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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
Report reveals 100,000 Melbourne homes were vacant in 2023
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)There were almost 100,000 homes sitting vacant or under-used in Melbourne in 2023, a new report has revealed. Prosper Australia's Speculative Vacancy report, which examines water meter usage data, reveals 27,400 homes, or 1.5 per cent of all dwellings in Melbourne, were left entirely empty in 2023. With the inclusion of homes that recorded less than a quarter of the average single-person consumption of water over the year, another 70,400 homes were significantly under-used last year, lifting the total to almost 100,000 homes, or one in 20 dwellings across the city, sitting vacant.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-13/report-reveals-100000-mel…
# Must read Australia, Rent.Landlordism, not supply, is causing the housing crisis
Elizabeth Farrelly The Saturday Paper (Soft Paywall)Years ago, when I sat next to Donald Horne at lunch, he explained at some length – as he often had before – that the “lucky” in his 1964 book The Lucky Country was not a compliment. Indeed, Horne’s point was that Australia’s luck – in weather, land and resources – had allowed us to normalise a culture of greed, mediocrity and sloth. “Australia,” he wrote, “is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/cities/2024/07/13/landl…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.40yo renter reveals grim reality after rental increase
Mary Madigan news.com.au (No paywall)Sarah Bartolo is currently experiencing every renter’s nightmare. She’s watching new potential tenants inspect her apartment, which she cannot afford. Ms Bartolo, 40, is a comedian, actor, and studio assistant who lives in the trendy suburb of Brunswick East in Melbourne. Her lease ends in August, and her real estate agent informed her that the landlord wants to increase the rent from $423 per week to $523 per week. She’s been priced out of her apartment and, as if that news hasn’t been tough enough to face, she’s now stuck living in a unit hosting inspections for potential new tenants.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/40yo-renter-…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Lifestyle Communities promise retirees affordable, resort-style living. But some say they're a 'financial prison'
Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett ABC (No paywall)When retired policeman Geoff Gauci packed up his old life and moved to an over-50s gated community on Melbourne's northern fringe, he pictured his next chapter as peaceful. After spending 36 years investigating shoplifters, drug trafficking, burglary, fraud and deception, it was time for the quiet life. Seduced by promises of low maintenance and resort-style living at an affordable price, he bought into a Lifestyle Communities development at Wollert, impressed with its high-security cameras and boom gates that guarded a manufactured urban landscape of neat rows of uniform houses and perfectly manicured fake lawns.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-15/lifestyle-communities-fac…
# Hot topic Australia, Land lease communities.Public housing tenants shocked by rent rises as cost of living squeezes budgets
Rebekah Lowe ABC (No paywall)Public housing tenants in regional Victoria fear they will be forced out of their properties or have to go without basic needs as some face rent increases of up to 70 per cent. Donald resident Robert Christopher's rent will rise from $84 per week to $150 per week in August. In a letter seen by the ABC, Homes Victoria advised the 77-year-old the increase was calculated using market rent indices, including the median rent value based on area and property type. Mr Christopher receives a subsidy that will lower his rent slightly, to $288.70 per fortnight, but said he would still not be able to live comfortably on his pension of about $1,000 per fortnight.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/public-housing-rent-rise-…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing.Is immigration worsening the housing crisis?
SBS (No paywall)Australia's facing a worsening housing crisis. At the same time, the number of overseas migrant arrivals is at its highest ever since records began. Is increased migration driving up housing and rental prices? It might seem like migration is driving up housing prices, but experts say it's not that simple. Emeritus Professor of Demography at the Australian National University, Peter McDonald told SBS Examines this perspective could be a distraction. "When commentators and politicians attribute all problems in the housing market to high immigration, by definition, they're diverting attention away from the wide range of policy approaches that are required to deal with the housing crisis," Prof McDonald said.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/en/podcast-episode/is-im…
# Hot topic, Audio Australia, .Landlords, agents call for more protection in proposed Tasmanian laws allowing pets in rentals
Georgie Burgess ABC (No paywall)Terry helps manage his 90-year-old father's rental properties in Hobart's northern suburbs, but says it isn't worth the stress. His father built them himself about 40 years ago, and over that time they've been home to many long-term renters at the lowest rate he could manage. The two units are his dad's primary income, as he doesn't claim a pension. He said the two units were only rented for $250–$350 per week, so any damage directly impacted his father's income.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/tasmania-pets-in-rentals-…
# Hot topic Australia, .City-dwelling millennials are on the move again, escaping the rental rut in what some are calling the regional migration 'boomerang'
Jane Norman ABC (No paywall)An email from his property manager was the "final nail in the coffin" for Ben Frazer, who'd been mulling over a major life decision. A few months earlier, a friend had sent him a link to a five-bedroom house for sale with a price guide around the low $1 million mark. It was in Lake Macquarie, about a two-hour drive north of Sydney. Lifelong Sydneysiders, Ben and his wife Lauren had a second baby on the way and were already spending about half of their combined income renting a townhouse in the city's north. When they received notice that their rent was about to be increased again, they decided it was time to move out of the city and escape "the rental rut".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/regional-house-prices-sur…
# Hot topic Australia, .