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
Will city buyers regret moving to the regions post-pandemic?
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)The latest ABS statistics, which so far only track movements in 2020, found that 233,100 people left the cities to live in regional areas in Australia that year. ... Anecdotally, there have been stories about people fleeing the city and settling elsewhere only to realise they’ve acted in haste. “The difficulty then is that some find they can’t afford to buy again in the city,” said relocations expert Jill Weeks, the author of How to Retire in Australia. “We’re seeing some people come back, undoubtedly, but we’re also seeing this ‘half-back’ trend, where people move back as near to the city as they can afford. It’s for this reason, we always advise people to rent and try first, before they buy.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/will-city-buyers-regret-mov…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Regional NSW.Northern Irish housing association receives £100m investment from pension insurer
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)Northern Irish housing association Apex Housing has secured a £100m debt investment from a specialist insurer to go towards building new homes. ... Based in Derry/Londonderry, Apex owns and manages more than 6,000 homes across Northern Ireland. Its stock is set to increase to more than 7,000 once its current planned programmes are completed.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/northern-irish-housing…
# International, Public and community housing, Housing market.Government announces £174m to house 2,900 rough sleepers
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)Councils in England can now bid from a pot of £179m to get rough sleepers into long-term homes, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has announced. The funding, which will be made available through the government’s £433m Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme, will go towards providing 2,900 move-on homes for rough sleepers between 2021 and 2024. It will also fund teams of specialist support staff offering mental health and substance misuse treatment. The homes include refurbished flats from unlettable homes in disrepair, new build properties, converted hotels and schools.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/government-announces-1…
# International, Homelessness, Housing market, Local Government.Interest rate rises expected in June with mortgage repayments to rise
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke Domain (No paywall)Home buyers could face higher mortgage repayments as early as June as financial markets and economists warn a rapid run-up in inflation could force the Reserve Bank to lift official rates above 2 per cent within a year. In a development that feeds into growing federal concerns about cost-of-living pressures ahead of an election due by May, the nation’s biggest lender, the Commonwealth Bank, said it believed the RBA would have to start increasing interest rates by the middle of the year. Even a 1 per cent rise could add hundreds of dollars a month in repayments on the average new mortgage.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/interest-rate-rises-expecte…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Investor with 8000 homes calls for negative gearing to be axed
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Investment adviser Robert Kiyosaki says the Australian government should axe negative gearing to provide an incentive for property buyers to choose wisely rather than “reward them for bad decisions”. The American author of the best-selling book Rich Dad Poor Dad is urging a debate over negative gearing to take centre stage during the upcoming 2022 election campaign. ... Independent economist Saul Eslake agrees. He said he’s been campaigning for the policy’s abolition ever since it was reintroduced in 1987 and believes claims that rents would increase dramatically without it are completely baseless.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/investor-with-8000-homes-ca…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Regional property prices are still surging, but rate rises could end the party
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Property prices in Australia's major regional areas are still surging, raising questions about how long the cycle can last. It's seen the divergence between price increases in capital city markets and regional areas get even larger. It comes as Commonwealth Bank economist Gareth Aird says the Reserve Bank may start lifting the cash rate target as early as June. ... when you drill below the large regional areas in Australia to look at property prices in smaller local government areas (LGAs), there has been exceptionally strong price growth in smaller parts of the country in the previous 12 months. ... It said, for example, house prices in the Kiama LGA — which is 90 kilometres south of Sydney — recorded the largest increase of any LGA in the previous 12 months, at 43.9 per cent, taking its median house value to $1,633,086. Byron Shire on the NSW North Coast has the highest median house value of any regional LGA, at $1,838,286,(up 30.2 per cent in the previous 12 months.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/regional-property-prices-…
# Australia, Housing market, Regional NSW.Hobart's rental market is 'tightest' out of Australia's capitals and it may be getting worse
Laura Beavis ABC (No paywall)Hobart chef Callum Cowie summed up trying to find a new rental in Tasmania's capital city in one word: "nightmarish". The 27-year-old and his partner had 10 days left on their current lease and had been searching for a new rental home since the start of the year. "Looking for stuff that suits both of us, in our budget, that has some of the things that we need … has just been nightmarish," Mr Cowie said. "I have about 60 [rental] applications open at the moment. I'm just checking my email and actually, I've been rejected for three more right now. That sucks."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/tas-hobart-rental-market-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Government proposes further changes to social housing rules for domestic abuse survivors
Stephen Delahunty Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Domestic abuse survivors could find it easier to move to another area and remove their perpetrators from joint tenancies under proposals announced by the government.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/government-proposes-fu…
# International, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Women.