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
Regional Home Guarantee may ease housing shortages but buyers will have to wait for new builds
Emily JB Smith ABC (No paywall)Ongoing construction delays could blow out further due to a new scheme that encourages people to build homes in the bush, stakeholders have warned. The Regional Home Guarantee (RHG), announced as part of Tuesday night's federal budget, will allow eligible applicants to build or buy newly built homes in regional Australia with only a five per cent deposit. From October, the scheme will offer 10,000 places a year to first home buyers, people who have not owned a property in the past five years, and permanent residents.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-30/regional-home-guarantee-a…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Regional NSW.Could the property market pendulum be swinging back in favour of buyers?
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)The housing market pendulum is starting to swing back in favour of buyers, as new data shows double-digit falls in one measure of buyer interest in Sydney and Melbourne homes for sale.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/could-the-property-market-p…
# Australia, Housing market.Trees and fences source of rising neighbour disputes in South Australia
ABC (No paywall)It's something you can't guarantee when you move into a new home. How are the neighbours?
Neighbour disputes are on the rise in South Australia, and the battles being waged on suburban streets can quickly escalate. Chris Stone from the Legal Services Commission tells Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz how to prevent a small dispute from becoming a big problem.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/breakfast/bad-nei…
# Audio Australia, Neighbours.Cheaper petrol, arts cuts, housing affordability and the PM slammed in the Senate
ABC (No paywall)Will cheaper petrol do the trick for Scott Morrison on polling day? Patricia Karvelas and Fran Kelly analyse federal budget week including arts funding cuts, whether the PM is doing enough for renters and that scathing character assessment of the PM by Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/partyroom/cheaper-…
# Audio Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability.New female voices set to shake up Clover Moore’s hold on Sydney city council
Gary Nunn The Guardian (No paywall)When Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, was returned for a historic fifth term in December, not everything went her party’s way. ... The Greens return to the council after a term away. They join a new party (Unite for Sydney, represented by Yvonne Weldon), and two new candidates for a major party (Shauna Jarrett and Lyndon Gannon of the Liberals). ... As deputy chair of the new Housing for All committee, Ellsmore wants the city of Sydney – one of Australia’s wealthiest councils – to do “much more” on affordable housing. “Protecting and growing affordable housing will now be discussed monthly by all councillors.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/03/new-femal…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Local Government.New Zealand Housing Inequality Grinds On
(No paywall)A large number of New Zealanders are facing a perfect storm at retirement, with minimal savings and no house, raising the risk that thousands will enter old age in poverty. ... New Zealanders have traditionally relied on owning a home to support themselves during their retirement years. But many of the New Zealanders now aged between 50 and 65 – a cohort of almost half a million people – will go into retirement as renters after skyrocketing house prices over the last three decades put home ownership out of reach. (Digital Finance Analytics Blog)
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/new-zealand-housing-ine…
# Video International, Rent, Home ownership, Older people.Australian house prices rise despite stalling values in Sydney and Melbourne
The Guardian (No paywall)A lift in house values in the smallest cities has driven growth across the country, despite stalling values in Sydney and Melbourne. CoreLogic’s national Home Value Index, released on Friday, was up 0.7% in March, driven by stronger conditions in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and the ACT, along with several regional areas. Read the article by Emilia Terzon and Samuel Yang entitled: 'Property boom over in Sydney and Melbourne — but prices still rising elsewhere' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/sydney-and-melbourne-house-prices-fall-despite-a-national-growth/100955638]. Also, read Paul Osborne's article entitled: 'Smaller cities lead growth in home values' in 'The New Daily' at: [https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/04/01/smaller-cities-lead-growth-home-values/]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/01/australia…
# Australia, Housing market.Low deposit scheme expanded, but first-home buyers risk more pain than gain
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Morrison government has significantly expanded the low deposit scheme in the federal budget - a program under which first-home buyers and others can buy new or existing dwellings with a deposit of only 5 per cent (or 2.5 per cent for single parents). But if the forecasts of falling house prices turn out to be correct, first-home buyers who put down a small deposit could soon find themselves in “negative equity”, where the mortgage is larger than the market value of their dwelling.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/low-deposit-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.