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
The inner west apartment block where the chooks have the best view
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Keith is on the chook roster, collecting eggs for his neighbours. That’s not unusual. What is different is the hens’ uninterrupted views to the south and north of Sydney from the 1200-square-metre rooftop gardens spreading across the Arkadia apartments in Alexandria. They are worth clucking about. “Rare to see chickens having the best view in the building,” said former resident Yvonne Cai, who had loved cleaning the coop and collecting the eggs with other residents. When it was completed in 2019, Arkadia was also the first residential development in Australia to be completed without any gas connection.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-inner-west-apartment-blo…
# NSW, ."Medium density alone isn’t a silver bullet": How Australia’s housing debate found itself in Castlecrag Shopping Village
Huw Bradshaw North Shore Lorikeet (No paywall)The fight over an eleven-story apartment proposal in Castlecrag has come to reflect the state's larger housing affordability crisis, pitting calls for more density against concerns of rushed overdevelopment. At the centre is independent Bradfield MP Nicolette Boele, who has been branded a "NIMBY" by critics, a label she rejects as both unfair and unhelpful. “I strongly support affordable housing”, Boele told the Lorikeet. “The single biggest lever to making homes more affordable is to increase supply.” Supporting medium density housing — such as that proposed in Castlecrag — was a key point of Boele’s affordable housing policy platform in the 2025 election. Boele said that while the Castlecrag proposal included medium-density elements, that alone “isn’t a silver bullet.”
https://www.northshorelorikeet.com.au/p/medium-density-alone-isn…
# NSW, Rent.NSW real estate agents threaten renters with fees if they are not home for tradespeople – but legally they don’t have to be
Catie McLeod The Guardian (No paywall)New South Wales real estate agents are threatening renters with fees as high as $330 if they are not at home to let maintenance workers in, despite there being no legal requirement for renters to personally allow entry. On 8 July, Lauren Gillin’s agency told her she needed to be home during a two-and-a-half-hour window seven days from that date to allow access for a smoke alarm inspector or pay a $90 fee.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/26/nsw-rente…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Repairs.Amsterdam’s squatter wars are back – and wealthy Dutch homeowners have only themselves to blame
Senay Boztas The Guardian (No paywall)The late Dutch author and Holocaust survivor Marga Minco once wrote about an empty house in Amsterdam where she and a group of artists and students took refuge towards the end of the second world war. Last month, the house she lived in for decades was squatted by a new generation of the dispossessed. In the Dutch capital’s overpriced, overcrowded housing market, where homes fetch more per square metre on average than they do in London, the squatters, or krakers, are back.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/26/amsterdam-…
# International, .In Spain, short-term rentals surge despite bid to rein in overtourism
Reuters (No paywall)MADRID, June 2 (Reuters) - The supply of short-term rentals for tourists has jumped 25% in Spain over the last two years, a study by tourism lobby group Exceltur found, despite the local governments' attempts to curtail them amid a housing crisis. The boom in tourist accommodation is growing at an above- average pace in several of the top 50 tourist municipalities and destinations which accounted for half of all international visitor arrivals in 2024, the Exceltur study added. Spain has been looking for ways to restrict the number of homes rented to tourists following a post-pandemic boom in visitors, amid protests by residents who blame overtourism for a spike in rental or home purchase prices.
https://www.reuters.com/world/spain-short-term-rentals-surge-des…
# International, .Dunedin flats not cleaned before students move in
Bella Craig Radio NZ (No paywall)Vomit up the walls, buckets of faeces on the lawn and surfaces covered in damp and mould - that is what many students are confronted with when they move into their North Dunedin flats. The local students association calls the area a "slum" and says some landlords do not even bother checking if a property is habitable before they hand the keys over to the next set of tenants. Students have told Checkpoint the state of their accommodation has been having serious effects on their physical and mental health and their studies.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/571024/dunedin-flats-not-cle…
# International, Rent.The Guardian view on build-to-rent: hardly a solution to the housing crisis
The Guardian (No paywall)To an outside eye, English cities might seem deliberately designed to foment a housing crisis. Unconstrained by craggy topography or fortified ramparts, their Victorian developers built endless streets of low-rise terraces. Cities that expanded during the Industrial Revolution are less dense than their European equivalents and have far fewer flats. Their private rental sectors are fragmented, dominated by small-time landlords for whom property ownership is often a second career.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/24/the-guardi…
# International, .Is owning a home still the American dream? Why older Americans are choosing to rent
Kristen Altus Fox Business (No paywall)"I'm definitely saving money. I don't have the same expenses as I did before, carrying a house and a mortgage. So, I'm definitely much freer than I was, and lighter," 60-year-old advertising creative director Philippa "Pippa" White told Fox News Digital. "I'm in my renaissance, actually." White is one of many renters joining a growing trend, as rising property taxes, insurance and repair costs push people 55 and older to sell their homes and consider renting.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/owning-home-still-american-dre…
# International, Rent.