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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
‘It’s our house, but it’s their home’: tenants and landlords discuss renters’ rights bill
Jem Bartholomew The Guardian (No paywall)When Nicola Jalland, 62, was served with a section 21 no-fault eviction in March 2022 – which means a landlord can oust a tenant for no reason – she was upset to leave the property she had lived in for 11 years. She had made the home a sanctuary, with a garden full of flowers. But when Jalland got her second no-fault eviction in two years in November 2023, she was angry. “It was an incredible feeling of imbalance of power,” she says. “The second time it happened, I literally felt worthless.” Jalland says she was forced to move in with her 82-year-old mother after the second eviction while waiting for a council property, saying she slept on cushions on the floor. “I was nothing to them [her landlords], I was monetary value,” she says.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jan/14/tenants-landlords-…
# Must read International, Eviction.Where could you really afford to live? Sydney’s housing crisis mapped
Nick Newling, Cindy Yin and Penry Buckley The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Twin sisters Amy and Jordan Whalland, 22, live in what they describe as a “house of five adults”. Priced out of a rental market that stops them living with friends closer to university, the pair live at home with their parents and their younger sister. “I had an expectation of what being a uni student would feel like based on movies and books that I’ve read, [but] it feels like a continuation of high school because everyone stays at home,” Amy says. If the twins’ parents were buying today, they would be living 40 kilometres west, and if the sisters were purchasing, they would be looking outside of Sydney.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/where-could-you-really-affor…
# Hot topic NSW, .Sydney’s housing catastrophe is just around the corner. Gen Z knows how to fix it
Daniel Lo Surdo, Penry Buckley, Cindy Yin, Nick Newling, Kayla Olaya and Frances Howe The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Sydney needs an immediate housing investment akin to the post-WWII construction boom to stop the housing crisis turning into a catastrophe, a panel of the city’s future leaders has said. The panel of six young experts, convened by the Herald, agreed that Sydney’s housing crisis is fixable, but that governments have only a short window to stop a mass exodus of young workers as housing prices balloon across the city. Among the ideas suggested by the panel was a return to policies under which there was an explosion of housing growth following the return of soldiers and an influx of migrants in the mid-20th century.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-s-housing-catastrophe…
# Hot topic NSW, .The U-turn on Sydney’s housing crisis no one saw coming
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As far as new year’s resolutions went, no one saw this coming. Could it be that in 2025, an opposition party in NSW takes the unprecedented step of vowing to throw political sparring and point-scoring out the window and work with the government of the day to solve a seemingly impenetrable problem? In the very state that views politics as a blood sport? We all make January 1 resolutions with the best intentions and a keenness to right the wrongs of the past year. Too much wine? Quit alcohol. Too much snacking? Cut out carbs. Save more, spend less. And on it goes. Political parties and their leaders, however, are much less likely to commit to unachievable undertakings, lest they be held to account.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/the-u-turn-on-sydney-s-housi…
# Hot topic NSW, .Claims of double-charging and excessive rent in NSW child protection system
Michael McGowan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Out-of-home care in NSW has been left open to questionable financial dealings by non-government providers, including double-charging and excessive rents, according to a sweeping review of the $2 billion service. Prompted by stinging criticism of child protection in the state, the review described the care set-up as “not fit for purpose”. It identified “a profound lack of accountability and ineffective oversight” by the Department of Communities and Justice that led to potential profiteering. The co-reviewers, former NSW Police assistant commissioner Gelina Talbot and Lauren Dean, a former executive in the Department of Communities and Justice, made 13 recommendations to remedy weak governance and a lack of oversight.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/claims-of-double-charging-an…
# Must read NSW, .LA fire victims fear new housing crisis
Max Matza, Kayla Epstein, and Gabriela Pomeroy BBC (No paywall)Michael Storc and his family had just survived a devastating wildfire. Now they have to face a daunting new challenge that he had hoped to never experience again - the Los Angeles housing market. After losing the Altadena home that he owned in the Eaton fire, he was scouring for a new place to rent, and having little luck. "What's available is not nice at all and the rents have gone up a lot," Mr Storc told the BBC. "I told my teenage daughter we had to accept we would live somewhere not very nice." The Los Angeles area already has one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. And with thousands now displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, Angelenos are anxious that the sudden surge in demand could make rents and home prices soar even higher.
# Must read International, Disasters, Rent.London needs a new town due to 'huge housing need'
Noah Vickers BBC (No paywall)At least one new town inside the Greater London boundary is needed to meet the "huge housing need in the capital" a business group has said. BusinessLDN's report said the capital could host a new town because factors such as public transport were already in place. As part of its strategy to tackle the housing crisis, Labour promised in its election manifesto earlier this year to "build a new generation of new towns". The Labour government said these locations would be announced in 2025 and ministers were "already taking steps" to accelerate housing delivery in London.
# Hot topic International, .US Justice Department accuses six major landlords of scheming to keep rents high
Jesse Bedayn AP News (No paywall)DENVER (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is suing several large landlords for allegedly coordinating to keep Americans’ rents high by using both an algorithm to help set rents and privately sharing sensitive information with their competitors to boost profits. The lawsuit arrives as U.S. renters continue to struggle under a merciless housing market, with incomes failing to keep up with rent increases. The latest figures show that half of American renters spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities in 2022, an all-time high.
https://apnews.com/article/algorithm-corporate-rent-housing-cris…
# Must read International, .