developments. Whether it is through tax incentives, rezoning, or government-led “revitalisation” schemes, the state facilitates gentrification on multiple levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/04/coffee-sho…
# International, Eviction, Estate renewal, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Planning and development, Short-term holiday letting, Young people.The forever home
Paul Connolly The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hours after her daughter departed, Patricia channelled her lingering agitation into cleaning.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/the-fore…
# Australia, Home.CBA warns of mortgage lags as Reserve Bank set for another super size interest rate rise
Michael Janda and Rhiana Whitson ABC (Paywall)The Commonwealth Bank is warning of the risk a three-month mortgage lag poses to the economy if the Reserve Bank keeps raising interest rates aggressively. ... Later today it is expected to raise rates yet again, with most analysts and traders expecting another half-a-percentage-point increase to take the cash rate to 2.35 per cent — the highest it has been since early 2015. But most borrowers are only just feeling the effects of the first two rate rises, according to the Commonwealth Bank's head of Australian economics Gareth Aird. Also, read Shane Wrights's article entitled: 'RBA inflation-busting rate rises to cost $1000 a month extra on a mortgage' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' art: [https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/rba-inflation-busting-rate-rises-to-cost-1000-a-month-extra-on-a-mortgage-20220905-p5bfgr.html]. Read Peter Hannam's article entitled: 'Climbing interest rates yet to bite most Australian mortgage holders, economists say' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/06/climbing-interest-rates-yet-to-bite-most-australian-mortgage-holders-economists-say]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-06/cba-warns-of-lags-as-rba-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Calls to cap rent increases as tenants feel pointy end of vacancy drought
Mark Saunokonoko 9 News (No paywall)As rental vacancies plunge to record lows, below 1 per cent in some areas, rents are climbing across capital cities and the regions. While landlords have benefited through "stunning" rent increases, UNSW City Futures Research Centre's Dr Chris Martin said renters, which include many low income households, are struggling. Against this skewed backdrop, Martin said it was time to talk rent control in Australia.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/rental-vacancies-at-record-low…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Average Rents Are Increasing Less Than Expected
Tamar Pilobisian (No paywall)The rate of growth in rents has been pretty modest as the most recent count used by the Bureau of Statistics suggests that rents increased by only 1.6% in the year to June. However many governmental and non-governmental organisations say that Australian is going through renting crisis as many Aussies still struggle to find affordable and high quality houses to rent. [Hear] Ben Phillips, the associate professor at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and the Director of the Research School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and Leo Patterson Ross the Chief Executive Officer OF Tenants’Union of NSW about the current rents situation. (The Wire)
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/average-rents-are-increasing-le…
# Audio Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Nicola Sturgeon announces rent freeze for tenants in Scotland
Libby Brooks The Guardian (No paywall)Nicola Sturgeon has announced a rent freeze for public and private properties and a ban on winter evictions, in a package of measures “deliberately focused” on the cost of living crisis. Describing pressures on household budgets as a “humanitarian emergency”, Scotland’s first minister set out the annual programme for government as the Holyrood parliament met for the first time after the summer recess. The emergency legislation to protect tenants in private and socially rented homes comes only a few months after a similar proposal by Scottish Labour, to freeze rents for two years until rent controls are introduced in 2024, was voted down by SNP and Scottish Green MSPs. Also, read the article entitled: 'Rent freeze plan to tackle cost-of-living crisis in Scotland' on the BBC at: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-62807578]
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/06/nicola-sturgeon…
# International, Eviction, Public and community housing, Rent, Families, Housing affordability, Housing market.'He is a landlord from hell': Renters say they're at their wits' end
9 News (No paywall)Two Newcastle renters say they're at their wits' end after their landlord decided to move onto the property they lease. "He is a landlord from hell," 55-year-old disability pensioner Marie Lorenzo said about her landlord, Keith. Lorenzo moved into the home with her 38-year-old son, Matthew Kozela, 12 months ago and although it's rented through real estate agency Leah Jay, it didn't take long for their landlord Keith to visit and fence part of the property off. "We moved in on the Thursday he was around on the Saturday and he said 'maybe in the future there might be a granny flat', nothing was definite, nothing's approved," Lorenzo told A Current Affair. But Lorenzo said she was gobsmacked by what happened next.
https://amp.nine.com.au/article/eba168ee-469b-43c5-93e8-d11c35d2…
# NSW, Privacy and access, Granny flats, studios, Landlords and agents.September interest rate announcement: RBA lifts cash rate by 50 basis points to 2.35 per cent
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Interest rates are set to jump by a further 50 basis points in the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) fifth consecutive monthly rise, despite dramatic drops in house prices and sales volumes in some areas. The cash rate will now sit at 2.35 per cent, it was announced at Tuesday’s September board meeting, the highest level since December 2014 and the baseline for the significantly higher rates most people are paying. RBA governor Philip Lowe flagged this this month’s rate rise would likely not be the last. ... Onlookers say the “fear of missing out” – or FOMO – has now vanished, and in its place are other fears: of taking out a big mortgage that is hard to pay back at a higher interest rate, and of paying too much in a falling price market.
https://www.domain.com.au/money-markets/september-interest-rate-…
# Australia, Housing market.