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
Size matters: what Tokyo can teach us about a compact lifestyle
Jeremy Smart The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Six years ago I packed up a one-bedroom apartment in inner Melbourne, swapping it for a smaller (and twice as expensive) apartment in Hong Kong. At around 25 square metres, friends in Australia were shocked that anyone, let alone a couple, could live in such compact confines. ... In 2019, Beijing moved to quash Hong Kong’s vibrant pro-democracy movement. The harsh crackdown made the once-free city no longer viable as a base and a new home was sought. We settled on a 37-square-metre apartment in Tokyo. It even fits a small cat. Australians, meanwhile, live in some of the largest homes in the world. In the capital cities, the average new house in 2021 was more than 242 square metres. Six and a half of our apartments could fit inside the typical Australian dwelling.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/size-mat…
# International, Home.How to create a cosy home (without buying anything new)
Sali Hughes The Guardian (No paywall)Several years ago, my boyfriend and I attended the Hay literary festival, and in an uncharacteristic fit of nostalgia I suggested we drive to the village in which I grew up, around 45 minutes away. We toured the landmarks – my grandparents’ house, where I was born, the primary school I’d attended – and, of course, my childhood home, the small end-of-terrace I shared with my two big brothers and my father, following my mother’s departure to a tiny flat a mile or so away. [Read on]
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/03/how-to-crea…
# International, Home.Older Homeless People Are At Great Risk of Dying
Laura Kurtzman (No paywall)A quarter of the participants in a long-term study of older people experiencing homelessness in Oakland died within a few years of being enrolled, University of California San Francisco researchers found. ... [and] people who first became homeless at age 50 or later were about 60 percent more likely to die than those who had become homeless earlier in life. But homelessness was a risk for everyone, and those who remained homeless were about 80 percent more likely to die than those who were able to return to housing. (UCSF)
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2022/08/423551/older-homeless-people-a…
# International, Health, Homelessness.Increased migration must be coupled with investments in housing: Clare O'Neil
ABC (No paywall)Lifting the skilled migration cap has been one of the big consensus points in the Jobs and Skills summit so far and Home Affairs Minister, Clare O'Neil will lead two panels on migration today. She says it's balancing act and that increasing the skilled migration rate has to be coupled with a discussion around housing. (ABC RN)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/increase…
# Audio Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Work, employment.‘I’ve lived here for 30 years’: Welsh shipping container resident faces eviction
Steven Morris The Guardian (No paywall)From Wales .... From the outside it may not look like much – a tangle of metal boxes in a remote Welsh yard weathered by salty winds next to a field of goats and sheep. Inside, though, it is extraordinary. The structure turns out to be four shipping containers ingeniously linked to create a cosy, if eccentric, home for 65-year-old Stephen Gibbons, complete with wood-burning stove, well-used sofas and a polished dining table, plus a collection of stuffed birds – and fake grass for carpet. But if the local authority, Newport city council, gets its way, Gibbons, who has lived here for 30 years and partly brought up four children in this unusual spot, will have to abandon the structure because he did not have planning permission for the dwelling.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/man-faces-evicti…
# International, Eviction, Local Government, Planning and development.Housing pt 1 - care ethics
Kathy Mee and Emma Power ABC (No paywall)These days we're increasingly led to think of a house as a commodity, an investment to be turned into profit. But what does it mean to think of a house as a site of care, rather than an asset in a system of market exchange? This week we're re-centring people in the housing value debate. (ABC Radio National)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/h…
# Audio NSW, Home, Housing market.Banks’ home loan battle heats up as refinancing booms
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As banks fight tooth and nail for home loan growth, the Commonwealth Bank recently made a subtle change to its process for mortgage customers who are dumping the lending giant for a rival. If a CBA customer wants to refinance to another lender, they or their mortgage broker must now call CBA and speak to a staff member to discharge the loan, rather than being able to download the relevant form, as they previously could. The process change means the bank’s staff are getting involved earlier in talking to customers who are planning to leave, potentially giving CBA a better chance of retaining customers by offering lower interest rates. In the scheme of things, it is not exactly a huge shift. Smaller lenders, including Macquarie Bank, Suncorp and others, do the same thing and require one last phone call or discussion for a customer to discharge their loan.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-home-l…
# Australia, Housing market.Complaints prompt Queensland bid to re-educate real estate agents
Sean Parnell The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A rising number of complaints about real estate agents has prompted the Palaszczuk government to propose compulsory annual training sessions to ensure consumers are not being misled. The government wants thousands of agents to be required to undertake two continuing professional development sessions every year. In a discussion paper, the government nominates re-education as the preferred option for regulatory reform. The move comes as the Office of Fair Trading continues to receive complaints about misinformation and miscommunication between agents and consumers in a volatile property market.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/complaints-prompt-que…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.