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
The decline of housing supply in New Zealand: why it happened and how to reverse it
New Zealand Infrastructure Commission (No paywall)Over the last 20 years, New Zealand has experienced faster growth in real house prices than any other OECD country. In the space of a generation, housing has gone from being abundant and reasonably affordable to being scarce and prohibitively expensive. This report analyses how prices and supply have changed over 90 years from the 1930s to the 2010s, to understand whether more rapid price increases in recent decades are due to faster growth in housing demand, or slow housing supply responses.
# International, Housing market.New analysis shows Black women targeted disproportionately for eviction
(No paywall)Rasheedah Phillips, Director of Housing at Policylink and Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition stop by the Cross Connection to discuss a new analysis from USA Today showing how black women are being evicted at a rate twice that of white women, and offer thoughts on how those facing eviction may be able to stay in their homes. (MSNBC)
https://www.msnbc.com/cross-connection/watch/new-analysis-shows-…
# Video International, Eviction, Race and ethnicity.Sydney, Melbourne mortgage repayments to rise by thousands a year
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Home owners need to start preparing for higher interest rates and thousands of dollars a year in extra repayments after the Reserve Bank of Australia gave its strongest indication it will start increasing rates this year. Big bank economists are pencilling in a rise in the cash rate in June from 0.1 per cent – the first rise since November 2010. As inflation shows no signs of abating and the jobs market remains tight, and once the May 21 federal election is out of the way, the big bank economists believe the RBA will make its move.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/sydney-melbo…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Parents cough up record $100,000 to help children buy first home
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Almost 60 per cent of first home buyers are receiving financial help from their parents to get a start in the property market following the price boom of the past two years and as the tight rental market sees rents soar. The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is the ninth biggest lender and parents are gifting or lending a record average of almost $100,000 – up from just under $90,000 a year ago – to help with the deposit, figures from Digital Finance Analytics show. ... Digital Finance Analytics founder Martin North cautions that first time buyers who get substantive help from their parents are three times more likely to default on their mortgage in the subsequent five years compared to those who receive no support.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/parents-coug…
# Australia, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.Rental housing squeeze hits regional hospitality workforce as tourist towns struggle to find staff
Katherine Smyrk ABC (No paywall)The Regional Australia Institute (RAI) recently released a report on housing, titled 'Building the Good Life – Meeting the Demand for Regional Housing'. Part of the paper looked at the lack of "suitable" housing in regional areas, namely social housing and smaller units or apartments for rental. "This is preventing communities from bringing in the kind of workers they need, who are the glue that holds those communities together," Chief Economist Kim Horton said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-13/rental-housing-squeeze-hi…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW, Work, employment.Rented homes that pose a serious threat to health cost the NHS £340m a year
Liam Geraghty (No paywall)Deathtrap homes that pose “a serious threat to the health and safety of renters” are costing the NHS an estimated £340 million a year, MPs have warned. Around 13 per cent of privately rented properties in England currently cause a threat to health – amounting to 589,000 homes according to the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report. But tenants face a postcode lottery with as many as a fifth of homes in areas like Yorkshire and the Humber deemed unsafe. The Westminster government is set to bring sweeping reforms to the sector in the next couple of months through the Renters’ Reform Bill. But the committee said the “poor understanding” of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) on issues such as overcrowding, harassment, evictions and the effect of regulation could hamper its impact.
https://bigissue.com/news/housing/rented-homes-that-pose-a-serio…
# International, Rent, Health, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Italy’s superbonus 110% scheme prompts surge of green home renovations
Angela Giuffrida The Guardian (No paywall)For years, people living in Castelnuovo di Porto, a medieval village close to Rome, had put off doing maintenance jobs on their homes, whether it be fixing the roof or cracks in walls caused by earthquakes, because they could not afford it. So when the Italian government said it would foot the entire bill for a range of renovation works, on the sole proviso of rendering buildings energy efficient and earthquake-proof, they could not believe their luck. ... Thousands of Italian and foreign homeowners have flocked to access Italy’s generous superbonus 110% scheme, which has so far cost the government about €21bn (£17.5bn) since launching in July 2020 as part of the country’s post-pandemic recovery strategy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/italys-superbonus-…
# International, Repairs, Climate change, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Hundreds of buildings with cladding deemed low priority despite possible ‘unacceptable fire risk’
Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The state government taskforce into dangerous flammable cladding has deemed more than 500 buildings a low priority, despite their facades potentially posing unacceptable fire risks. NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford made the finding in a review of reforms targeting unsafe cladding since the material supercharged London’s deadly Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in 2017.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/hundreds-of-buildings-with-c…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.