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
'Hold on to that hatred’: Boomers aren’t to blame for Australia’s property mismatch
Liz Allen The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Baby Boomers are often blamed for Australia’s housing affordability crisis, but empty-nesters living in large homes are just a symptom of Australia’s property and policy mismatch. Rather than dampen housing prices, COVID has seen costs soar. In fact, the growth in house prices doesn’t look like abating. The great Australian dream of owning a home is out of reach for many Australians, especially those under 40, and will remain that way without drastic policy action. ... Blaming Baby Boomers for Australia’s housing mismatch seems logical, but it’s lazy and simplistic. The reality is, Australia’s housing policies are an out-of-date mess, like a ball of decaying rubber bands wrapped together and stuffed in the bottom drawer of the office filing cabinet. Try to untangle the policy nightmare and more failures are exposed. Negative gearing isn’t helping first homebuyers, but voters missed the opportunity of changing this at the 2018 federal election and we’ve not seen much done since to arrest rising house prices. Without serious and earnest reform, housing affordability will worsen and inequality will widen and become more stubborn. The generational warfare in housing policy is politically useful. While we’re quibbling about which generation is at fault, politicians are getting off scot-free.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hold-on-to-that-hatred-b…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax.Preventing a Covid rent arrears crisis: financial support package for renters
(No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Joint briefing by housing and advice organisations ... The following [nine recommendations] sets out how a package of grants and no-interest loans could be provided in England, to sustain tenancies and act as a bridge to recovery.
https://www.stepchange.org/Portals/0/assets/pdf/Covid-Rent-Arrea…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Australian nightmare looms even as Frydenberg prepares his election pitch
Peter Hartcher The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)This is a generational betrayal. Every Australian in my generation or older who thinks he or she is a brilliant investor because of fat housing price profits is simply a participant in the betrayal of the next generation. Why? Home ownership is now out of reach for Australians under the age of 35, according to a new report from the University of NSW City Futures Research Centre. Seventy per cent of all housing wealth in Australia is now concentrated in the hands of the over 65s. ... So if you were aged 21 to 35, and earning the national average income for people in your age group – $58,635 a year – the price of a Sydney house was rising every day by an amount equal to one week’s wages. The message to average Australians is to despair of being able to do what your parents very likely did – buy a home. What a brilliant national achievement. We’ve priced the next generation out of the ability to buy a home. We have only 26 million people inhabiting an entire continent but cannot supply affordable housing in our major cities. ... Australian inequality will never be as bad as America’s. Not so long as we have policies like Medicare, the NDIS, and a compulsory superannuation levy. But if wages continue to stagnate while asset prices soar, inequality will tear at the social fabric.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-nightmare-looms-even-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.Watchdog investigates concerns tenants are being hit with fees to pay rent
Henrietta Cook The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Victoria’s consumer watchdog is investigating complaints that real estate agents are forcing tenants to fork out extra fees to pay their rent. An increasing number of real estate agents have outsourced the processing of rental payments to third-party companies, and tenants are charged a fee to use these services.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/watchdog-investigates-c…
# Australia, Rent, Landlords and agents.Regional rents surge as mining and domestic tourism booms put pressure on vacancies
Rachel Pupazzoni ABC (No paywall)Port Hedland real estate agent Scott Lowe and his team have been busy trying to find local residents somewhere to rent. The Pilbara region, like many outside the capital cities around Australia, has seen an influx of people moving to town, and agents like Mr Lowe have been struggling to find enough homes for tenants.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-21/regional-australia-rents-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.Trying to stay warm? Here’s the most cost-effective way to heat a room
Sean Naden and Nick O'Malley The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As Sydneysiders shiver through their coldest day in nearly four decades and Melburnians get buffeted by high winds, a thermal comfort expert has suggested people can better protect themselves by getting better homes. ... Houses better designed for winter – or even retro-fitted for it – with fewer cracks, better glazing and better insulation, would have left Australians more comfortable this week, Australia’s leading expert in the niche field of thermal comfort says. Either way when the cold hit his Sydney home this week, Professor de Dear, who works with the University of Sydney’s school of architecture, opted to curl up with the cat rather than try to heat the surrounding space. This sort of direct heating is always most efficient, he says.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/trying-to-stay…
# NSW, Utilities electricity water gas, Fixtures - lights, aircon etc.‘I don’t like it’: Rising number of Sydney families becoming long-term renters
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An increasing number of Sydney families are becoming long-term renters, including in established suburbs around the eastern suburbs and inner west. ... Recent analysis by the University of NSW City Futures Research Centre showed renting increased over the 25 years as a proportion of households in the inner west, eastern suburbs, north shore and northern beaches but not as much as Greater Sydney as a whole. Meanwhile, the growth in renting was greater than expected for most areas west of Homebush, including north western areas such as Erskine Park and Whalan and south west towards Campbelltown. UNSW senior research fellow Chris Martin said these areas had historically provided an opportunity for relatively affordable home ownership but “more and more of those properties are owned by landlords rather than owner-occupiers.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-don-t-like-it-rising-numbe…
# NSW, Rent, Families, Housing market.Social housing experts split over effectiveness of Canberra's new Sleepbus for vulnerable women and children
Isaac Nowroozi ABC (No paywall)Canberra's first community-funded Sleepbus will hit the road today, despite concerns from social housing providers that the temporary accommodation is a band-aid solution that fails to address the root cause of homelessness. The pink-and-black bus will be parked at the Tuggeranong Uniting Church and offers short-term accommodation for vulnerable women and children.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-19/social-housing-experts-sp…
# Australia, Domestic violence, Homelessness.