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
Canada’s housing crisis isn’t being caused by foreign investors. It’s being caused by investors, period
Luke Savage Ricochet Media (No paywall)Last November, a post on Facebook marketplace offered prospective tenants one hell of a deal. At a bargain of just $900 a month, with an upfront deposit of more than twice that amount, those in need of a place to live could luxuriate in half a bed. It may sound like something out of Charles Dickens, but the posting is just one example of how completely insane and dysfunctional Canada’s housing and rental markets have really become.
https://ricochet.media/justice/housing/canadas-housing-crisis-is…
# Hot topic International, .Neglected, derided and exploited more than ever: why won’t the UK protect those who rent a home?
John Harris The Guardian (No paywall)Last week, a news story broke about the sheer impossibility of everyday living for millions of people all over the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, the average monthly rent paid by private tenants rose by 9% in the year to February, which is the largest annual increase since records began nine years ago. The average monthly rent in England is now £1,276 and £944 in Scotland. If you are unfortunate enough to be renting from a landlord in London, your monthly outgoings may well appear hopelessly unrealistic: there, average monthly rents have risen by 10.6%, to a truly eye-watering £2,035. Given that the median UK monthly wage currently sits at about £2,200, the dire affordability crisis all this points to is glaringly clear.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/24/uk-rent-ho…
# Hot topic International, Rent.‘It’s either win the lottery or leave Toronto’: How these tenants are taking on Ontario’s rent-control rules
Kat Eschner TVO Today (No paywall)Shanice Sharpe’s small living room is carefully styled in pink and grey with pops of white and gold. Her professional equipment — shelves and drawers of cosmetics surrounding a lit vanity, above which professional certifications hang — stands across from the sink of a one-counter kitchen. Outside the sliding glass door, a GO train rushes by. She sits at a small dining table tucked in the corner, paging through her folder of receipts. Sharpe was happy when she moved into 22 John Street in the Weston area of Toronto in 2019. At $1,540, the rent was at the top end of her budget, but “basically, it was brand new, it was close to work, and it was reasonably priced,” she says. Nobody from the building’s leasing office, she says, informed her that the new building wasn’t subject to rent control because of a law passed the previous year.
https://www.tvo.org/article/its-either-win-the-lottery-or-leave-…
# International, Rent.London rent protesters say Peabody 'would turn in his grave'
BBC (No paywall)Key workers living in London have said social housing pioneer George Peabody "would be turning in his grave" over plans to raise their rents. The Peabody housing association rents homes to key workers at a discounted rate. Tenants, who could see their rents rise by up to 9%, demonstrated near the Bank of England on Saturday. A spokesperson for Peabody said its properties remain "decent value for money".
# Hot topic International, .What's Wrong With This Rental Listing? The Furniture Is AI.
Hayden Vernon Vice (No paywall)Michael Anthony wasn’t sure straightaway, but it was the kid’s bunk bed that gave it away. The bed’s two overlapping ladders were a design decision that no human would make, but the sort of uncanny slip that has become the hallmark of AI generated images. “I got an inkling as I went through the pictures, and suddenly it just didn't seem right,” the 28-year-old software engineer tells VICE. Originally, he thought the weird pictures in the Rightmove listing were just a case of an over-eager estate agent on Photoshop.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgwpmk/ai-generated-furniture-re…
# Hot topic International, .New York City Council passes continuation of rent stabilization law
Zinnia Maldonado CBS News (No paywall)The New York City Council voted Tuesday that New Yorkers in rent-stabilized apartments will maintain certain protections. In a 42-2 vote, City Council passed a continuation of the New York City Rent Stabilization Law. For New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized units, this means they'll maintain their right to renew their leases and be protected from certain evictions and sharp rent increases. According to the City Council, nearly 1 million households in the city of New York -- out of the roughly 3.7 million -- are currently protected by rent regulations. "A landlord can't just come in and say, you know, you're gonna pay $4,000 more now," Councilmember Pierina Sanchez said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-city-rent-stabiliz…
# Hot topic International, Rent.This view of the Eiffel Tower for $1000 a month: How Paris is solving its housing crisis
Thomas Fuller The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)The two-bedroom penthouse comes with sweeping views of the Eiffel Tower and just about every other monument across the Paris skyline. The rent, at €600 ($1000) a month, is a steal. Marine Vallery-Radot, 51, the apartment’s tenant, said she cried when she got the call last northern summer that hers was among 253 lower-income families chosen for a spot in the l’Îlot Saint-Germain, a new public-housing complex a short walk from the Musée d’Orsay, the National Assembly and Napoleon’s tomb. “We were very lucky to get this place,” said the single mother who lives here with her 12-year-old son, as she gazed out of bedroom windows overlooking the Latin Quarter. “This is what I see when I wake up.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/this-view-of-the-eiffel-towe…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent.A generation of renters is staring down poverty in retirement unless something drastic changes
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)It's a disturbing statistic: half of all people renting in retirement are living in poverty. That's according to research from the Grattan Institute and the Australian National University. Why would that be the case? It's pretty simple: the age pension assumes home ownership. So, if you add on even the cheapest rent, you need extra regular income to fund it. That's where superannuation comes in. Again we hit a problem because, analysts say, assuming many of us live to a ripe old age, renters will need a nest egg worth hundreds of thousands of dollars just to keep a roof over their head.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-16/generation-of-renters-ris…
# Must read Australia, Rent.