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
Buy now, pay later schemes for Australian renters ‘prey on vulnerable’, financial counsellors warn
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)New buy now, pay later-style schemes targeting renters are “preying on the vulnerable”, say consumer advocates who have renewed calls for the federal government to overhaul credit laws to better regulate the sector. A recent entrant into the market, Tenanting, follows the model of buy now, pay later (BNPL) products such as Afterpay, which offer microloans for retail purchases that users can then pay back in four instalments. Tenanting advertises that it will pay rent on an individual’s behalf “instantly” with the user repaying it over four instalments with the addition of a 5% fee. Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) has taken aim at the company, calling it “yet another alarming example of a fintech company taking advantage of loopholes in the credit laws”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/04/buy-now-p…
# Australia, Rent.More than two million badly insulated homes in deprived areas ‘financially unviable’ to retrofit
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)The Building Back Britain Commission (BBBC), which is behind the research, said the 2.3 million homes are in areas identified as ‘levelling-up priority areas’ – largely as a result of lower property values. It has called on chancellor Rishi Sunak to commit £2.3bn every year for 10 years to raise energy-efficiency standards for poorer households.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/more-than-two-million-badly…
# International, Utilities electricity water gas, Housing market.There’s a new government, so what’s next for Australia’s house prices?
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Australia’s downward house price trend will not change despite a new federal Labor government being elected on the weekend, experts say. Economists are predicting the property market will continue to soften despite new policies aimed at helping first home buyers, single parents and low-income earners get into the market sooner and a promise of 30,000 extra social and affordable homes.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/there-s-a-new-government-so…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.Property ownership is not the Australian dream for many lifelong renters
Lachlan Bennett ABC (No paywall)Home ownership is not on 34-year-old town planner Eric Smith's to-do list as soaring property prices push the prospect of buying a house out of many young Australians' reach. "Instead of chasing that dream and tying myself to saving $80,000 over the next 10 years so I could put a deposit on a house, I thought I would just commit to renting forever," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-24/home-ownership-not-the-au…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market.‘Sleepless nights’: The Metricon customers whose dream homes became nightmares
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Metricon customers are fearful of losing their money and claim they’ve been left in the dark about the future of their homes amid construction delays and price hikes. As speculation mounts around the financial stability of the building behemoth, which employs about 2500 people and has 4000 houses under construction, some customers say they’ve received little to no communication on the progress of their build.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sleepless-nights-the-metric…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.NT Laramba residents consider further court action as absence of safe water laws problematic
Samantha Jonscher ABC (No paywall)Since 2018, residents in the remote community of Laramba, 200 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, have been loathe to drink water from the taps in their homes. The community's 300 residents fork out for bottled water instead because they know Laramba's tap water contains triple the recommended levels of uranium. While the community has known their local bore water contained uranium as early as 2008, it was only in 2018, when NT Power and Water studied the drinking water closely, that the scale of the problem became apparent. Despite this revelation, the taps in Laramba continue to dispense unsafe drinking water because this is entirely legal in the Territory. And Laramba isn't alone.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-25/laramba-northern-territor…
# Australia, Utilities electricity water gas, Housing market.NYC Apartment Vacancy Rate Jumps Up, But ‘Housing Emergency’ Status Survives
Rachel Holliday Smith (No paywall)New York City has more vacant apartments overall than it did five years ago even as units with monthly rents under $1,500 have dried up, according to a new report that also shows maintenance issues are surging across the board. (The City)
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/5/17/23108792/nyc-apartment-vacancy…
# International, Rent, Housing market.Three-quarters of UK fire doors fail to meet standard, inspection data shows
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)Three-quarters of fire doors inspected in the UK last year failed to meet the required standard, with buildings owned by social landlords having some of the highest number of failures, data from a fire-door inspection organisation has revealed.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/three-quarters-of-uk-f…
# International, Public and community housing, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.