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
Is social housing really a serious investment?
Aleks Vickovich Financial Review (Paywall)In urging executives in the $3.3 trillion superannuation sector to support social and community housing projects, former prime minister Paul Keating invoked the powerful imagery of homeless kids.
“This is a society that can’t house its own children,” the former Labor leader told the Superannuation Lending Roundtable, hosted by The Australian Financial Review and packaging multinational Visy earlier this year. “If super funds just think they can go buy tech stocks in America and highways in Italy, they’re gonna run into trouble.”
https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/is-social-housing-re…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing.Tenants Union urges government to make it easier for pet owners to find a rental
Allison Hore The Daily Liberal (Paywall)Local tenants advocates are calling on the NSW Government to listen to the overwhelming support for a proposal to change the laws to make it easier for renters to keep pets in their home.
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/7969725/like-harbouring-a-…
# NSW, Pets, Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.Aussies facing conditions similar to auctions due to rent bidding
Eli Green news.com.au (No paywall)The practice of “rent bidding” is forcing Aussies to fork out more for properties than they should be for fear of being left homeless as supply dries up.
There are concerns Australian renters are being lured into paying more for overvalued properties through the practice of “rent bidding”.
According to Tenants Union chief executive Leo Patterson Ross, rent bidding is similar to “creating an auction” where tenants offer more than the advertised price or to pay a large portion of the rent in advance to secure a property.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/aussies-facing-condi…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent.New bid to help renters save thousands of dollars on crippling payments
AAP 7 News (No paywall)‘Anyone who rents in Sydney knows just how anxious and challenging a process it can be to find suitable accommodation.’
Almost a million renters in NSW will be able to transfer their bonds from one property to the next and cannot be kicked out of their homes without reasonable grounds given, Labor has pledged.
The promise ahead of the 2023 election comes amid skyrocketing rents in Sydney and rising accommodation costs in regional areas, with NSW’s median rent increasing from $386 to $420 a week between 2016 and 2021.
https://7news.com.au/business/property/sick-of-saving-for-a-bond…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Bond.Punishment or reward? The housing remark that revived Sydney’s east-west divide
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)When Liberal candidate for Vaucluse Kellie Sloane told reporters in Double Bay she didn’t want her seat “punished” with more housing, her remarks last weekend were aimed at a specific audience: development-wary voters in the wealthy eastern suburbs.
They were heard loud and clear, however, dozens of kilometres away in western Sydney, where people at the coalface of the city’s growth have long been frustrated by the “not in my backyard” attitude espoused by some in the east.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/punishment-or-reward-the-hou…
# NSW, State Government, Sydney.Your City with Urthboy and Dallas Woods
RN breakfast ABC (No paywall)What feeds our emotional connection to a place?
That's the sentiment explored by Hip hop artists Urthboy and Dallas Woods, who have combined forces on a new single that explores the binding nature of geographical boundaries.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/your-cit…
# Audio NSW, History, Home, Race and ethnicity.First stage of Waterloo public housing estate rezoned for $3b revamp
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)More than half the Waterloo public housing estate in Sydney’s inner south has been rezoned by the state government to allow construction of 3000 social and private homes adjacent to the future metro train station following a two-year consultation period on the contentious redevelopment.
The change in zoning to allow for thousands of new apartments in the first stage of the $3 billion estate renewal, Waterloo South, pushes hundreds of vulnerable tenants one step closer to being forced from their homes, with the first residents expected to be moved from the site in early 2024.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/first-stage-of-waterloo-publ…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Estate renewal.Canberra landlords will soon have to make their properties more liveable for tenants through better insulation
Tahlia Roy and Niki Burnside ABC (No paywall)Canberra landlords offering rental properties with poor or no ceiling insulation have drawn the ire of the ACT government, as a timeline for mandatory insulation is announced.
From April next year, private rentals and public housing properties will begin having to be fitted with ceiling insulation that meets the standard of new builds.
https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.abc.net.au/art…
# Legal significance Australia, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change.