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
Closing the divide: essential workers, Australian cities and COVID-19
Alison Holloway, Julian Szafraniec, Merry Hoang and Marcia Keegan (No paywall)Essential workers have been keeping Australia’s cities moving during the COVID-19 pandemic – and the structure of our cities has put many in harm's way. Urban policy needs to adapt quickly to address the underlying inequalities across Australia’s spatial geographies. The COVID-19 pandemic has not affected Australians equally. Data clearly shows the pandemic has exacerbated underlying social and spatial inequalities throughout Australia; essential workers, in particular, have been hit hard by the pandemic. Urban policy needs to address pressing social and spatial inequalities before the divide becomes too wide to close.
https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/insights/closing-the-divid…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Housing market.Rents up, listings down as inner-city suburbs continue COVID-19 recovery
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Australia’s capital city unit rents are continuing to recover, new data shows, thanks – in part – to new locally-based tenants entering the market for the first time attracted by cheaper rents. Property managers say the type of tenant is changing in inner Melbourne and Sydney after the two cities, whose apartment rental markets have traditionally relied heavily on international students and overseas professionals, took the brunt of the pandemic rental falls. These new tenants, including professionals returning to the office and looking to rent an affordable inner-city pad rather than commute more than 10 hours a week from outer suburbs or regional areas, have helped see a drop in the number of available rentals.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/rents-up-and-the-number-of-listin…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Plans released for $100 million apartment, retail and accommodation development at Hobart's Macquarie Point
Laura Beavis and Loretta Lohberger ABC (No paywall)A planning expert is warning Tasmania must learn from the "complete disaster" of Melbourne's Docklands precinct as it redevelops Macquarie Point on Hobart's waterfront. Also, view the video at: [https://www.abc.net.au/radio/hobart/programs/drive/the-escarpment/13635012]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-16/macquarie-point-apartment…
# Australia, Housing market, Planning and development.Housing is expensive now, imagine a market with more migrants. Economists see rent, house price lift in 2023
Nassim Khadem ABC (No paywall)When Australia opens its borders to migrants, already skyrocketing house prices could rise further. While immigration is not the only factor influencing house prices, it adds to the already strong demand for housing. Economists say about one extra home is required for every three migrants.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-17/migration-house-prices-re…
# Australia, Housing market.Houses of tomorrow: A more hopeful vision of domesticity, or a dystopian nightmare?
Richard Godwin The Guardian (No paywall)In the future, will we find a better way to live, or will our homes be taken over by surveillance and despotic appliances? ... Are we inexorably sliding into a world of surveillance and atomisation, climate crisis and housing crisis, drowning alone as our meta headsets suck the very data from our souls? Maybe a bit of both ...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/14/houses-of-t…
# International, Home.Watch this show before you utter these four words
Jenny Leong The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Earlier this year, while filming SBS series 'Could You Survive on the Breadline?', I was left to my own devices and told to try and find work. The accommodation I was staying in was an empty shopfront turned low-rent accommodation. It had an outdoor toilet with a shower, but the drain was blocked so when you tried to shower the dirty water all came up and flooded the floor. ... "Just get a job” to those currently living on income support is as problematic and offensive as any of these other insults.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/watch-th…
# NSW, Personal stories, Work, employment.Property price discounts on the rise in most Australian capital cities as hot market shows signs of cooling
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Home vendors are starting to offer discounts to secure a sale, new data shows, especially in Sydney and Melbourne where signs point to the super hot market beginning to cool. But as veterans of the longest lockdowns flee the major capitals and move interstate, strong demand in the relatively affordable Brisbane and Hobart markets has ensured those cities buck the trend and discounts remain uncommon.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/property-price-discounts-on-the-r…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership.Prime land in Sydney suburb of Haberfield expected to go under hammer after 18-year delay
Tony Ibrahim ABC (No paywall)A large parcel of land in a sought-after Sydney suburb is scheduled to go on sale after being stuck in a bureaucratic logjam for nearly two decades. The Department of Defence will put its old army base in Haberfield on sale by early next year, freeing up 19,000 square metres just 7 kilometres west of the CBD. Work is underway to divide the land at 140A Hawthorne Parade into 21 lots that can be developed into residential homes, ranging in size from 500 to 1,048 square metres. Real estate agents value it between $40 million to $60 million.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-16/former-haberfield-army-ba…
# NSW, Housing market.