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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Rebuilt Lismore student housing offers relief from record-high rent costs
Catherine Piltz Daily Telegraph (Paywall)As regional housing costs hit record highs, Lismore students have been thrown a lifeline with the anticipated reopening of a flood resilient accommodation complex. The 27-unit Sirius College at Southern Cross University on Military Rd is expected to be ready next month, rebuilt to withstand future floods after being gutted in the 2022 disaster. New data released on January 20 by the REA Group shows the median weekly rent in regional NSW has jumped to $600 – a 5.3 per cent hike over the last 12 months.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/lismore/rebuilt-lismo…
# NSW, Disasters.Outrun the rent!
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)2026 marks 50 years of the Tenants' Union and our mission to ensure renters get a fair deal. From individual assistance to system-wide advocacy, research and supporting networks of allies, we've helped millions of NSW renters facing challenges. As we enter our 5th decade, we're not stopping – and we're asking you to help us pick up the pace by donating to our Sydney Marathon fundraiser. Donations help us take up the fight in new and innovative ways, fund legal challenges, research, campaigns or activities that other funds can't.
# Must read NSW, .OECD says it’s time to cut capital gains tax discount and negative gearing
Greg Jericho The New Daily (No paywall)The OECD’s annual survey of Australia’s economy last week bluntly noted what most Australians understand very clearly – housing is expensive and in short supply. The report highlighted issues with planning that restrict density in urban areas, but importantly it also noted the need to reform Australia’s tax system to stop favouring investors. Housing affordability has for well over two decades now been a critical issue for Australians. The OECD annual survey of Australia revealed that not only does the data support people’s feelings that housing is much less affordable than in the past, but that what is happening here is unique.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2026/01/30/oecd-housing-t…
# Australia, .Why should renters like me have to trade away our privacy just to get a roof over our heads?
Samantha Floreani The Guardian (No paywall)Would you trade your data privacy and security for housing? Thanks to the rise in real estate technologies, renters often have no choice but to hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties just to have somewhere to live. All the while we are told: trust us, we take your privacy seriously. But recent Guardian reporting has revealed that seven popular “rent-tech” platforms have serious security vulnerabilities, leaving millions of documents containing personal information of renters exposed on the open web for years.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/02/property-r…
# Australia, Privacy and access.New housing fund aims to tackle rental crisis with affordable homes for parents
Stephen Drill Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A radical plan to fix Australia’s “broken rental” market will see landlords owning a share in thousands of houses in an American-style scheme that has drawn the ire of Donald Trump. An entrepreneur is planning to launch a housing fund this year that would purchase homes and then offer them at “affordable rents” to single parents Evan Thornley, who turned an internet search engine Looksmart into a multi-billion company in the 1990s, says he wants to help struggling Australians smashed by the rental crisis. But similar funds have been controversial in the United States.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/property/new-housing-fund-aims…
# Australia, Rent.Australia’s heatwaves are getting deadlier – and renters are paying the price
Maiy Azize The Guardian (No paywall)Australians are struggling through one of the most brutal heatwaves and hottest summers on record. Day after day, temperatures into the high 30s are turning homes into ovens, workplaces into hazards, and everyday tasks into endurance tests. All of us are feeling it. But spare a thought for the millions of renters trying to survive this heat in homes that were never designed to cope with it. Across the country, renters are living in properties with no insulation, poor sealing, broken or inadequate fans or no cooling options at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/27/australia-…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.How to shake up the growth engine for affordable rental housing (spoiler: it’s not what we’ve got now)
Julie Lawson The Fifth Estate (No paywall)We have a system that continues to commission projects but has not built sustained growth. Instead, it’s built around landlord subsidies, not public value. Despite decades of policy debate, Commonwealth housing settings remain overwhelmingly oriented toward demand-side assistance. Commonwealth Rent Assistance now exceeds $5-6 billion a year, directed almost entirely to households renting in the private market. At the same time, tax concessions, particularly negative gearing and the discount on capital gains tax, cost the Commonwealth around $10-15 billion annually.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/how-to-shake-up-t…
# Hot topic Australia, .Canberra public housing tenants' human rights were breached by plans to move them
Elizabeth Bryne ABC (No paywall)An ACT Supreme Court judge quoted Roman philosopher Cicero and the movie The Castle as she ruled in favour of three Canberra public housing tenants who claimed plans to move them breached their human rights. The three women filed a civil claim after being targeted by a new public housing policy. The program, called the ACT Growing and Renewing Public Housing Program, had the objective of creating more public housing in the territory, either by using the money from the sale of existing properties or by redevelopment of those sites. Ultimately, the women were not forced to move.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/act-public-housing-tenant…
# Australia, Public and community housing.