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
One-size-fits-all model of accessible housing ‘a disaster’ for Australians with disability
Calla Wahlquist The Guardian (No paywall)Elijah Armstrong’s wheelchair is 76cm wide. The doorways at the rental home he shares with his family are 78cm wide. ... accessible housing for families is in short supply, so [his mother, Grace Dlabik] has made the best of what is available on the private rental market. They moved into their current home, a large art deco house in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, in September. Dlabik found it during a daily scour of realestate.com.au, after spending a year searching for an accessible property.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/one-size-…
# Australia, Rent, Disability, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Personal stories.Thousands call for homeless help, but phones ring out as staff are swamped
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Half of all calls for homelessness help went unanswered in Victoria in January, and experts say no new permanent support staff have been funded in the past decade despite a three-fold increase in after-hours demand.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/thousands-call-for-home…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness, State Government.With interest rates about to start rising, experts estimate almost 300,000 mortgage borrowers are at serious risk of default
Nassim Khadem ABC (No paywall)Tara Higginson pulls no punches when asked what will happen if interest rates rise on Tuesday, off the back of soaring inflation. "I'm up shit creek", says the single mother of four who, in the midst of the pandemic, took out an interest-only variable loan of $510,000 – more than six times her income. "I don't have a second income to be able to buffer that fluctuation when it [interest rates] increase," she says. "There would have to be cutbacks."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/borrowers-home-loans-mort…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Personal stories, Women.Fixed rate or variable? How to navigate the interest rate rise and your mortgage
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)To fix or not to fix? That is the question. The national property market is cooling, somewhat, and both Labor and the Coalition are offering up ways to make it easier for first-home buyers to turn the key on a new property. Prior to the election, home ownership for low-and-middle income earners — without the bank of mum and dad — was little more than a pipedream, but both sides of politics are now dangling the carrot of the Great Australian Dream.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-03/rba-interest-rates-variab…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Where you can buy your first home (if the next government helps pay for it)
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)First-home buyers relying on government help to get into the property market will have greater spending power, with both Labor and the Coalition promising higher price caps for assistance schemes ahead of the election. Labor on Sunday revealed its Help to Buy program, a shared equity scheme under which the government would contribute up to 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to 30 per cent of the price for an existing home. It comes after the Coalition’s pitch to first-home buyers two weeks earlier, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced price caps for the existing Home Guarantee Scheme would be increased from July 1, a move backed by Labor.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-you-can-buy-your-firs…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing market.How Do The Major Parties Measure Up On Housing And Cost Of Living Policy?
Aleksandra Bliszczyk (No paywall)We’ll compare the Coalition, Labor and the Greens’ policies on all the issues important to young people. We’ve narrowed them down to: climate change, the cost of living and housing, women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, First Nations rights, mental health and education. So now let’s look at our fucked housing and rental markets and skyrocketing inflation. (Pedestrian TV)
https://www.pedestrian.tv/federal-election-australia/how-do-majo…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, Young people.The Sydney marginal seats most exposed to rising interest rates
Matt Wade The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Reserve Bank’s decision to lift interest rates this week will weigh heavily on financially pressured home borrowers in marginal Sydney seats who could decide the outcome of the federal election. ... Sydney University housing expert, Professor Peter Phibbs, said higher mortgage repayments would add to other cost of living pressures being felt by borrowers. “For voters it’s another thing they can’t get out of paying at a time when a lot of costs have gone up." ... Professor Hal Pawson from the University of NSW’s City Futures Research Centre said those outer metropolitan regions have a high concentration of recent first home buyers who are especially vulnerable to rising interest rates because they have not had the opportunity to build up much equity in their property.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-sydney-marginal-seats-mo…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘Hunger Games situation’: Rental vacancies at record lows as tenants do it tough
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Tenants are facing tough competition for a rental across the country, with Australia’s vacancy rate remaining at an all-time low in April, new data shows, as rents rise at the same time. The national vacancy rate remained at 1 per cent after reaching the record low in March, Domain’s latest Rental Vacancy Report revealed. ... Economic program policy director at the Grattan Institute Brendan Coates said fewer available rentals and growing demand from tenants, including those moving from overseas, was the perfect recipe for continuing rent rises. ... “In the long term it’s the only solution,” Coates said. “We can’t continue this Hunger Games style situation, so the only way to solve that is by building more homes.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/hunger-games-situation-rent…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Students.