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
Jeff lived with his mates. Then a developer bought his home, and he has no-one left
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)What’s harder than saying a final goodbye to your family? Jeff Elliott thinks he knows: it’s not having the chance to shake hands that one last time, share a warm hug and wish them all the luck in the world as you say a tearful farewell. As one of the last four men left standing in two boarding houses in Paddington, the site of a lost battle to stop a developer evicting all 32 men to convert the building into luxury housing, he finds it hard to believe his mates have well and truly gone. “They were family to me,” said Elliott, 59, who’s lived in one of the tiny studios of the building on Selwyn Street for 20 years. “I’ve now got nothing and no one left.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/jeff-lived-with-his-mates-then-a-…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers.What did we learn about Rent Bidding?
Leo Patterson Ross Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)Rent bidding refers to a situation where applicants, under pressure to compete against each other for a property in a tight market, make an offer to pay rent above the advertised price in order to secure a listed property. They can be encouraged to do so by landlords or their agents during the application process. Alternatively, a landlord or agent may attempt to initiate a rent auction or bidding process by advertising a rental property without a clear fixed price - instead providing a range of rents or lists as ‘rent price available on application' or 'by negotiation'.
https://www.tenants.org.au/blog/what-did-we-learn-about-rent-bid…
# Must read, Research alert NSW, Rent.New group opposes Kincumber development plan
Coast Community News (No paywall)A new community campaign to save wetlands at Kincumber has seen more than 500 people register to join via Facebook in just a few days. The Save Kincumber Wetlands campaign and Facebook page was established to protest the proposed lease of bushland beside Carrack Rd to Woolworths. Owner of the land, the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC), announced on its Facebook page last month that it intended to proceed with the project, which was listed as a one-to-five year priority in its Development Delivery Plan of 2022.
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2025/03/new…
# Hot topic NSW, .Minns accused of ‘fuelling division’ after Lismore residents allegedly harassed on squatters’ street
Kate Lyons The Guardian (No paywall)The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has been accused of “fuelling division” and “dog-whistling”, after residents of a Lismore street were allegedly attacked and terrorised in the early hours of Saturday morning. The alleged incidents were labelled “vigilante attacks” by a NSW state MP, who has urged the premier to “call for calm and walk back from his threats to demolish homes”. NSW police confirmed they had been called out to Pine Street, Lismore at 2.15am on Saturday after reports of malicious damage and were investigating reports that “unknown people had performed burnouts, harassed residents and damaged vehicles on the street, before leaving in a black four-wheel drive”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/16/minns-acc…
# Hot topic NSW, Eviction.Wollongong rents are half a typical wage earner's pay packet: new report
Saffron Howden Illawarra Mercury (Paywall)Typical income earners in Wollongong can expect to pay more than half their weekly income on rent, a new report shows. On the South Coast, a single person earning the national median income of $72,592 could be paying just under half of their take-home pay, or 47 per cent, to rent a unit. Priced Out, a new report from national housing affordability advocacy group Everybody’s Home, was released on March 18. It found Wollongong was the second-most expensive area to rent a unit in NSW outside Sydney.
# Must read NSW, Rent.Australians need six-figure income to afford average rental, report finds
Annika Burgess ABC (No paywall)Gone are the days when a $100,000 salary would be considered a secure income. Housing advocates have warned that Australians in both cities and regional areas on a six-figure salary are now struggling with rental stress. A new report by campaign group Everybody's Home found that a single person now needed to earn at least $130,000 to comfortably afford a typical unit. The group said the findings underscore an "alarming shift" in the housing market. The rental crisis is no longer confined to Australians on lower incomes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-18/six-figure-salary-rental-…
# Australia, .Changing Australia: Zachariah Matysek on rebuilding Indigenous housing
ABC (No paywall)If you talk to Meriam man Zachariah Matysek about his childhood in the remote part of the Torres Strait, community and culture were everything. Some of his favourite memories are of family, fishing and hunting. This upbringing, and his later work at a homeless shelter in Queensland, set the foundation for his work now, trying to build better solutions for Indigenous housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/c…
# Audio Australia, .Vulnerable outback residents with prepaid electricity see power cut off
Emma Haskin and Stewart Brash ABC (No paywall)Meet Warumungu elder Jimmy Frank Jupurrurla. During the long, hot, brutal summers of Central Australia and the Barkly, he spends $20 a day to keep his Tennant Creek housing commission house liveable. He says he's one of the lucky ones as he has a good job and can afford to top up his prepaid electricity bill, which cannot be disconnected over the weekend. "We get cut off every Monday at nine o'clock," he says. "Just imagine you have 12 to 13 people in a house, and then they all low income earning people ... I can't imagine what their power bill will be."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-11/nt-red-centre-temperature…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Privacy and access, Rent.