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
Why Akshay was shocked to be evicted from share house
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)University student Akshay Gonpot never expected to be evicted from his Chippendale home just weeks after agreeing to a rent rise. He knew Sydney’s rental market was becoming increasingly expensive, but thought paying an additional $45 per week would be enough to satisfy his landlord. It was not. Within three weeks the 27-year-old international student and other tenants at his boarding house were given two weeks’ notice to vacate. And within three days, another tenant had put a deposit on his room that had gone from $295 per week to $430. ... Antona Bursa, international students officer for the UTS Students Association, said finding any apartment to rent close to universities, let alone an affordable one, was an increasing challenge, and called on universities to provide more support. ... Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said international students face more tenancy disputes than locals. “Sometimes we even hear that landlords might take passports as a form of security which is completely unlawful, or people are told their visa will be put at risk if they don’t pay their rent,” he said. While some came from affluent homes, many worked to support themselves, and about a quarter were in a precarious financial situation, said professor Alan Morris, from the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at UTS.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/why-akshay-was-shocked-to-b…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Eviction, Rent, Students.The impact of the pandemic on the Australian rental sector
Emma Baker, Lyrian Daniel, Andrew Beer, Steven Rowley, Wendy Stone, Rebecca Bentley, Rachel Caines and Gemma Sansom AHURI (No paywall)AHURI Report: This research investigates the Australian rental sector during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and considers priorities for governments; tenant experiences and reflections on the effectiveness of assistance and interventions; changing tenant aspirations; and the priorities for emerging responses. The research highlights how ‘nimble’ the Australian policy community had been in response to COVID-19, and the success of many of their rapid interventions. The challenge is how to sustain assistance as Australia moves from the health emergency to maintaining (perhaps very long-term) assistance.
# Research alert Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Australia’s housing crisis is self-inflicted. We need four reforms to reverse it
Matt Grudnoff The Guardian (No paywall)Public housing underinvestment and huge tax concessions to landlords have wreaked havoc on our rental market. ... How is it that in Australia, one of the richest countries in the world, we have a housing crisis where hundreds of thousands of renters can’t afford a roof over their head? To figure out why rents are soaring, we need to look at the broader political problem: we have spent about two decades trying to screw up the housing market and we have, catastrophically, succeeded. The Australian housing market is broken. ... The best long-term solution to the structural problems of the rental crisis is to build more public housing. ... That’s why the second solution to fixing the rental crisis could be to reform incentives that give an advantage to investors over owner occupiers. ... In immediate terms, the third reform is to renters’ rights: that means we need a ban on “no cause” evictions, where landlords can kick tenants out for no reason. ... The final thing we need to do is make renting more affordable by either increasing rent assistance or looking at rental caps, similar to many countries in Europe and some US states.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/22/australias…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Landlords and agents, Tax, Welfare.We can build enough homes for everyone in England. So why don’t we?
John Boughton The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... As a country, we have produced sufficient affordable housing at pace and scale in the past when the political will was there ... hichever new prime minister emerges, current Conservative politics makes it unlikely we’ll see a significant new expansion of social rented housing any time soon. But not so long ago another Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, talked of the need for “a new generation of council homes to help fix our broken housing market”. Opposition parties and the UK’s devolved governments remain committed to a large increase in public housing. Meanwhile, there are still an estimated 1.6m households in England with unmet housing needs best provided by social renting. As we plan for the future, now is a good time to ask what we can learn from past social housing schemes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/21/build-home…
# International, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, History, Housing market, Local Government.I lost my rental, then my job, now my kids: Perth mum’s life unravels
Hamish Hastie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)After providing a home for her children for decades, Stacey Garlett suddenly can’t put a roof over their heads. She feels terrible shame – but there are bigger forces at play than the ones she can control. The 41-year-old Whadjuk Noongar woman was priced out of her private Perth rental in May and since then she has been couch-surfing with family members. She is currently living with her adult daughter but said that was not a long-term solution because her presence in the house put her daughter’s lease at risk. She sent her two teenage daughters to live in Mount Barker with their grandparents while she waits on a long list for public housing. “I can’t cart them around, I’ve got no stability up here for them; they go to school, they love their sports,” she said. “I’ve worked and I’ve provided for my kids, and now I feel like I’m a failure and I don’t want my daughters to see that.” Garlett was one of six Aboriginal witnesses who gave evidence on Monday to a parliamentary committee looking into the financial administration of WA homelessness services.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/i-lost-my-rent…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Families, Homelessness, Race and ethnicity.Cat poo everywhere and backyard lunarscape: Landlords wary of giving renters more rights to have pets
Rosemary Bolger ABC (No paywall)Andy Bigham is still cleaning up his NSW Central Coast property five weeks after his tenant moved out. "There was rubbish everywhere and in and amongst the rubbish all over the place was cat faeces," Andy says. "I had to have pest cleaners through twice before I could get rid of all the cockroaches and the insect eggs that have been left in." He acknowledges the problem was not all about the cat but he has ruled out renting to pet owners again. Many landlords are wary about potential changes to legislation to increase renters' rights to have pets in NSW. The state government plans to invite the public to have their say at the end of the month on whether any changes should be made. You will find another article by the same journalist entitled: 'Richard has been hiding his dogs from his landlord for more than 10 years, they think he's a perfect tenant' also on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/renting-with-pets-stealthing-and-hiding-dogs-from-landlord/101523694] (ABC Everyday)
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/landlords-wary-giving-more-right…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Pets.I love our noisy, chilly seaside towns – which is why I’d stop anyone owning a second home there
Nell Frizzell The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Towns need year-round residents if they are to thrive. Tourism alone can’t sustain bus services, libraries, chip shops and playgroups. ... But the news that coastal areas now have three times the number of Airbnb listings per dwelling as non-coastal areas threatens the very future of these places, not to mention the lives of their residents. Housing campaigners point out that the huge number of “entire places” listed on the website show how landlords have been drawn towards short-term holiday rentals precisely at the time when people need affordable homes. They’d rather rent their spare house – you know, just that other house they have – to 50 well-off families for weekends than a local family for the year.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/i-love-our…
# International, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.‘Mean-spirited’: The callous letters to landlords encouraging blood-boiling rent hikes
Hayley Taylor (No paywall)More on this story ... One of Australia’s leading real estate agencies has sent a letter to landlords encouraging a significant hike to rental prices. A Brisbane branch of the company revealed it has been suggesting increases that would offer $10,000 per year in additional income. Watch the video. (7 News)
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/real-estate/mean-spirited-the-sho…
# Video Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.