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
Very broken housing system’: More high-income earners stuck in rent trap
Melissa Heagney-Bayliss The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)More people earning a higher income are caught in a rental trap as house prices soar, unless they have the help of the bank of mum and dad to break into the property market. Almost a quarter of Australia’s renting households were earning a household income of $140,000 and above by 2021. Only 8 per cent of renting households earned that high an income in 1996.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/very-broken-housing-system-…
# Australia, Rent.Victorian social housing tenant disputes surge, despite government's $5.3b investment
Jesse Thompson ABC (No paywall)At first, the two-bedroom flat was a safety net that broke Charlotte Bannister's fall on hard times. After a relationship breakdown, full-time custody of her daughter had made it difficult to find an affordable rental on Melbourne's private market. Public housing filled the gap, and she felt lucky to be handed the keys to the Ascot Vale flat less than a year after applying. But as she looked up at her former home about two years later, the 30-year-old was only reminded of the trouble she said had marred her new chapter.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-25/victoria-public-social-ho…
# Australia, Public and community housing.How has the cost of living impacted renters (Results Survey)
rent.com.au (No paywall)90% of Aussie renters have changed how they shop to cut costs at home. In its national February survey, Rent.com.au asked renters to consider the impact the rising cost of living is having on their household budgets and spending habits – and importantly what are they doing about it.
https://www.rent.com.au/blog/results-survey-5-how-has-the-cost-o…
# Research alert Australia, .Amid Australia’s housing crisis, why are taxpayers propping up the price of empty holiday homes?
Maiy Azize The Guardian (No paywall)Debate is once again raging about the role vacant homes and short-stay rentals play in pushing up the cost of housing. Much of the commentary about the issue has missed the point, treating it as an isolated problem. But the sheer number of holiday homes and short-stay rentals across Australia are a symptom of a housing system that’s unfair at its core.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/25/australia-…
# Hot topic Australia, .Silent danger in homes
7 News (No paywall)The crackdown on Australian drug houses: how 'meth dens’ are ruining suburban family streets, leaving property owners and their replacement tenants hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket.
https://7news.com.au/video/sunrise/silent-danger-in-homes-bc-634…
# Hot topic, Video Australia, .The key to finding a home? First, find a partner
Melissa Heagney-Bayliss The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Single people who are young or on low incomes are finding it harder to rent a home of their own, let alone buy a home, without a significant other. Only 22.8 per cent of single, low-income tenants renting independently were paying affordable rent by 2020, a new study shows. Even among those who chose to live in a share house, which would most likely cut costs, about half of single low-income renters were still paying unaffordable rents, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report found. The figures come from the ABS Survey of Income and Housing for 2019-20.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-key-to-finding-a-home-f…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.The Great Housing Hijack – what (nearly) everyone is missing
Michael Pascoe The New Daily (No paywall)“The vast majority of what is written and said about Australian housing is either nonsense, property porn, clickbait or lies, all more or less to the benefit of interests vested in maintaining the status quo of ever-more expensive shelter with all the social damage that causes.” It’s rather gauche to quote oneself, but that’s what I wrote in a blurb for Cameron Murray’s new book, The Great Housing Hijack. The book is the exception that proves the rule as it demonstrates the folly of the general consensus for solving our shelter crisis – that we should keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past three or four decades.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/02/28/michael-pascoe…
# Hot topic Australia, .Super funds stump up millions of dollars to get more people into homes
Josh Gordon The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Hundreds of millions of dollars of retirement savings will be thrown at Australia’s housing affordability crisis under a deal struck between industry superannuation funds to boost the supply of low-cost homes. In a landmark agreement, four of Australia’s biggest industry super funds, along with industry super fund-owned IFM Investors, have agreed to lend their members’ money to community housing providers wanting to build social and affordable housing using the federal government’s Housing Australia Future Fund.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/super-funds-stump-up-millions-of…
# Legal significance Australia, .