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
If you’ve got a dark roof, you’re spending almost $700 extra a year to keep your house cool
Sebastian Pfautsch & Riccardo Paolini The Conversation (No paywall)If you visit southern Greece or Tunisia, you might notice lots of white rooftops and white buildings to reflect the intense heat and keep residents cooler. It’s very different in Australia. New housing estates in the hottest areas around Sydney and Melbourne are dominated by dark rooftops, black roads and minimal tree cover. Dark colours trap and hold heat rather than reflect it. That might be useful in winters in Tasmania, but not where heat is an issue. A dark roof means you’ll pay considerably more to keep your house cool in summer. Last year, the average household in New South Wales paid A$1827 in electricity.
https://theconversation.com/if-youve-got-a-dark-roof-youre-spend…
# Must read Australia, Disasters.High-profile strata company Netstrata caught charging excessive fees and taking kickbacks
Linton Besser & Ninah Kopel, ABC Investigations ABC (No paywall)One of the country's most high-profile strata management firms has been using its wholly owned insurance arm to charge apartment owners insurance brokerage fees as high as three times the typical rate. The company, Netstrata, has also been taking kickbacks from contractors and suppliers it hires using the strata funds of more than 1,000 buildings, and 35,000 apartments, across NSW. To the outrage of owners and advocates, it appears the company's conduct has been permissible under NSW law. The revelations form part of a new ABC investigation into the national strata management industry that is launching on Thursday.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/netstrata-strata-charging…
# Hot topic Australia, Strata.Potential Airbnb ban, 'no deposit' home loans and rent subsidies: Radical policies show how housing might swing elections
Daniel Ziffer ABC (No paywall)Emily Bresnahan has returned from an international exchange to find there's no room for her, except on the couches in her friend's share houses. That's where she's sleeping tonight. But she doesn't know where she's sleeping tomorrow night. "I don't know. Yeah, I know where I can stay. But I haven't lined it up that far," she says. Already in a vulnerable position, the question seems to throw her off guard. "Yeah. Just a bit worrying. when you ask it like that," she says. "I don't tell my Mum that usually."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-20/airbnb-ban-no-deposit-hom…
# Australia, Rent, Security and safety, Share houses.Taskforce To Crack Down On Dodgy Rentals
Victorian Government (No paywall)The Allan Labor Government is establishing a new renting taskforce to crack down on rental providers and estate agents who do the wrong thing.
More than 130 rental reforms the Labor Government introduced in 2021 increased protections for renters while making it easier for owners to manage rental properties, but some rental providers are still trying to get away with poor conduct.
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/taskforce-crack-down-dodgy-rental…
# Australia, Rent, Security and safety.Building remote Indigenous homes well is hard, but they won’t cost $1.5 million each
Liam Grealy The Conversation (No paywall)At the remote Indigenous community of Binjari, south of Katherine in the Northern Territory last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a landmark A$4 billion investment in remote housing across the Territory. He said the ten-year commitment by the Commonwealth and Territory governments would deliver up to an extra 270 houses per year, a total of 2,700. At the press conference, Albanese was told $4 billion for 2,700 houses worked out at about $1.5 million each. He was asked whether each house could possibly cost that much to build.
https://theconversation.com/building-remote-indigenous-homes-wel…
# Hot topic Australia, Aboriginal renters.Is it the beginning of the end for rent bidding?
Andy Kollmorgen CHOICE (No paywall)It's a practice that works a lot like a bribe, and many feel they have no choice but to engage in it. For people desperate to secure a property, it can also be a last resort. Perhaps the most notorious form of rent bidding is when a rental agent or landlord lets prospective tenants know they should go higher than the advertised price if they really want the place. Tenants end up offering more, without knowing if others have also offered more – or how much more. With demand high and supply critically low in recent years, many prospective renters have been willing to make side deals with the people who have the power to get them into a home.
https://www.choice.com.au/money/property/renting/articles/rent-b…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent.Tenants face homelessness as affordable rental scheme ends, despite WA's mining boom riches
Keane Bourke ABC (No paywall)Deb and Bill are both part of the same rental support scheme, but that doesn't mean they've had the same experience. For the last few years, they've been among tens of thousands of Australians to benefit from the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) – set up by the Rudd government in 2008, and now coming to an end. It worked by paying incentives to developers and community housing groups to build new homes and rent them for at least 20 per cent below market rent for 10 years. But homes have been leaving the NRAS since 2018 — sending rents up and tenants out the door. It's a particular concern in Western Australia, given it has a rental market with an extraordinarily low vacancy rate and the high prices that follow.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-22/call-for-state-government…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.The end of landlords: the surprisingly simple solution to the UK housing crisis
Nick Bano The Guardian (No paywall)Speaking against his own government’s renters reform bill last autumn, the Tory grandee Sir Edward Leigh told MPs: “I was able to buy my first house – although it was a bit of a struggle – for £25,000. The opportunities for young people are so difficult now”. Younger people are “overwhelmingly reliant on the rental sector”, Leigh conceded, but the problem as he saw it was one of supply: “We have to build many more houses, and we have to free up the rented sector.”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-land…
# Hot topic International, Rent.