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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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Examining LAHC’s claims about the social objectives of estate renewal
Alistair Sisson (No paywall)As LAHC moves to implementing its decision to redevelop the Waterloo Estate, the social objectives claimed for the redevelopment and what is needed to deliver them becomes a focus. In this paper Dr Alistair Sisson, an academic in the field examines LAHC’s claims about the social objectives of estate renewal. (redwatch) You may also read this article on: [https://www.tenants.org.au/blog/examining-claims-about-social-objectives-estate-renewal]
# NSW, Public and community housing, Estate renewal, Housing market.Extreme weather driven by climate change endangers 1.6 million households, report says
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Up to 1.6 million homes nationwide are at moderate or high risk now from climate change-related extreme weather, with the number forecast to increase by more than 60 per cent by 2050. Some of the hardest-hit areas will be entire Sydney postcodes north and south of the Hawkesbury River where almost every property could be affected by 2050, while in Melbourne, up to 45 per cent of properties will be at high risk in Port Melbourne and about one in six in Albert Park. Climate risk analysts Climate Valuation, who issue reports for potential home buyers and mortgage lenders about the risks facing residential properties, analysed 14.3 million addresses in Australia and found 1.6 million homes were already at moderate or high risk from climate change-related extreme weather. That number is likely to rise to 2.6 million by 2050, Climate Valuation said, as frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as flooding in Lismore and Perth and bushfires in NSW in 2019 increase.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-properties-are-at-hig…
# Australia, Climate change, Home ownership, Housing market.How we won a rent freeze in Scotland
Gordon Maloney (No paywall)As the Scottish government announce a rent freeze, an activist with Living Rent who fought and won shares how they did it, and what must come next. (Huck Magazine)
https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/activism-2/how-we-won-a-ren…
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform.Sydney suburbs worst hit by rental price hikes
Adelaide Lang news.com.au (No paywall)New housing data from advocacy group Everybody’s Home reveals renters are facing dramatic rent hikes, with one suburb experiencing a rental increase of more than $100 a week. In the last three months, Sydney suburbs have seen vacancy rates decline and rental prices skyrocket amid an escalating cost of living crisis. ... Everybody’s Home spokeswoman Kate Colvin said it is “both unfair and unwise” that renters were being forced to bear the cost of the inflation. “The rental crisis is sending shockwaves through the community, with renters hit with massive rent hikes having to cut back on food, petrol and other essentials,” she said.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/sydney-subur…
# NSW, Repairs, Housing affordability, Housing market, Sydney.If your landlord wants to increase your rent, here are your rights
Brendan Grigg and Hossein Esmael The Conversation (No paywall)Inflation is pushing up interest rates. Interest rates are pushing up mortgage costs. There’s talk of a rental supply crisis. This means there’s a good chance your landlord wants to increase your rent. So what are your rights as a renter? That depends on where you live, because residential tenancy laws are determined by state and territory governments. There are, however, many commonalities. Here’s a rundown. [Read on]
https://theconversation.com/if-your-landlord-wants-to-increase-y…
# Australia, Rent, Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.Exclusion of ‘thousands’ of people from waitlists masks Queensland’s housing crisis, Greens say
Ben Smee The Guardian (No paywall)Queensland Greens MP Michael Berkman says the scale of the state’s housing crisis is being masked by government measures that have excluded potentially “thousands” of applicants from joining social housing waitlists. The Queensland parliament’s community support and services committee tabled a report on Friday afternoon, exploring housing models in Sydney and Melbourne. The committee’s chair, Labor MP Corrinne McMillan, said the challenges facing Sydney and Melbourne were similar to housing pressures in south-east Queensland. She called for a coordinated response from all levels of government, as well as the not-for-profit and private sector. ... In a dissenting report, Berkman said problems with housing in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane were driven by common factors, including the commodification of housing and policies that treat housing as a vehicle for wealth creation, rather than a human right. “These common features are essentially the backdrop for the housing crisis that each of the New South Wales, Victorian and Queensland governments is perpetuating, through their failure to implement meaningful rental reforms and the dramatic underinvestment in social housing,” Berkman said.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/09/exclusion…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Human rights, State Government.‘A necessity’: housing prices force more Australians into share homes in midlife
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)Mark Lanyon would prefer to live on his own. Instead, the 57-year-old shares a house in Berwick, in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, with three other guys aged between 19 and 40. Lanyon hasn’t shared a house since he was in his early 20s, but after getting a job in a factory near Dandenong six months ago, he had no choice. ... He is still searching every week for his own apartment but has found nothing close to his work under $300 a week. So now he pays $270 a week to share a four-bedroom house – with bills all included. ... The 2016 census showed that the share-house demographic was starting to skew older – with only half in their 20s and one in five more than 50. Generation rent is becoming generation share, says City Futures Research Centre’s Chris Martin. “They’re the equivalent of a generation previously who would have been getting into home ownership,” he said. “With the rising price of housing, there are more people renting and more people share housing and doing it longer into their lives.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/10/a-necessi…
# Australia, Share houses.Common Ground Berlin
International Union of Tenants (No paywall)“Poor, but sexy” Berlin was famous for its cheap rents, but these days, the capital city is the second most expensive in Germany and among the 50 priciest in the world. Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores Berlin’s residential crisis brought on by a shortage of housing and inflation and what cities in Europe may offer a solution. (International Union of Tenants)
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/iut-patrticipates-in-common-groun…
# Audio International, Rent, Housing market.