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
The lush gullies hiding the hard truths of Queensland’s housing crisis
Joe Hinchliffe The Guardian (No paywall)Amid Gympie’s green hills, tents jut out from gullies and highway rest stops, pregnant women sleep in parks and the homeless keep lifesaving medication cool in Eskies. This is just the visible fruit of a crisis coursing unseen through streets and homes of this regional city. Ravaged by natural disaster and buffeted by shockwaves sent through the property market by the pandemic, Gympie exemplifies a housing crisis that is gripping Queensland. “We’ve applied for 380 houses so far and we’ve been knocked back from everyone,” says a pregnant Marteaka Browne, who with Reg Marshall joined the ranks of the tent dwellers a month ago, after they were asked to leave their rental home. “There’s nowhere else in Gympie to go.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/16/the-lush-…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Housing market.Brisbane real estate agency advises landlords to increase rents by over 20% amid housing crisis
Eden Gillespie The Guardian (No paywall)A Brisbane real estate agency has urged landlords to consider raising rents by more than 20%, as Australia grapples with a worsening rental crisis. An email, sent by Ray White West End, asked landlords if their properties were being “under-rented” before advising them to increase rents by more than double the rate of inflation. It comes before the Queensland government is set to hold a housing summit this week to deal with rising homelessness and rental stress. ... The chief executive at Tenants Queensland, Penny Carr, said the email shows the “opportunistic price-gouging” that is occurring across Australia with rent increases. Also, read about the same real estate agent in Lavender Baj's article entitled: 'Ray White Emailed Landlords Encouraging Them To Increase Rent Prices By More Than 20 Percent' in 'Junkee' at: [https://junkee.com/ray-white-rent-brisbane/343250].
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/17/brisbane-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents, State Government.Rent prices soar to record highs across Australia again as crisis deepens
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Australian tenants are suffering through the longest stretch of continuous rental price growth on record, with new data revealing rents have hit record highs across the capital cities yet again. ... “There’s a lot of pain and distress out there at the moment,” said Penny Carr, the chief executive of Tenants Queensland. “A lot of people, working households, are at the threat of homelessness who’ve never been in that position before, and never thought they ever would be. ... As well as many people being unable to pay such a huge chunk of their income in that kind of rent every week, it also means that tenants are facing extreme levels of emotional stress. “They’re having to compete with so many others to find a home and it also exacerbates the way they feel unable to ask for repairs to be done, or different things to be taken care of, or to complain about breaches of their conditions like landlords visiting too often,” said Tenants Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross. “They decide not to bring things like that up as they’re nervous that the rent will be put up again as a result, or there’ll be a retaliatory eviction. A lot of them are staying put too, knowing it’s so hard to find anywhere else, which means there are even fewer places available.”
https://www.domain.com.au/news/rent-prices-soar-to-record-highs-…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, No-grounds evictions.Stage-three tax cuts condemned as ‘unconscionable’ as Acoss report shows extent of poverty
Luke Henriques-Gomes The Guardian (No paywall)Social service groups say it would be “unconscionable” for the Albanese government to proceed with the stage-three tax cuts, as new research shows one in eight Australians lives in poverty. A report from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) says about 3.3 million people were living in poverty in the first year of the pandemic, including 761,000 children. It says poverty levels fell to a 17-year low after the boost to welfare payments during Covid-19, but experts believe poverty likely rose above pre-pandemic levels when the extra support was withdrawn. The research comes as the government faces calls to shield those on low incomes from the cost of living crisis in the October budget. It is also considering the future of the stage three tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit higher income earners. Cassandra Goldie, the chief executive of Acoss, said poverty levels in Australia should be a “source of great shame”. But the report also showed poverty could be significantly reduced through government choices.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/14/stage-thr…
# Australia, Families, Federal Government, Welfare.Airbnb landlords to pay tens of thousands of dollars under proposed Queensland levy
Eden Gillespie and Joe Hinchliffe The Guardian (No paywall)The Queensland Greens say their proposal to tax investors for vacant homes could see tens of thousands of properties returned to the rental market during a nationwide housing crisis. The bill, introduced into parliament on Thursday, proposes charging investors a 5% levy of the value of their residential property or land if it has been vacant for six months or more in a year. It would equate to an annual charge of $43,200 on the median Brisbane house price of $864,000. Properties rented out as short-term accommodation on sites such as Airbnb would also be impacted, if the owner has let the entire property out for more than six months. ... Tenants Queensland’s chief executive, Penny Carr, also backed an empty homes levy, saying the government needs to disincentivise people from leaving properties vacant. Carr said the proposed levy should be part of a multifaceted response to the housing crisis, including the introduction of a landlord register that would collect data about the ownership of properties across the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/13/proposed-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Short-term holiday letting.Four graphs that show if Perrottet’s stamp duty ‘baby’ would work for you
Alexandra Smith and Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As long-awaited new laws to overhaul the state’s stamp duty regime were introduced to NSW Parliament this week, the state’s Treasurer was quick to point out that this reform was not his. “This is a signature piece of legislation for the Premier,” Matt Kean told parliament as he introduced the property tax bill on behalf of his boss, Dominic Perrottet. “The Premier has led the way to deliver an innovative and exciting policy that puts power back in the hands of first home buyers across the state. Above all else, his policy is about choice.” Stamp duty reform is, without doubt, Perrottet’s baby.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/four-graphs-that-show-if-per…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing market, State Government, Tax.Ontario man applying for medically-assisted death as alternative to being homeless
Cynthia Mulligan and Meredith Bond (No paywall)A 54-year-old St. Catharines man is in the process of applying for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), not because he wants to die, but because social supports are failing him and he fears he may have no other choice. Amir Farsoud lives with never-ending agony from a back injury years ago. He tells CityNews at its worst he is “crying like a 5-year-old and not sleeping for days in a row.” Farsoud also takes medication for depression and anxiety. He describes his quality of life as “awful, non-existent and terrible … I do nothing other than manage pain.” But Farsoud said his quality of life is not the reason he is applying for MAiD. He applied because he is currently in danger of losing his housing and fears being homeless over dying. “It’s not my first choice.”Farsoud lives in a rooming house he shares with two other people, and it is currently up for sale. He is on social assistance and says he can’t find anywhere else to live that he can afford. “I don’t want to die but I don’t want to be homeless more than I don’t want to die,” shared Farsoud.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/10/13/medical-assistance-death-…
# International, Health, Homelessness.Young Queenslanders facing homelessness targeted with state government strategy
Bianca Wylie ABC (No paywall)The Queensland government's program to help young people find safe, secure housing includes addressing the underlying causes of homelessness. Minister for Youth Affairs Meaghan Scanlon said the strategy was developed with the help of young people.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/towards-ending-homelessne…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.