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
Tasmanian caravan park won't let terminally ill resident sell home to fund treatment
Ashleigh Barraclough ABC (No paywall)A long-term resident of a caravan park in northern Tasmania has terminal cancer and wants to sell her home to help cover costs, but is being told she can't: For about 14 years, Roslyn Grima has lived in her own little home in a seaside caravan park in northern Tasmania. "It was an amazing place, I'd come to visit a friend and the next week I thought, 'Oh, I'm buying one of these places,'" the 65-year-old said. "Now it's my home and it's beautiful and I absolutely love it here."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-01/beauty-point-tourist-park…
# Australia, Land lease communities.Inside The Property Crisis: With John Wright
Walk the World ()This is a thought-provoking dive into the the root cause of the property crisis, and what may lay ahead. What do Marie Antionette, a lump of coal, and the Kingdom of Great Britain have to do with the Australian Property Crisis and Policy Change? The answer according to Associate Professor John Wright centres on the concept of Carry Trades. When you examine the property crisis through this lens, things change, and factors like supply and migration become mere symptoms of a greater ill. Worse, he says, all carry trades create the conditions for their own collapse. The capital imbalance is already here and will accelerate.
# Research alert, Video Australia, .Australia’s rental crisis pushes mum Rebecca to move 42 times in 37 years
Duncan Evans news.com.au (No paywall)Rebecca is living out the stark reality of Australia’s housing crisis. Over 37 years, the 58-year-old mother of two has moved 42 times in a never-ending struggle to secure a stable, long-term rental. “It’s very difficult to put down roots in a community,” she told NewsWire. “You can’t volunteer, you can’t foster children, there are an awful lot of things you can’t do if you’re not in a secure rental.” She says an increase in short-stay holiday homes, including Airbnbs, has degraded the supply of rental options for her. In one instance, she said she had secured a rental in the Adelaide Hills, but then her landlord sold the property and the new owner transformed it into a short-stay offering.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/australias-r…
# Australia, Rent, Starting a tenancy.Housing crisis? We could fix it easily we just don’t want to! It would make us very unpopular with people like us
First Dog on the Moon The Guardian (No paywall)Housing crisis? We could fix it easily we just don’t want to! It would make us very unpopular with people like us - First Dog on the Moon Comic Panel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/sep/03/ho…
# Must read Australia, .Landlord List: See how many properties your local MP owns
Sean Johnson Crikey (Paywall)New analysis of the 48th Parliament’s interests register by Crikey and Open Politics reveals MPs and their families have declared 451 properties, from primary residences and second homes in Canberra through to rental investment properties, holiday homes and beach houses. Of the 226 members, 135 declared that they or their families own two or more properties, 69 own three or more properties, and 29 own four of more. Only 16 MPs, 7% have declared owning no property at all.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/08/29/which-australian-politician…
# Hot topic Australia, .The plan for Sydney's forgotten train station at Woollahra in the eastern suburbs
7 News (No paywall)What do you think about the plan for Woollahra station? The suburb is set to become a new stop on Sydney's T4 Eastern Suburbs Line in 2029. Backlash from residents thwarted its construction in the 1970s but 50 years on, NSW Premier Chris Minns is adamant it will finally be completed. The plan forms part of a scheme to construct 10,000 new homes in Woollahra and Edgecliff to alleviate Sydney's housing crisis.
# Video NSW, .More than two-thirds of NSW public land suitable for housing sold to private developers
Anne Davies The Guardian (No paywall)The New South Wales government has sold more than two-thirds of publicly owned sites identified as surplus and suitable for housing to private developers as a result of its much-vaunted statewide property audit. Many sites are being sold without requirements for social or affordable housing. Despite a Labor policy directing that government land suitable for housing should be prioritised for public housing, Homes NSW has bought just three of the 55 sites that have been identified for sale.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/20/more-than…
# NSW, Public and community housing.‘We got scammed’: British traveller’s shock introduction to Sydney’s rental market
Kate Kachor Domain (No paywall)A British tourist has had a shock introduction to Sydney’s rental market after claiming she was scammed into living in a shipping container in the backyard of a terrace home. The young traveller, who we’ll call Ava, arrived in Sydney with a friend in January this year. The friends had hoped to rent two separate rooms in a sharehouse or an apartment in the harbour city. But, given their search was at the peak of summer, it proved difficult. Sydney’s rental vacancy rate in January is often at or near its lowest point for the year. In January 2024, it reached a record low of 0.9 per cent, according to Domain data.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/we-got-scammed-british-travellers…
# NSW, .