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
‘It’s a crisis’: Rents in almost every Sydney suburb jumped in the past year
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Angus Hook and his two housemates copped a $130 increase on their weekly rent bill in Sydney when their lease came up for renewal. They were told to accept the increase or leave by their property manager, who also said other tenants would be willing to pay even more. ... Sydney rents are higher than a year ago in a clear majority of suburbs, from highly sought-after inner-city pockets to more affordable areas, according to Domain data for the year to September. ... Western Sydney University associate professor in geography and urban studies in the school of social sciences Dr Emma Power said it was a landlord’s market, and this had far-reaching implications for Sydney as tenants cut costs on other essentials to keep a roof over their heads. “In my research, I see [tenants] cut back on their healthcare needs and their nutrition. As a society, these have long-term consequences and social costs,” she said.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/it-s-a-crisis-rents-in-almo…
# NSW, Rent, Health, Housing market, Sydney.‘Painful To See’: Rising Rents Contributed To A 10% Spike In Homelessness In NSW Since 2020
Aleksandra Bliszczyk (No paywall)Homelessness in New South Wales has increased 10 per cent since the pandemic began, a shocking report released on Monday found. Meanwhile, rents are skyrocketing and rental vacancy has plummeted which has made it increasingly difficult and distressing to find a stable home. The Aftershock report was published by Impact Economics and Policy and commissioned by the NSW Council Of Social Service (NCOSS), Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) NSW, Aboriginal Community Housing Industry Association (ACHIA) and Homelessness NSW. It found 3,700 more people are homeless in NSW today compared to the start of 2020 and, in the same time frame, as many as 54,000 households have experienced increased housing stress. (Pedestrian TV) You will find the full report at: [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61e32e62c8c8337e6fd7a1e6/t/6345fd1eba82ac3d4eef403d/1665531175264/IE_Aftershock_Housing_V5b_SPREADS%5B82%5D.pdf]
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/homelessness-nsw-risen-since-pand…
# NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market.'That's the One to Put in a Blender'
Alissa Walker (Paywall)Los Angeles’s renters are the second-most cost-burdened in the country, with half of all households spending 50 percent or more of their monthly income on rent. One 2020 study showed that the city’s Black, Latino, and Spanish-speaking households were most likely to experience severe rent burdens, making permanent cutbacks to food and transportation spending in order to keep a roof over their heads. Stratospheric housing prices have put home ownership out of reach for all but the very wealthy, and an acute shortage of affordable apartments leaves tenants exceptionally vulnerable to displacement. And while renters account for 63 percent of occupied housing units in L.A. and represent a majority in 12 of L.A.’s 15 council districts, none of L.A.’s council members are renters. (According to one estimate, a majority of them are landlords.) At the state level, where policies like rent control are passed, nearly one in four of the legislature’s members are landlords, and the California Association of Realtors, a powerful anti-renter lobbying group, is the second-largest donor to the state’s Democratic Party. What all of this amounts to is a supermajority of L.A. tenants that has very little political power. (NewYork Curbed)
https://www.curbed.com/2022/10/la-city-council-leaked-audio-raci…
# International, Rent, Landlords and agents, Local Government.Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why.
Heather Vogell with data analysis by Haru Coryne and Ryan Little (No paywall)Texas-based RealPage’s YieldStar software helps landlords set prices for apartments across the U.S. With rents soaring, critics are concerned that the company’s proprietary algorithm is hurting competition. On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one of their company’s signature products: software that uses a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants. “Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage ... Drama over rising rent costs — now a key driver of inflation — has been increasingly public. The year before the pandemic, roughly 46% of renters in the U.S. spent more than 30% of their income on rent and therefore met the definition of cost-burdened, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found. In mid-September in Washington, D.C., angry protesters disrupted the normally sedate yearly conference held by the National Multifamily Housing Council. Before security ejected them, they seized the stage and recounted how their families had been harmed by an inability to find safe, affordable housing. At the center of the acrimonious debate has been RealPage’s Jay Parsons. [Read the full article in 'ProPublica')
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realp…
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability, Housing market.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.