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
Apartment price falls signal end to Sydney’s pandemic property boom
Kate Burke and Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Sydney’s runaway property sector has been reined in by a significant market slowdown, with sales having their weakest results since early stages of the pandemic. Sydney unit prices dipped 1.2 per cent to a median of $796,524 in the March quarter, the latest Domain House Price Report shows, while house prices rose a marginal 0.2 per cent to a median of almost $1,591,000 — the weakest performance for both since the June quarter of 2020.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/apartment-price-falls-signa…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Older people housing support provider forced to close due to ‘challenging operating environment’
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)Care and Repair England, which supports older people to live independently in their homes, will have no staff in post from 29 April and anticipates that it will enter into liquidation on 5 May. The charity, which was set up in 1986 by Shelter and the Housing Associations Charitable Trust (HACT), aims to increase the availability of practical housing support for older people to help them adapt and maintain their homes. In a statement announcing its closure on its website, the charity said that raising funds has “become ever more difficult” and citied a “challenging operating environment”. ... It said its decision to close was “particularly sad news at a time of rising poverty among older people, greater housing hardship and increasing inequalities, when practical housing help for those living in poor or unsuitable homes is needed more than ever”. “Despite the strong evidence and data about the connections between ageing, disadvantage, poor housing and health, effective policies, funding and action to tackle non-decent homes are all notable by their absence,” it added.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/older-people-housing-s…
# International, Home ownership, Older people.Why negative gearing has gone the way of the dinosaur
Noel Whittaker The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)It is an entirely different world today. With record-low interest rates and reasonably high property investment yields, negative gearing is all but impossible.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/why-negative-gearing-has-…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Landlords and agents, Tax.As Tasmanian councils end COVID freeze on rate rises, households brace for the pinch
Selina Ross ABC (No paywall)Like councils across Tasmania, Launceston froze its rates in the 2020-21 financial year as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state. It resulted in lost revenue in excess of $2.2 million. Local Government Association president Christina Holmdahl said it was now a challenging time for councils as they tried to catch up. ... Last year, the Tasmanian Council of Social Services (TasCOSS) urged councils to balance their need to raise rates against the cost of living pressures faced by Tasmanian households.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-22/households-feeling-pressu…
# Australia, Housing market, Local Government, Tax.Why you should be investing in sustainable homes
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Investors all over Australia are now looking more closely at buying more energy-efficient homes. Future-proofing an investment property can reduce running costs and attract, and retain, good tenants. ... But the options are far greater than just investing in individual smart homes. “Build-to-rent [B2R] is becoming a serious asset class in Australia, and you have companies like Mirvac with their B2R club with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation,” Rooney says. “Retirement living is also an asset, with so much work done by Lendlease to green their product. “These are more scaleable investment products in the residential space, good for mum and dad investors as well as institutional investors. “We’re now also on the path to having a national framework for the energy disclosures of homes. At the moment, we get an energy rating for our fridges, but we don’t for homes, except in Canberra.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/why-you-should-be-investing…
# Australia, Rent, Climate change, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Minimum habitability standards, Older people.This Unhinged Rental Ad For A Home Near Byron Bay Has Unaligned Every Single One Of My Chakras
Soaliha Iqbal (No paywall)Sometimes I wonder just how accurate Netflix’s Byron Baes was in its depiction of certain people’s ~spirituality~ but trust me, even our beloved Hannah could not have cooked up this wild rental ad. James Mchenery, who fittingly owns a natural remedies business, shared a rental ad via Facebook of a three-bedroom house on a four-month trial lease in Myocum, near Byron Bay.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/bizarre-northern-rivers-rental-ad/
# NSW, Rent, Landlords and agents.What the rise in inflation means for interest rates and cost of living — and it's not good news
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)We saw a significant development today that means a May rate rise from the Reserve Bank is now a distinct possibility. ... The bottom line? Borrowers locking in fixed rate loans have been seeing higher interest rates for some time, but right now it's those on variable rates that will pay higher monthly bills. ... For a borrower on a variable rate with $500,000 owing, their monthly repayments could rise by $513 by May 2023, if the cash rate gets to 2 per cent as predicted.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-27/inflation-interest-rate-m…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.The federal budget missed a key opportunity, according to property investors
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)While the 2022-23 federal budget was focused primarily on helping owner-occupiers, first-home buyers and those needing affordable housing, many believe more should have been done to support residential property investors too. “There is a real need for more rental accommodation, particularly in the regions where vacancy rates are virtually zero in many areas,” says Max Shifman, national president of the Urban Development Institute of Australia. “We rely partly on investors to provide homes for tenants, but the supply of housing isn’t keeping up with the demand at all. Supply side support and reforms are critical. “So the budget was a missed opportunity to fix the planning system to deliver more new housing and to support the provision of more infrastructure to build on develop-able land.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-federal-budget-missed-a…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market, Landlords and agents.