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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
Australia has an extraordinary 13 million spare bedrooms. Here’s how to use at least some of them to ease the housing crisis
Lyndall Bryant The Conversation (No paywall)While there’s little relief in sight for Australia’s housing crisis, with new projects years away from completion, there appear to be as many as 13 million unused spare bedrooms across the country. In a new briefing paper for the QUT Centre for Justice I suggest that, at least in the interim, these spare rooms ought to be part of the solution. Here’s where you find them. The census says about 3.2 million Australian homes have one spare bedroom, another 3 million have two spare rooms and 1.2 million have three spare bedrooms or more.
https://theconversation.com/australia-has-an-extraordinary-13-mi…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Renting taskforce lands in Fitzroy
Consumer Affairs Victoria (No paywall)Consumer Affairs Victoria’s renting taskforce carried out a blitz in and around the Fitzroy area on Saturday, as it continues its important role of checking that advertised rental properties meet mandatory minimum standards. The taskforce visited properties in the inner north, where there’s high demand for rentals. It’s the taskforce’s second blitz, following one carried out in Clayton in August. Victoria’s 14 rental minimum standards cover aspects of properties people would reasonably expect, like structural soundness, a functional kitchen and windows that open.
https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/latest-news/renting-taskforce-la…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Older women 'speed dating' for the ideal flatmate due to soaring rental costs
Danielle Mahe, Chloe Maxwell and Nicole Dyer ABC (No paywall)Dozens of single women aged over 50 anxiously wait to meet their match at a Gold Coast cafe. But they are not here to find the perfect partner. Instead, they are looking for a flatmate. "This is speed dating for housemates," announces event host, Helene Newson. She created it after struggling to find an affordable rental on the Gold Coast, which has one of the highest median rental prices in the country.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-07/speed-flatmating-housing-…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Slater and Gordon launch class action lawsuit against WA over housing conditions
Duncan Evans news.com.au (No paywall)Indigenous Australians living in remote Western Australia have launched a massive new class action lawsuit against the WA state government, alleging they have been subjected to substandard housing conditions. Shocking photos attached to the lawsuit show rundown houses with mould and cracks on the walls. Law firm Slater and Gordon, representing thousands of Indigenous tenants living in public housing across remote WA, has filed the action in the Federal Court, accusing the Housing Authority and the state, as lessors of public housing in remote Aboriginal communities, of breaching multiple residential tenancy, contract and consumer protection laws.
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/slater-and-go…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Rent, Repairs.Near 'impossible' homeownership leaves generation rent with dire future, expert warns
Yashee Sharma 9 News (No paywall)Homeownership has become near impossible for most Australians as new data shows that it would take the average person about a decade to save for a deposit. The 2024 Helia Home Buyer Sentiment Report found it would take 14 years to save up for the traditional 20 per cent deposit for a home in Sydney and nine years for a home in Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra. In Adelaide and Perth, it would take eight years. In Hobart, it would take seven years and in Darwin, it would take six years.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/near-impossible-homeownership-…
# Video Australia, Rent.Albanese government have ‘offered nothing’ on housing policy: Max Chandler-Mather
news.com.au (No paywall)Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather has accused Labor of offering “nothing” in negotiations over housing policy. “To the Prime Minister, the Greens will work with Labor to cut rents, phase out negative gearing and the capital gains discount and invest the savings in a mass build of public housing,” Mr Chandler-Mather said during Question Time on Tuesday. “We don't expect to get everything. We are ready to negotiate but you have offered nothing."
https://www.news.com.au/national/albanese-government-have-offere…
# Must read, Video Australia, Rent.$2 billion housing deal ripped up at abandoned Sydney towers
Madeleine Bower and James Willis Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A $2 billion agreement to build almost 5000 new homes in Sydney’s west has been torn up, with the State Government describing it as a “dud deal.” The 13-hectare site in Telopea, known by locals as the “Three Sisters”, will instead be refurbished and reopened as public housing, as a search begins for a new developer. An agreement to transform the three towers on Sturt Street was announced by the Coalition with Frasers Property Australia in 2019. The “Telopea Urban Renewal Project” promised to provide 4700 new homes, including 22 per cent for social housing, plus a new library and community centre.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/2-billion-housing-dea…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.Appalling details in Sydney rental slammed: ‘Is this illegal?’
Hayley Taylor 7 News (No paywall)A sublet vacancy in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs has been slammed after a picture of an unmade bed in a cramped space was shared online on Sunday by a social media user who asked if the arrangement was even legal. The room in the South Coogee sharehouse on Arden St — living with nine other people for $95 per week including bills — is “substantially cheaper than most other rooms available in the area” according to the Tenants’ Union, and comes with some “glaring red flags.”
https://7news.com.au/news/is-this-illegal-horrific-rental-in-coo…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent.