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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Michael Gove is right about one thing: building more homes won’t solve anything
Simon Jenkins The Guardian (No paywall)The UK has enough housing to go around – the problem is that the market is inefficient. Boris Johnson’s Queen’s speech was largely empty of substance. So thank goodness for the housing and planning secretary, Michael Gove. ... In plain terms, what Gove meant was that Johnson’s mantra of “build, build, build” (a parroting of his chief party donors, the construction lobby) was senseless. The build-or-be-damned policies of David Cameron and George Osborne had funnelled jobs, people and money into the south-east of England, spawning characterless housing estates from Hampshire to East Anglia. This had enraged Tory voters in villages and small towns, because it sucked the life out of existing communities, crushing high streets and closing local pubs.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/13/michael-go…
# International, Housing market.Toxic flood sludge leaves Northern Rivers residents of Broadwater homeless
Miranda Saunders ABC (No paywall)Thick black toxic sludge still sticks to every part of Dean Wilson's Broadwater home north of Evans Head in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. "I want to come home. I've been homeless for 10 weeks. I've been put up in decent accommodation but I'm not home," he said. For the past 10 weeks, all Mr Wilson's worldly possessions have sat in his house, growing mouldy and covered in flood mud and sludge.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/toxic-sludge-leaves-resid…
# NSW, Homelessness.Sydney upsizers face record gap between unit and house prices
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Making the leap into a larger home has become increasingly difficult for Sydney upsizers, who need to bridge a record price gap to trade up from a unit to a house. Sydney houses now cost twice as much as units, Domain data shows, with the price difference between the two property types widening rapidly during the pandemic.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sydney-upsizers-face-record…
# NSW, Strata, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing market.We’ve done it before, others do it now – a national housing plan is not beyond our wit
Rowan Moore The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The important question is: what might actually make a difference to the neverendingly intractable problem of housing? A large part of the answer is the one thing that this government has not attempted, because it is ideologically and organisationally inhibited from doing so, which is positive public intervention in the planning and building of homes and communities. ... The powers that created new towns can be used to build homes just where they’re needed.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/15/weve-dont-…
# International, Housing market.Sisters In Law: What are tenant’s rights on the bond and end of lease clean?
Alison Barrett and Jillian Barrett news.com.au (No paywall)A NSW woman, who rented a unit for three years, has been shocked by her landlord’s “miserly” move after she moved out. ... Welcome to Sisters In Law, news.com.au’s weekly column solving all of your legal problems. This week, our resident lawyers and real-life sisters Alison and Jillian Barrett from Maurice Blackburn advise on renter’s rights when it comes to their bond.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/sisters-in-l…
# NSW, Bond.Aboriginal land claim approved for historic Sydney site
Millie Muroi The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A prominent, historic Sydney site, which used to be a detention centre, will be part-owned by the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council after an Aboriginal land claim was approved on Thursday. Under the agreement, 1.5 hectares of the Yasmar site on Parramatta Road at Haberfield will be transferred to the land council, along with its heritage house, garden and other unoccupied buildings on the site. ... Built in 1856, the site has served as a private home, Sunday school and children’s court, as well as being commandeered for office quarters by the Australian Army during the second world war. It was added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 2000. The site, which is now a juvenile justice facility, has had a claim over it since 2016. ... Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Nathan Moran said approval of the Aboriginal land claim was a significant win for Sydney’s Aboriginal community. This is great news and some recompense in recognition of historic dispossession of land,” Moran said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/aboriginal-land-claim-approv…
# NSW, Heritage listings.‘Not necessarily good news’: Property plunge no panacea for housing affordability crisis
Matthew Elmas The New Daily (No paywall)Hopeful home buyers have been warned that falling property prices won’t improve housing affordability, despite the average time taken to save a deposit blowing out to more than 11 years during COVID.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/05/12/housing-a…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market.Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast property prices cool but Corelogic's Tim Lawless says not to worry
Owen Jacques ABC (No paywall)Australia's most expensive real estate market outside of a major city is cooling but experts say it's not necessarily something to worry about. The Sunshine Coast, stretching north to Noosa and south to Caloundra, has the highest median house price of any regional area in the country at about $1 million after prices rose about 50 per cent through the pandemic. The prices even outstrip the Richmond Valley in northern New South Wales, which includes Byron Bay.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/real-estate-prices-sunshi…
# Australia, Housing market, Regional NSW.