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
Want to improve housing affordability? Here’s the solution
Peter Tulip The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)State and federal governments give billions of dollars to first-home buyers, ostensibly to improve affordability. But like other demand-side subsidies, these do not reduce overall housing costs. They improve housing access for the favoured recipients but bid up prices, making it more expensive for everyone else. Unless something is done to boost supply, these subsidies just reshuffle a fixed housing stock.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/want-to-improve-housing-affordab…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development, Tax.The Sydney suburbs with big gaps between house and unit rents
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Sydney tenants are facing a record price gap between house and unit rents, with free-standing homes in dozens of suburbs now leasing for double the cost of an apartment.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-sydney-suburbs-with-big-gaps-…
# NSW, Rent, Strata, Housing market.NY Landlords Renew Challenge To Eviction Protections
Emma Whitford (Paywall)A due process "fix" contained within New York's anti-eviction law is a "mirage" that effectively bars landlords from housing court, several property owners and a trade association argued in their latest attempt to block pandemic tenant protections. (Law360)
https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1431866/ny-landlords-ren…
# International, Eviction, Tribunal NCAT, Coronavirus COVID-19.Homes due for demolition to make way for rail line expansions ahead of Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games
Rachel McGhee ABC (No paywall)It may sound like a similar plot to the Australian classic film The Castle, but in a suburb south of Brisbane, dozens of people are living Darryl Kerrigan's worst nightmare and face a far less heart-warming fate. A proposed rail project between the Gold Coast, Logan and Brisbane, is set to make train travel more efficient in time for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. But it's costing dozens of Logan residents their homes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-21/qld-homes-demolition-trai…
# Australia, Planning and development.Sydney housing ‘overvalued’ as Australian home buyers take on more debt compared to incomes: UBS
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Sydney property prices are overvalued and Australian households are taking on more debt compared to their incomes to keep up, a new report from investment bank UBS has warned.
But there’s little relief in sight for homebuyers as property prices are likely to keep rising unless interest rates go up, the report said, a scenario the Reserve Bank views as unlikely before 2024.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-housing-overvalued-as-aust…
# NSW, Housing market, International.Rents in some mining towns surge more than 45 per cent in a year: Domain Rent Report
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Re-surging resources prices may have struck gold for the Australian economy, but residents in some of those areas are now paying rents that have skyrocketed 45 per cent in a single year. The pain is being felt most acutely in Western Australia, the home of many of the country’s biggest mines, a new Domain report has revealed, but the reverberations are nationwide.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/rents-in-some-mining-towns-surge-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.How the Australian rental market has changed in 2021
Kate Farrelly Domain (No paywall)The year 2021 may well be remembered for Aussies’ renewed love affair with houses. Renters are turning their back on apartments and queuing up to inspect free-standing homes in city centres and in regional areas.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/how-the-rental-market-has-changed…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.We have to talk about energy poverty
Nicola Willand, Bhavna Middha, Ralph Horne and Nooshin Torabi The Fifth Estate (No paywall)Energy disconnections were suspended during Covid – but now they’re back. So if you’re a lone parent and they find your fridge is off, you could lose custody of your child. Right now there is very little discussion about this equity issue in our clean energy climate transition. ... current energy policies are regressive and leaving people behind. Low-income households and renters are less likely to benefit from solar roof PV and other retrofit subsidies because they lack the necessary capital or the agency to invest in retrofits and technologies that promise to reduce energy costs. ... Although low-income household have reduced their energy consumption over the years, their actual energy costs have increased, and energy prices have risen at a much higher rate than their welfare support, making energy concessions less effective over time.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/energy-lead/we-have-to-talk-about-…
# Australia, Rent, Utilities water energy internet, Health.