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
A renter’s guide to growing your own food at home
Linda Moon Domain (Paywall)Brad Barber hasn’t let leasing hold back his vision of food self-sufficiency. After travelling for years, in December 2019 the retired permaculture enthusiast settled in a beach shack at Halls Head, south of Perth. “It was just a blank canvas, totally bare,” he says. “When I moved in, I spoke to the landlord and he said, ‘go for your life’. "
https://www.domain.com.au/living/a-renters-guide-to-growing-your…
# Australia, Rent, Health, Older people.Regional rental price hike “here to stay”, as COVID-19 tree-changers snap up properties
Katri Uibu ABC (No paywall)Bec Brown didn't think it would come to this, but she and her four kids are moving into her dad's "man cave". … Ms Brown is finding herself in the midst of the "acute regional rental crisis" that has expanded beyond metropolitan areas, where some tenants are paying about $400 per week depending on the region.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-08/tasmania-regional-rental-…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Regional NSW.The old rate of JobSeeker left recipients with as little as $7 per day after paying rent
Evan Young SBS (No paywall)The old rate of JobSeeker was leaving some people with as little as $7 per day after paying rent, a new survey has found, as recipients brace for the government's latest winding back of the topped-up payment. Anglicare Australia’s survey of more than 600 people getting Centrelink payments from July to November also found 72 per cent of respondents skipped meals each week and one in ten were couch surfing.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-old-rate-of-jobseeker-left-recip…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government.‘“Affordable” Bellevue Hill apartment tower The Acre at Cooper Park causes neighbourhood dispute
Sue Williams Domain (Paywall)A developer won major concessions on the height of an apartment block overlooking one of Sydney’s most beautiful eastern suburbs parks on the promise of also providing affordable rental housing. … But locals are outraged, accusing the developer of “gaming” the DA process in order to make as much money as they could out of the apartment buildings for sale.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/affordable-bellevue-hill-apartmen…
# NSW, Planning and development.Housing affordability worsens in major cities: Biggest price rises at entry-level, new data shows
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Entry-level property prices are rising faster than other markets in some of our largest cities, pushing the Great Australian Dream of home ownership further out of reach for first-home buyers. Despite government assurances that housing affordability was a priority, the market has been left to its own devices. New data shows it's the most affordable properties with the biggest price hikes in many cities.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/housing-affordability-worsens-in-…
# NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘“So 'So wrong”: The “awful” Sydney “room” being rented out for $160’
Tom Flanangan (No paywall)While the coronavirus pandemic sent rent tumbling across the country as thousands of tenants struggled to cover their bills, it seems some of Sydney’s extortionate prices have been harder to budge. (Yahoo News)
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sydney-room-rent-slammed-online-045042…
# NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing affordability, Housing market.Real estate blues: Jared Kushner's family empire is on a losing run
Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From the United States ... Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant, where Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump partied in late 2016 before heading to Washington, is gone. The office tower at 666 Fifth Ave, once the headquarters of the Kushner family's real estate empire, has been sold. So too has a stake in a project in the trendy Dumbo neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/real-estate-blues-jare…
# International, Housing market.New York luxury real estate brushes off pandemic woe
Oshrat Carmiel The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From New York ... Contracts to buy Manhattan luxury homes are faring well even in the pandemic, with more deals signed in the past three months than in the same period last year.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/new-york-real-estate…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.