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
First home buyers 'missing out' on property boom as Qld developers strike out with sunset clauses
Cathy Border, Sally Rope, and Tom Forbes ABC (No paywall)Queensland's property laws have come under fire as more developers use sunset clauses to cancel contracts and leave would-be first home buyers priced out of the market. ... [Gold Coast resident Yasmin Reiser said] after lengthy delays she was worried a sunset clause could be activated to rescind the contract after 18 months. ... Ms Resier said that she and several other buyers had a condition in their contracts that allowed them, and the developers, to cancel the contract if the development had not been finalised within 18 months.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-16/property-developer-sunset…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Home renovation spending soars to $12b as locked-down Aussies extend, beautify their houses
Owen Jacques ABC (No paywall)Australians have spent more on home renovations during the pandemic years than at any other time since records began 50 years ago. As COVID landed, spread and paralysed much of Australian life, with state and international borders closed and entire cities locked down, we began spending more on renovations — up 10 per cent to $9.2 billion. But last year it must have felt safer to bet the house, with Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing renovators poured a massive $12.3 billion into renovating their homes, up 33 per cent on 2020. That's almost double what we spent on renovations just 10 years ago.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-16/home-renovations-record-s…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Record Gold Coast rental market likely to 'edge higher' as tenants 'lock in' for longer
Dominic Cansdale ABC (No paywall)Record median rental prices on the Gold Coast continue to rise as low vacancy rates and short-term holiday leasing fuel an already competitive housing market. Domain's quarterly rental report shows weekly median rents for houses have jumped by a 25 per cent in the 12 months to March, while units now cost almost 20 per cent more to rent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-14/gold-coast-rental-prices-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.‘Heartbreaking’: US police investigate deaths of two people killed in shooting at Pittsburgh Airbnb party
Giulia Heyward and Emma Bubola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Police were looking for suspects after two young men were shot to death after a large party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, degenerated into a barrage of gunfire overnight, police said. ... Officials said the Pittsburgh party was a large, apparently unsupervised, party. Many of those attending were underage. The chaotic scene in Pittsburgh began around 12:30am on Sunday, Pennsylvania time, at an Airbnb rental, the police department said in a statement. About 200 people were at the party, according to the statement. You can also read a report on the same incident in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/17/us-three-separate-mass-shootings-easter-weekend] It reads: 'The short-term rental provider Airbnb issued a statement saying the person who had rented the home had now been banned from using the service for life. The person violated a company policy banning parties ... '
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/heartbreaking-us-poli…
# International, Short-term holiday letting.Make Renting Fair: Now it's time for our next organising meeting!
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)Now it's time for our next organising meeting! It'll be happening at 6pm, Thursday the 28th of April, via Zoom - and you'll need to register to get the Zoom link. At the meeting, we'll be honing and prioritising our asks for the campaign between now and the March 2023 NSW election. Come along and join the conversation and contribute to shaping the Make Renting Fair campaign for the coming year.
https://mailchi.mp/tenants.org.au/make-renting-fair-making-a-com…
# NSW, Rent, Campaigns and law reform.A tragedy’: Waterloo estate overhaul ignites housing crisis debate
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has labelled the NSW government’s long-running plan to redevelop Waterloo’s public housing estate with hundreds of private apartments a “tragedy”, ramping up pressure on politicians to provide more social and affordable homes to ease the city’s housing crisis. Moore said the revamp, one of the state’s biggest urban renewal projects, presented an “amazing opportunity for any responsible government” to build more social and affordable homes. She said the demand for such housing had “never been greater”, and was expected to rise due to the social and economic fallout from the pandemic. “We’ve got a housing crisis in Sydney, and if we can’t have social housing on publicly owned sites, where are we going to have it?” Moore said at a council meeting on Monday. The overhaul of the sprawling estate in Sydney’s south has triggered debate about the provision of social and affordable homes in the inner city, where vulnerable residents face a five- to 10-year wait for social housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-tragedy-waterloo-estate-ov…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Estate renewal, Housing market, Local Government, State Government.Renters spend 10 times as much on housing as petrol. Where’s their cost-of-living relief?
Joey Moloney and Brendan Coates The Conversation (No paywall)If the pre-election budget was designed to address the cost of living, it missed something. In an effort to help those whose wages aren’t growing as quickly as prices, it offered: (i) a one-off A$250 payment to income support recipients, (ii) a temporary increase in the low-and-middle-income tax offset, and (iii) a six-month halving of the fuel excise. But it failed to offer help to some of the Australians who need it the most. Australians only spend 3 per cent of their incomes on petrol. The typical renter spends more than 10 times as much on rent. After a minor and temporary reprieve early in the pandemic, advertised rents are again on the rise – up nearly 10% over the last 12 months.
https://theconversation.com/renters-spend-10-times-as-much-on-ho…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Welfare.Australia enters a deep rental crisis
ABC (No paywall)SQM Research founder Louis Christopher says rental prices have increased 12-15% in many towns and cities in the past year. Rental vacancy rates are also falling below 1%, meaning many families will not find the housing they need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Cs7RapIfk&ab_channel=ABCNews%2…
# Video Australia, Rent, Housing market.