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
My house has been flooded, what's the first thing I need to do? Here are the do's and don'ts of the big clean-up
ABC (No paywall)We all know the saying: if it's flooded, forget it. But the dangers don't end when the flood waters recede. The damage it leaves behind is sometimes obvious, but it's what you can't see that can be just as dangerous: water contamination, exposed power lines, gas leaks and more. Here are some of the do's and don'ts in the immediate aftermath of a flood. ... It may look like it's "just water", but there's a lot more lurking in those murky depths. Polluted flood waters can cause wounds, infections, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis as well as ear, nose and throat infections. [Read on]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-21/what-to-do-in-the-afterma…
# Australia, .As the cost of living bites, a homelessness crisis on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula is worsening
Margaret Paul ABC (No paywall)Victoria's Mornington Peninsula is known for being a popular holiday destination, a place where people can spend tens of millions of dollars on clifftop mansions in its more exclusive areas. Hidden from that rosy view are the 1,000 people who, the council says, are sleeping rough in tents and cars along the peninsula every night. Wilbur is one of them. ... The 25-year-old has been homeless for about two years, since he had to move out of his parents' place at Safety Beach. He's been living in a tent on the Rosebud foreshore, about 90 kilometres south-east of Melbourne's CBD, for about six months. Working four days a week at a local cafe and living with mental illness, Wilbur said he worked hard to have a positive attitude to being homeless, because it was the only way to get by.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-25/homelessness-increasing-i…
# Australia, Homelessness.Systemic buybacks could avert future flood crisis, experts say
Matilda Marozzi ABC (No paywall)Several planners are calling for a systemic program of compulsory land buybacks in disaster-prone areas across Australia. University of Melbourne planning and risk reduction researcher Alan March said people's lives would be affected again and again without governments investing more in disaster prevention. "It will take a huge amount of leadership to change our approach," Professor March told The Conversation Hour. "We need to look at a long-term, whole-of-system view to really make this work."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-23/systemic-buybacks-could-a…
# Australia, Housing market.Sydney house prices falling at fastest pace on record
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Sydney house prices are falling at their fastest rate in decades, and some of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods have dropped by more than $250,000 in three months. House prices fell 5.2 per cent over the September quarter, wiping almost $80,000 off the median sale price, which sits at about $1,464,000, Domain’s latest house price report, released on Thursday, shows.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sydney-house-prices-falling…
# NSW, Housing market, Sydney.Building subsidized low-income housing actually lifts property values in a neighborhood, contradicting NIMBY concerns
Anthony W. Orlando The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... Building multiple publicly subsidized low-income housing developments in a neighborhood doesn’t lower the value of other homes in the area – and in fact can even increase their worth, according to a new peer-reviewed study I co-authored. For the study, we looked at 508 developments financed through the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and built in the Chicago area from 1997 to 2016. We then examined their influence on more than 600,000 nearby residential sales, using data from local property assessments and tax records. ... We found that, relative to comparable homes in other neighborhoods, average home prices jumped by 10% within a quarter-mile of the first affordable housing development that was built in a neighborhood and 2% within a quarter-mile over a 15-year period or through 2016.
https://theconversation.com/building-subsidized-low-income-housi…
# International, Public and community housing, Housing market.4 reasons affordable housing is slow to recover after disasters like hurricanes, and what communities can do about it
Shannon Van Zandt The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... How a community recovers after a disaster like Hurricane Ian is often a “chicken and egg” question: Which returns first – businesses or households? Businesses need employees and customers to be able to function. Households need jobs and the services businesses provide. As an urban planning researcher who focuses on housing recovery after disasters, I have found in my research that they’re mutually dependent. However, in coastal communities, the recovery of tourism-based businesses like restaurants and hotels depends in large part on the return of affordable housing for employees.
https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-affordable-housing-is-slow…
# International, Affordable housing.Builders warn of long wait as labour shortages and supply chain disruptions plague industry
Pat Heagney ABC (No paywall)[Master Builders regional manager Dean Phillips] says a shortage of labour and supply chain issues are contributing to building delays across the industry. "The material and supply chain shortages that we've seen as a result of COVID haven't gone away," he says. "And there just hasn't been trade availability to get on top of jobs as quickly as we'd like. "There's a skill shortage in general and a major labour shortage."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-24/builder-backlog-labour-sh…
# Australia, Housing market.The telling truth about the ‘bank of mum and dad’
Jessica Irvine The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Economic researchers have long taken an interest in the subject of “intergenerational earnings mobility”. That is, to what degree does a parent’s income determine their child’s future income? ... Using data from the longest running longitudinal survey of Australian households, the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, researches [Rachel Ong ViforJ and Christopher Phelps] were able to isolate just over 8000 instances of survey respondents moving from non-home ownership to home ownership in any year. They then looked at the parental assistance received by these home buyers and the role it played in increasing their chances of making the transition, compared to someone else with the same characteristics (such as income and gender) who did not make the same leap on to the property ladder. Interestingly, they found only a small proportion, 4.5 per cent, of successful first home buyers received an outright cash transfer of more than $5000 from their parent around the time of their home purchase. A further 2.6 per cent did, however, benefit from an inheritance around that time.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-telling-truth-ab…
# Australia, Families, Home ownership.