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
Queensland rental crisis deepens as family pets are surrendered to avoid homelessness
Edwina Storie ABC (No paywall)Pet owners are surrendering their animals to improve their chances of securing a lease in Queensland's increasingly tight rental market.
Key points:
Animal refuges around Queensland are seeing an increase in surrendered pets due to the rental crisis
Some renters are boarding their pets in kennels while they couch-surf during their rental search
Queensland's Tenancies and Rooming Act says the property owner/manager can decide whether to allow pets. The owners of surrendered cat Rex applied for 26 homes before they came to the realisation they would have to give him up to the Sunshine Coast Animal Refuge (SCARs) or risk finding themselves homeless.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-01/pets-left-behind-as-renta…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Housing market, Pets.Renovictions during a pandemic Landlords apologize for 'extremely insensitive' video mocking displaced tenants forced out by massive rent hikes
Ben Waldman (No paywall)From Canada ... When Sabrina Ferreira moved into her Garden City apartment in 2010, she paid $600 per month for the two-bedroom unit on Jefferson Avenue. Over a decade, that rose to $800. Then in November, the building was bought by new investors who said they’d be nearly doubling that to pay for future renovations. Tenants like Ferreira were told no leases would be renewed when they expired. ... The situation was already difficult for tenants to comprehend, and then a video was posted to the YouTube account of the buildings’ new part-owners ... In the video, the owners and others enter the building on Jefferson. One brother mimes knocking on a tenants’ door to "ask how their stay is." "Hello, we own this s--t," the other says jokingly to the camera. "There’s going to be a lot of changes from here on out." (Winnipeg Free Press)
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/renovictions-during-a…
# International, Eviction, Landlords and agents.Under pressure: What landlords can do to retain tenants
Emily Chantiri The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Property prices may be rising but there remains downward pressure on rents, with more people moving out of the cities for the regions and overseas immigration halted, crimping demand. Some investment property landlords are also being squeezed as tenants decide to move out to take advantage of cheaper properties. ... Jo Natoli, from the Rental Specialists, offers the following tips for landlords to help keep existing tenants happy [including] consider allowing pets. “Tenants with pets tend to stay longer because it’s harder to find homes that allow pets.”
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/under-pressure-what-landl…
# Australia, Rent, Landlords and agents, Pets.New team behind ‘fundamental rethink’ of Brisbane’s mega-city planning
Lydia Lynch The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A specialist team will be created to ensure land stretching between Tweed Heads and Noosa is able to keep pace with population growth and housing demand. South-east Queensland’s “200-kilometre city” is predicted to grow by 1.5 million to 5 million in 20 years, making it about the same population as Sydney today.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/queensland/new-team-behind-funda…
# Australia, Planning and development, State Government.Victorian Liberals lose planning fight over social housing drive
Sumeyya Ilanbey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Victorian Liberals have lost their bid to fight an Andrews government decision that has stripped local councils of their power to make planning decisions on the construction of thousands of new social housing units.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/victorian-liberals-lose…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Planning and development, State Government.Record low interest rates until 2024 could deepen divisions between Australia's haves and have-nots
Martin Farrer The Guardian (No paywall)Super-low interest rates will remain for at least another three years, the Reserve Bank has said, increasing the likelihood of a continued surge in house prices exacerbating what one leading thinktank called the division of Australia into a nation of haves and have-nots.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/02/record-lo…
# Australia, Housing market.Housing affordability already declining across the nation, on the cusp of being ‘obliterated’
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Housing affordability is back on the decline across Australia and could be “obliterated” by surging property prices, a new report shows. Rapidly rising house prices and larger homes loans saw a deterioration in housing affordability last quarter, according to the Real Estate Institute of Australia’s (REIA) latest Housing Affordability Report, released Wednesday.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/housing-affordability-already-dec…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.I've got four reasons to be positive about the aged care royal commission
Anne Connolly ABC (No paywall)If only the Prime Minister had given us the royal commission report before the press conference. Despite the split between the commissioners, there are a lot of positives amongst the five volumes and 148 recommendations of the report.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-03/reasons-to-be-positive-ab…
# Hot topic Australia, Federal Government, Older people.