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
Soaring number of older home owners take out government-backed reverse mortgages
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The number of older Australians taking out a reverse mortgage with the government has spiked over the past three years and is expected to surge again because of changes allowing participants to borrow a lump sum coinciding with the rapidly rising cost-of-living pressures. Since July 1, participants in Centrelink’s Home Equity Access Scheme, which lets home owners borrow against their homes, can now take an advance payment of their loan rather than an income stream. The changes come as new figures from Services Australia show the number of participants in the scheme had grown to 6041 by June 30, owing a combined $138 million, compared with 768 three years ago.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/soaring-number-of-older-h…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Older people, Welfare.Australia’s best residential architecture: the 2022 Houses awards – in pictures
The Guardian (No paywall)Australia’s finest home design was celebrated over the weekend with the announcement of winners of the 2022 Houses awards. For the first time ever a single project, Autumn House, won in four categories.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2022/aug/01/aus…
# Australia, Housing market.What do super-sized interest rate rises mean for the property downturn?
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Rapid interest rate hikes have pushed property prices down faster than expected, speeding up price falls in Sydney and Melbourne, and pushing other areas towards a downturn sooner. In the past, interest rates often moved by only 0.25 percentage points a month, but over the last three months the hikes have been double that size, and experts say the speed and size of the moves have accelerated property price falls.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/what-do-super-sized-interes…
# Australia, Housing market.Elderly residents abandoned by private aged care provider after council exit
Cara Waters The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Elderly residents in Boroondara are without in-home care, after a privatised aged care provider failed to supply staff for the services after taking over from the council. Private provider mecwacare took over Boroondara City Council’s domestic assistance, personal care, respite care, meal preparation and property maintenance on August 1 and the council’s 60 aged care staff were made redundant. In a letter sent to hundreds of elderly residents this week mecwacare informed them that care services would not be available for “some weeks” due to staff shortages.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/elderly-residents-aband…
# Australia, Health, Older people.Social Housing Regulation Bill: how will the changes improve tenant engagement?
Stephen Delahunty Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... When the government published its long-awaited Social Housing Regulation Bill in June, it promised to rebalance the relationship between landlords and tenants by bringing a number of reforms into law. Changes to social housing regulation were first proposed in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017, after it emerged that residents in the tower repeatedly raised fire safety concerns but were ignored by their landlord, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. Some tenant groups have described the changes as a “step in the right direction”, but there is some concern the bill does not go far enough on tenant engagement.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/social-housing-r…
# International, Public and community housing.Brain-dead: China’s embattled property giant on road to nowhere
Stephen Bartholomeusz The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The fissures in China’s property markets first surfaced publicly a year ago when it became apparent that China Evergrande was struggling to meet payments to suppliers and other creditors. A year on and it is apparent that the world’s most indebted property developer remains essentially brain-dead and on life support and that the property crisis it ignited is spreading and deepening.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/brain-dead-c…
# International, Housing market, International, Landlords and agents.Roberts to decide final plans for Central Barangaroo as objections pour in
Michael Koziol and Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Planning Minister Anthony Roberts would need to override strenuous objections from the National Trust, local MP Alex Greenwich, the City of Sydney, Millers Point residents and other stakeholders if he is to approve controversial changes to the final piece of the Barangaroo mega-project. The government has been inundated with objections to modified plans for Central Barangaroo – the middle section between Crown Sydney and Barangaroo Reserve – including a 20-storey building the National Trust has called “shocking”. The Herald has confirmed Roberts will be the decision-maker on the proposed changes, rather than the Independent Planning Commission.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/roberts-to-decide-final-plan…
# NSW, Heritage listings, Housing market, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government.‘It’s like a massive Tetris game’: the hell that is moving house
Amanda Hooton The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Moving house is hell, they say. They are wrong. Moving house was fine. We had our excellent neighbours, we had my father-in-(common)-law with his big ute, his three trolleys and his wheelbarrow; we had one of those thrilling tape-applying devices that the people at Australia Post use. Our only real error was believing that because we were only moving 100 metres away, we didn’t need to hire professionals, or be systematic about packing. Instead, we decided to just throw things in boxes, or not, and “walk them round”. Do these three words sound like the tolling bells of doom? They should.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/it-s-like-a-massive-tetris-game-…
# NSW, Families, Housing market.