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
Australia records strongest annual growth in home prices
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)Residential property prices reached their strongest annual growth on record last year, rising 23.7% in the last 12 months. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics residential property prices index report, which began reporting in 2003, the total value of the nation’s 10.8m homes grew by $2tn to a record $9.9tn last year. Australia’s property market has seen astronomical growth, spurred by record-low interest rates and government stimulus.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/15/australia…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Renters sweltering in ‘unhealthy temperatures’ due to lax rental standards: Report
Sezen Bakan The New Daily (No paywall)Australian renters are suffering from poor sleep and difficulties working as they swelter in “unhealthy temperatures” for hours every day, according to a new report. Tenancy advocacy organisation Better Renting tracked the indoor temperatures of 50 rental homes across Australia at regular intervals from December 1, 2021 to February 22, 2022 and found the homes were above the recommended safe temperature of 25 degrees for an average of more than nine hours a day. Every one in six days, the homes reached 30 degrees or higher. Renters said the stifling temperatures regularly kept them up at night and meant they were too uncomfortable to work at home, leading to stress and poor mental health.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/03/17/rental-un…
# Australia, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Fixtures - lights, aircon etc, Health, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Asking rents to surge 15pc this year, stoking inflation
Nila Sweeney (Paywall)Asking rents are on track to surge by as much as 15 per cent nationwide this year, as vacancy rates plummet to a new 16-year low, adding a further spur to the country’s already surging inflation, SQM Research says. Available rentals dropped from 1.3 per cent January to 1.2 per cent of total rental stock across the country in February – the lowest level since December 2006 when vacancy rate fell to 1.1 per cent, figures from the consultancy showed on Tuesday. (Australian Financial Review)
https://www.afr.com/property/residential/asking-rents-to-surge-1…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Housing crisis 'abhorrent': Housing Trust CEO Michele Adair
Zoe Cartwright Illawarra Mercury (No paywall)A survey of 666 Gilmore voters undertaken by the Everybody's Home campaign found 84 per cent of respondents thought it was either 'hard' or 'very hard' for people on low-to-middle incomes to rent a home in the region. A similarly strong majority 72 per cent believed the federal government had not done enough to address housing affordability, while 76 per cent thought there was not enough social and affordable housing for people struggling in the housing market. ... Housing Trust CEO Michele Adair said she was not surprised by the findings. "Even before the floods, COVID and bushfires we had an affordable housing crisis across the Illawarra and Shoalhaven," she said. "It used to only affect people on very low incomes, but now working professionals on good salaries with a household income of $120,000 are eligible for subsidised rental housing.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7659722/id-be-homeless…
# NSW, Rent, Affordable housing, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.Staff shortages impacting older Australians on home care packages
Ellen Coulter ABC (No paywall)Angela Dolcetta has lived in the same home in Melbourne's north for more than 50 years, and she's determined to stay in her own home for as long as possible. ... Ms Dolcetta has applied for a home care package to get help with shopping, gardening, and cleaning. There are four levels of home care packages, with federal government subsidies ranging from $9,000 a year for basic help, to more than $52,000 for more complex assistance. The money is paid to a provider chosen by the recipient. Ms Dolcetta was assessed as eligible for a Level 2 package in October, but she's still waiting to hear when she'll be allocated a package.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-16/staff-shortages-home-care…
# Australia, Disability, Older people, Welfare.Fears thousands will become homeless when National Rental Affordability Scheme ends
Rachel McGhee and Paul Culliver ABC (No paywall)In less than a month, pensioner George Parkyn and his beloved dog, Baxter, could be homeless. Mr Parkyn lives in one of more than 8,000 Queensland properties provided through the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). The federal scheme provides 22,000 properties nationwide. NRAS started in 2008 with the aim of increasing the supply of new and affordable rental dwellings by providing an annual financial incentive to property owners for up to 10 years. This incentive is issued to landlords to create lower-cost rentals for low and middle-income earners at 20 per cent below the market rate. ... Every year rentals on the scheme increase in line with the Consumer Price Index, but in years five and eight of the scheme, property owners are given the opportunity to increase their rent by market value. For Mr Parkyn and others living in Tannum Sands estate, it is year number eight. ... It's not just the looming rent increase that's worrying Mr Parkyn. Over the next four years those living in the 22,000 NRAS properties will find themselves competing for rentals in the open market when the scheme ends. ... Housing advocacy group Everybody's Home spokesperson Kate Colvin predicts thousands of people will become homeless as a result. "People will be thrown to the mercy of the private rental market, and rents have increased massively," Ms Colvin said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-16/housing-crisis-to-worsen-…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing market.Petrol prices won’t crash the housing market - it’s renters who will suffer most
Emma Dawson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Where the sharp increases in cost of living brought about by petrol price rises will hurt is at the bottom end of the housing market: those in private rentals, some of whom may still be hoping to buy their first home. Lower income households – the bottom 40 per cent, predominantly living on fixed income support, sometimes combined with part-time or casual wages from insecure work – pay more than 3 per cent of their income on petrol, compared to less than 2 per cent for higher income earners. They also spend a much greater proportion of their income on essentials, leaving little to save for a home deposit – or to cover increases in rent, which are beginning to follow house prices up that steep incline.
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/petrol-prices-won-t-crash-the-hou…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.One million homes at risk of flooding by 2030, new modelling shows
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)More than one million properties are at risk of flooding across 30 priority local government areas around Australia, new modelling shows. And climate change-fuelled riverine flooding could cause $170 billion in property value losses by 2050, or $45,000 per exposed property, research from risk analysis provider Climate Valuation found.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/one-million-homes-at-risk-o…
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market.