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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
NSW voters back rental reforms to stop unfair evictions
Alexandra Smith WA Today (Paywall)Voters have backed NSW Labor’s promise to ban landlords from evicting tenants without good reason, as the government focuses on rental reforms as a key part of a housing puzzle that needs an urgent solution. An exclusive survey shows that 56 per cent of voters support the government’s ban on no-grounds evictions, while only 23 per cent are opposed to enforcing tighter rules around how a tenant can be forced out of a rental property.
https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-voters-back-rental-r…
# Hot topic NSW, Eviction, Rent.Stockland’s $75m Perth Land Lease Community Approved
Clare Burnett The Urban Developer (No paywall)Stockland has been greenlit for a land lease retirement community within a wider residential masterplan in outer Perth. The 6.92ha site is part of Stockland’s Halcyon Illyarrie community at Sinagra, 32km north of the CBD and within the City of Wanneroo Local Government Area. The $71-million plans submitted earlier this year detail a 153-home development on the site of a former Inghams Chicken Factory that ceased operations in 2022.
https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/stockland-land-lease-…
# Australia, Land lease communities, Rent.The housing crisis is global. What are other countries doing about it?
Alan Kohler The Guardian (No paywall)Although Australians are naturally focused on their own housing misery, the truth is that the crisis is global. Much of the developed world has a dire housing shortage and prices are rapidly becoming unaffordable everywhere, or already are. Leo Tolstoy’s maxim “Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” applies to each country’s problems with housing. Leaving aside the migration and refugee flows that are causing extreme housing shortages in some countries, the number of houses being built in the world is simply falling short of population growth, even though that growth is declining.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/28/the-housing-crisis…
# Hot topic International, .UK family awarded over $18,000 after renting ‘unliveable’ New Zealand home, landlord seeks rehearing
Hannah Bartlett NZ Herald (No paywall)Broken appliances. A cracked hob. Nails sticking out of the deck with boards that flipped up when you stood on them. A faulty fireplace that sent smoke billowing through the house. And landlords who allegedly spied on them through security cameras. A UK family got more than they bargained for when they came to New Zealand for a new adventure and discovered the rental they’d signed up for, on a 12-month fixed term lease, was what they describe as “unliveable”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/uk-family-awarded-over-18000-after…
# Must read International, Rent, Repairs, Utilities electricity water gas.Gap between average rents in north and south of England shrinks to lowest level
Jack Simpson The Guardian (No paywall)The gap in rents paid by those in the north and south of England has closed to its lowest level in at least 11 years, figures have shown. In its latest monthly lettings index, the property company Hamptons reported that the average rent paid by tenants in the north of England in August was £960 a month, an increase of 9.6% compared with the same period last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/sep/16/gap-between-averag…
# International, Rent.Affording a home in the U.S. increasingly seems like an impossible dream
Emily Pandise and Jo Ling Kent CBS News (No paywall)It is a desperate time for many Americans struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Erica Duvall often feels like keeping up with the rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her 9-year-old daughter is an "impossible" task. "I definitely make the most money that I've ever made…and it's still not enough to keep up," the single mom said. Duvall said her rent went up $100 when she renewed her lease in December, and she expects a similar hike this winter.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rent-apartment-home-prices-affordab…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Setting up a fierce debate, city-commissioned report recommends changes that would lower LA rent hikes
David Wagner LA ist (No paywall)In the city of Los Angeles, some 650,000 apartments are subject to local rent control. How much rents can go up each year has been the subject of ongoing controversy between tenants and landlords, who often disagree about what’s fair amid a regional crisis in affordable housing.The L.A. City Council, which sets policy, has been at the center of that tension.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/los-angeles-housing-…
# Hot topic International, Rent.UK house prices hit highest annual growth since 2022
Jack Simpson and Richard Partington The Guardian (No paywall)UK house prices are growing at their fastest annual rate for nearly two years as borrowing costs continue to fall on expectations that the Bank of England will keep cutting interest rates, Nationwide has said. The building society said prices grew by 3.2% in September compared with the same month last year, well above the 2.4% annual growth recorded in August, and the fastest pace since the 4.4% recorded in November 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/sep/30/uk-house-prices-hi…
# Hot topic International, .