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
‘No family, no friends, no backups’: is moving to regional Australia really a fix for the housing crisis?
Eliza Spencer The Guardian (No paywall)Record low vacancy rates, soaring rents and interest rates that outpace wage growth have pushed about one in five Australians to consider moving out of the city. But with a rapid rise in regional house prices, rental shortages and pressure on essential services, some who have made the big move are now counting the cost. Beck Carter and her family left Bligh Park, near Windsor in Sydney’s west, in 2022. The family-of-three moved to Canowindra, about 60km from the regional city of Orange, for her husband’s work.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/06/australia…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.‘So you’re calling me a liar?’: Real estate agent had relationship with owner prior to fire, court docs reveal
Sarah Keoghan news.com.au (No paywall)A real estate agent who accidentally burned a multimillion-dollar home to the ground in one of Sydney’s most prestigious suburbs had previously been in a relationship with the owner, court documents have revealed. Sydney realtor Julie Bundock was preparing for an open house of a four-bed home on the northern beaches when she noticed the current renters of the house had left some bedding on the deck to dry. According to documents tendered to the NSW Supreme Court as part of a civil lawsuit brought by the owner and four tenants against her employer, Ms Bundock removed the sheets and threw them in a downstairs room onto a shelf below a light, which she then switched on.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/selling/so-youre-cal…
# Hot topic NSW, .How the rental crisis ate its way into the middle class
Max Maddison and Nigel Gladstone The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)“We might eventually see caps on rents introduced by Labor in NSW — the sky hasn’t fallen in in places like the ACT where they’ve been around for a while,” a NSW government backbencher muses. The Minns government’s embarking on the most comprehensive reforms of the state’s planning laws in a generation prompts the question: in the midst of a worsening housing crisis, will they be enough? Sydney’s longstanding affordability problem has mutated since the pandemic. Supply shortages, successive interest rate hikes and migration-fuelled demand have caused rents to soar over the past two years, exacerbating housing stress and carving into usually comfortable middle-class households.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/how-the-rental-crisis-ate-it…
# Hot topic, Research alert NSW, .Councils were stripped of planning powers. This mayor wants to go further
Anthony Segaert The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Parramatta’s lord mayor says local councils deserve to have some planning powers taken away because elected officials have been “playing politics” with major infrastructure decisions. As debate rages over councils’ powers to reject housing and entertainment applications in the face of controversial government reforms, Labor Mayor Pierre Esber told the Herald he believed the number of councillors in Parramatta should be halved, and those left made to work full-time in a bid to “professionalise” the lowest level of government.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/councils-were-stripped-of-pl…
# NSW, Rent.‘It would just ruin it’: The Sydney suburb wriggling its way out of the state’s housing policy
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)When Jim Softsis spots the local mayor and the Herald loitering outside his Croydon home, he is quick to emerge and say hello. And check what we are doing, of course. John Faker, the Labor mayor of Burwood, is trying to recall whether this Federation house was his uncle’s 40 years ago. It turns out it was next door. But on this wide, suburban street, many houses look the same. That’s the whole point. We are in the Malvern Hill Estate heritage conservation area, one of Sydney’s “garden suburbs” developed from 1909 under a rubric of single-storey, brick and stone detached homes with slate or terracotta tile roofs.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-would-just-ruin-it-the-sy…
# NSW, .Outrage as residents in England’s ‘affordable’ housing forced to pay thousands of pounds extra in service charge
Jon Ungoed-Thomas The Guardian (No paywall)Some of the UK’s largest housing providers have dramatically increased annual service charges by thousands of pounds, plunging residents into financial crisis, an Observer investigation has found. Many residents who bought shared-ownership properties built as affordable homes have been sent bills in recent weeks with increases of more than 40%. Some say they are unable to sell the properties having now been lumbered with “extortionate” charges and no cap on future increases. More than 1,000 people across the country are now threatening to refuse to pay.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/30/outrage-as-resid…
# Hot topic International, .Australia isn't the only country tackling a housing crisis, what is happening overseas?
Nancy Notzon ABC (No paywall)Across the world, other countries face their own housing challenges and tackle them in different ways. Finland has slashed the number of homeless through radical change, while Paris has aggressive plans to keep lower income Parisians in the city. So how do their plans work, and are there takeaways for Australia?
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-drive/inter…
# Audio International, .Housing bill could create new rent control areas
Georgina Hayes BBC (No paywall)The Scottish government has published plans to introduce longer-term rent controls for the private sector. The Housing (Scotland) Bill will place a duty on local councils to carry out assessments on the state of private accommodation in their area. The bill - which comes against the backdrop of four local authorities declaring a housing emergency - has been welcomed by tenants' rights groups. But the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) told BBC Scotland the legislation would exacerbate Scotland’s housing crisis.
# Must read International, Rent.