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
Official Statistics English Private Landlord Survey 2021
Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (No paywall)The English Private Landlord Survey (EPLS) is a national survey of landlords and letting agents who own and/or manage privately rented properties in England. It was commissioned by the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). ... The private rented sector is characterised by diversity and looks very different now than it did more than a decade ago. The number of households in the sector rose by 45% between 2008-09 and 2020-21, from 3.1 million to 4.4 million households. The private rented sector is now the second largest tenure in England, and is home to 19% of all households, compared to 14% in 2008-09, when it was smaller than the social rented sector. [Read on] (Published by International Union of Tenants)
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/official-statistics-english-priva…
# International, Rent, Landlords and agents.RBA Cash Rate: What is Australia’s current interest rate?
(No paywall)Australia’s official cash rate is determined by the Reserve Bank of Australia in a board meeting every month (excluding January). The RBA’s cash rate is the rate that’s charged on loans between financial institutions (like banks). It has a significant impact on the price of financial products you purchase. (rent.com.au)
# Australia, Housing market.Young Australians are furious at the Reserve Bank. They have every right to be
Osman Faruqi The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)[These videos] reflect growing anger and confusion among younger Australians about the RBA’s strategy under Lowe. Firstly, there’s the deep frustration about being locked out of a housing market turbocharged by near-zero interest rates. Many have given up hunting after watching prices rocket over the past two years. What good are record-low interest rates if you can’t get into the market? Next, there is a feeling of betrayal among those who managed to buy a house in the past couple of years, taking Lowe at his word that the RBA wouldn’t lift rates until 2024, only to be stung by the most rapid rises in years.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/as-interest-rates-soar-tiktokers…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.How much extra could mortgage repayments cost now the cash rate is 2.6 per cent?
ABC (No paywall)The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased the cash rate by 0.25 of a percentage point. That means the cash rate is now 2.6 per cent. It is the sixth month in a row the RBA has lifted its cash rate target, but the first time since the first move in May that rates have risen less than 0.5 of a percentage point. If you're on a variable rate, your repayments will probably increase too. This repayments calculator shows how much extra you may have to pay each month. Plug in your current loan size, term and interest rate to see the difference.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-04/mortgage-rate-rise-calcul…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market.Rate rise could be final straw for lower income households
Emma Koehn The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Supermarket giant Coles has locked in prices on 150 more everyday products to the end of January as another interest rate rise on Tuesday threatens to put the squeeze on low-income households. “We know it’s been a really tough year for many of our customers and they are looking for prices they can rely on,” Coles chief executive of commercial and express Leah Weckert said.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/october-rate-raise-cou…
# Australia, Families, Housing market.Controversial riverside project back before council with more units
Sean Parnell The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The developers behind a controversial West End apartment project have asked Brisbane City Council to allow more units and car spaces under a major redesign. The project, first proposed by a subsidiary of Crown Group in 2018, would involve multiple towers on a riverside block fronting Victoria Street. While urban renewal continues to transform the inner-Brisbane suburb from industrial to high-end residential, the project has attracted criticism and even protests.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/controversial-riversi…
# Australia, Housing market, Local Government, Planning and development.International Tenants' Day 2022
(No paywall)This year in light of the global housing and energy crisis, IUT has chosen to be inspired by the UN’s themes of Mind the Gap. Leave No One and Place Behind and World Cities Day focus on Act local to go global as the recommended themes when Tenants celebrate the International Tenants’ Day around the world. Therefore, the IUT is calling for a moratoria on evictions, energy price caps and long-term climate allowances for low- and middle income households. Read the media release at: [https://www.iut.nu/news-events/iut-calls-for-moratoria-on-evictions-energy-price-caps-and-long-term-climate-allowances-for-low-and-middle-income-households/]
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change.The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord
Hettie O'Brien The Guardian (No paywall)Blackstone is the largest commercial landlord in history. Over the past two decades, it has quietly taken control of apartment blocks, care homes, student housing, railway arches, film studios, offices, hotels, logistics warehouses and datacentres. Blackstone doesn’t just own real estate, it owns everything – or that’s how it can feel when you start to examine its bewildering array of assets. ... In most places where it began to buy up residential properties, Blackstone faced little opposition from governments or politicians. That is, until it arrived in a small Scandinavian country, which, when confronted with the indifferent force of this global real estate company, decided Blackstone had gone too far. “Blackstone was like a boxer walking into a heavy right-hand hook to the jaw,” Curt Liliegreen, a Danish housing economist, told me. “They didn’t see it coming. They picked totally the wrong place.” ... In July 2020, the Danish parliament passed what became informally known as the Blackstone Law, or Blackstone indgreb. “We were holding our breath until the very moment the law was passed and the ink was dry,” said Anders Svendsen, a lawyer for Denmark’s national tenants union. As well as preventing new landlords from raising the rent for five years, the legislation also prohibits landlords from offering tenants money to move out. (They must also upgrade a building’s energy efficiency before increasing the rent.) The law targets all landlords, pension funds and big investors. Blackstone was just the wedge that propped open the door. The tenants union even considered sending the company a bunch of flowers.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/29/blackstone-rebe…
# International, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.