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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
The US Federal Reserve is tightening monetary policy, and it's likely to impact Australian households
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)Mortgage borrowers and renters may be slugged with higher monthly payments than even the most pessimistic forecasts currently suggest, and the Reserve Bank won't be to blame.
Instead, it's the US Federal Reserve that may absorb the wrath of Australian households. The reason is simple. The more the US Federal Reserve tightens its monetary policy, or raises its Federal Funds rate, the more pressure is on the Reserve Bank to follow suit, regardless of inflation pressures here in Australia.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-24/interest-rates-mortgage-r…
# Australia, Rent, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.Pacific Islands brace for prolonged droughts and more flooding as La Niña continues for third year in a row
Annika Burgess and Kyle Evans ABC (No paywall)Amid concerns the intensity and frequency of weather events across the Pacific Islands are being exacerbated by climate change, now the region is expected to endure more floods and droughts with La Niña continuing into a third year
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-23/la-nina-pacific-islands-f…
# International, Climate change, Housing market.LA Is Reopening Its Section 8 Housing Voucher Waitlist For The First Time In Five Years
David Wagner (No paywall)For the first time in five years, the city of Los Angeles is reopening the waitlist for its Section 8 housing voucher program. Next month, low-income residents will have two weeks to submit an online application for a shot at getting on the waitlist. Section 8 vouchers represent the nation’s largest rental assistance program, and local housing officials are expecting hundreds of thousands of L.A. tenants to apply.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/section-8-eight-hous…
# International, Rent, Homelessness, Welfare.To Solve the Housing Crisis, We Have to Increase the Housing Supply
Alex Hemingwy (No paywall)The housing crisis in British Columbia is a multiheaded beast, requiring an all-hands-on-deck effort to make homes affordable and available to everyone as a human right. Most of my work on housing policy to date has focused on financing a massive expansion of public and nonmarket housing, using progressive taxes to tamp down on speculation, and tackling huge inequalities created by the explosion of land values. But in this post, I want to zero in on the question of overall housing supply with a particular focus on the huge backlog of need for rental housing. The truth is there is no way out of the housing crisis without a tremendous effort to end the chronic shortage of homes, which helps drive up rents and creates a steady churn of displacement and exclusion. The free market can’t solve the housing crisis, but any social housing plan worth its salt must ensure that rents fall across the board, vacancy rates rise, and there are homes for all. (Jacobin)
https://jacobin.com/2022/09/housing-supply-rents-crisis-canda
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Housing market.‘We haven’t built it, and they’ve come’: the e-change pressures on Australia’s lifestyle towns
Julian Waters-Lynch, Andrew Glover and Tania Lewis The Conversation (No paywall)Slow internet speeds are just the tip of the infrastructure pressures being placed on hundreds of towns within a few hours’ drive of cities – the sweet spot for e-changers looking to combine city jobs with country town lifestyles. Others include health and education services, water security and, most urgently, housing availability and affordability. ... In the Hunter Valley, Southern Highland and Shoalhaven regions of NSW, and in the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast areas in Queensland, house prices rose more than 35% in the 12 months to January 2022. This has contributed to an unprecedented rental crisis, displacing those on lower incomes and making it harder for local businesses to fill job vacancies.
https://theconversation.com/we-havent-built-it-and-theyve-come-t…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development, Regional NSW.Departure of housing investors sends rents higher
Robert Harley (Paywall)Australia’s landlords are exiting in increasing numbers even as the housing shortage worsens and rents rise.Leanne Pilkington, the chief executive of real estate agency Laing & Simmons, and deputy president of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, pointed to the shift at The Australian Financial Review Property Summit. A decade ago, investors bought more than 25 per cent of the homes sold in Australia, and sold around 7 per cent, according to the REA Group. Today the figures are reversed. Investors are selling more homes than they are buying.
https://www.afr.com/property/residential/departure-of-housing-in…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.NSW homeless outreach program gets rough sleepers off streets of Tweed Heads
Emma Hannigan and Hannah Ross ABC (No paywall)It was late at night and teeming with rain, and Barry Wood and a friend were "getting soaking wet" in a tent they shared beside a road in northern New South Wales. The former lifeguard had been "sleeping in the bush, trying to survive" for more than two years. "You get run down by it, trying to scrape through every day," he said. Homelessness took a toll on Mr Wood's health. "I've got bad knees and a bad elbow, and I just couldn't get them fixed. I couldn't get my teeth fixed, so I couldn't eat properly," he said. "My father committed suicide. I thought that might be the easy way out of it too." Mr Wood is one of more than 100 people who have been housed in the Tweed under the NSW government's assertive outreach program.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-22/nsw-tweed-heads-program-p…
# NSW, Homelessness, Regional NSW.Granny flats allowed to hit the tight rental market to help Queensland's housing crisis
Sarah Richards ABC (No paywall)Queensland home owners who have granny flats will be allowed to rent them out over the next three years under emergency planning changes designed to alleviate the state's housing crisis. The move will enable secondary dwellings to be made available to people other than immediate family members and expand accommodation options for smaller households, such as students, single persons, older people and couples. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the change would mean "cheaper properties will enter the rental market, helping thousands of people". Also, read Tony Moore's article entitled: 'As govt mulls granny flat rentals, council says communities must have say' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/politics/queensland/as-govt-mulls-granny-flat-rentals-council-says-communities-must-have-say-20220923-p5bkf0.html].
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-23/qld-granny-flats-rent-lea…
# Australia, Rent, Granny flats, studios, Housing market.