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
Where you can buy a home in Sydney for less than 2016 prices
Kate Burke and Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Apartment prices across dozens of Sydney suburbs are lower than they were five years ago, with pockets of oversupply and reduced buyer demand in some markets pushing median prices down. While the harbour city’s median apartment price reached a record high of about $802,000 last quarter, Domain data shows typical unit prices in a string of inner suburbs, and many more in the city’s west, were lower than they were five years earlier.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-you-can-buy-a-home-in…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market.And now for the mosquito-borne disease threat to our warming cities
Rose Mary Petrass The Fifth Estate (No paywall)In an increasingly hot and humid climate, citizens and urban design professionals are looking for greening solutions such as vertical garden walls, tree coverage and parklands. City greening makes for healthier populations, cooler temperatures, happiness and liveability. But plants and the water that feeds them can invite unwelcome guests into homes and workplaces. Mosquitos thrive around water for reproduction. Urban greening is inadvertently creating a pest and disease problem for city-dwellers.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/hospitals/and-now-for-t…
# Australia, Health, Planning and development.Moving west
Elise Kinsella ABC (No paywall)For years, affordable housing has attracted families to Melbourne’s west. But after a long housing boom and surge in real estate prices, residents say their neighbourhoods are changing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-20/melbourne-west-altona-hou…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Queensland government proposes third wave of funding for flood victims worth three-quarters of a billion dollars
Alex Brewster ABC (No paywall)Deputy Premier Steven Miles says the Queensland government has requested sign-off from the federal government on a $771-million flood relief package. He said the government had assessed 6,800 homes as having some kind of damage as a result of the flooding. Under the plan, grants of up to $50,000 will be available to retrofit 5,500 flood-affected homes, while grants of up to $100,000 will be on offer to raise 1,000 homes. Meanwhile, $350 million will be dedicated to buying back up to 500 homes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-19/queensland-floods-funding…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, State Government.One in 10 Sydney homes for sale in February were discounts
Tawar Razaghi The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)One in 10 homes for sale in February were offering discounts, a share that is only likely to grow as long as sellers expect 2021 prices despite the market slowing since.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/one-in-10-sydney-homes-for-…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing market.Homeless and looking for help – why people with disability and their carers fare worse after floods
Jodie Baille, Jo Longman, Michelle Villeneuve and Ross Baille The Conversation (No paywall)Thousands of people have been displaced from the floods in New South Wales and Queensland. Across the Northern Rivers, the floods have damaged at least 5,500 homes, with at least half of these expected to be uninhabitable. Floods expose social inequities and exacerbate the housing crisis for people with disability and carers in the region.
https://theconversation.com/homeless-and-looking-for-help-why-pe…
# NSW, Disability, Housing market, Regional NSW.After the floods, the distressing but necessary case for managed retreat
Antonia Settle The Conversation (No paywall)From Brisbane to Sydney, many thousands of Australians have been reliving a devastating experience they hoped – in 2021, 2020, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2012 or 2010/11 – would never happen to them again. For some suburbs built on the flood plains of the Nepean River in western Sydney, for example, these floods are their third in two years. Flooding is a part of life in parts of Australia. But as climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of floods, fires and other disasters, and recovery costs soar, two big questions arise. As a society, should we be setting up individuals and families for ruin by allowing them to build back in areas where they can’t afford insurance? And is it fair for taxpayers to carry the huge burden of paying for future rescue and relief costs?
https://theconversation.com/after-the-floods-the-distressing-but…
# Australia, Housing market, Planning and development.‘A disaster waiting to happen’: Residents raised concerns about boarding house before deadly blaze
Megan Gorrey, Josh Dye and Sarah Keoghan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Residents who survived a suspicious boarding house fire that killed three people in Sydney’s inner west say they heard an explosion that resembled a bomb going off before they were forced to flee through thick smoke. ... Residents say they had complained to the building’s owner about poor living conditions at the boarding house. You will find an update to this report at: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/man-charged-with-three-counts-of-murder-over-newtown-boarding-house-fire-20220316-p5a505.html] And, here's a report in 'The Guardian'. Go to: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/16/man-charged-with-after-three-die-in-sydney-boarding-house-fire]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-disaster-waiting-to-happen…
# NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent, Homelessness.