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
Greens leader defends calls for national rent freeze
Broede Carmody The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)At 8am on this link. ... the Greens have this week been calling for a national rent freeze. Landlords have slammed the proposal and the federal government says they won’t be implementing such a policy.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-news-live-pm-announces…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market.Underquoting in Australian real estate industry is leaving buyers feeling betrayed
Caitlin Cassidy The Guardian (No paywall)When Sarah stumbled upon her dream two-bedroom apartment in the eastern Sydney suburb of Edgecliff, she was hopeful she’d finally found something within her budget. But at the inspection, the real estate agent immediately asked if she could stretch her price range. “They said it was listed for $1.1m because they wanted $1.2m, $1.3m,” she said. “I was like ‘are you joking?’ It’s so demoralising.” Sarah has visited almost three dozen properties in six months, and now instinctively questions every market price in case the agent is underquoting. “I don’t want to waste my time getting emotionally invested, then have them say no,” she says. “You’ll often receive something in five days saying the price guide has been revised by $150,000. It’s pretty depressing.” Real estate bodies have said underquoting remains “endemic” due to poorly regulated and underpoliced regulations.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/27/underquoting-in…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Improved accessibility and 7-star energy efficiency standards approved for new homes
Peter Hannam The Guardian (No paywall)Step-free access and corridors wide enough to fit wheelchairs are among the minimum mandatory standards most state and territory building ministers agreed to for new homes at a meeting on Friday in Sydney. Hosted by the federal government, the ministers discussed the first upgrade in the minimum energy performance of new homes since 2010, with the 6-star standard lifted to 7 stars. Each jurisdiction agreed to a 12-month transition to October 2023 for both the energy efficiency upgrades while most also backed the increased accessibility standards to the national construction code. NSW, though, said it would hold off implementation “at this time”. Read an earlier article by the same author entitled: 'Tougher seven-star energy efficiency standards for new Australian homes set to be approved' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/25/tougher-seven-star-energy-efficiency-standards-for-new-australian-homes-set-to-be-approved]. Read Sally Rafferty's article entitled: 'National construction code changes to add thousands of dollars to cost of new homes, builders say' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-29/national-construction-code-make-home-builds-more-expensive/101380672]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/26/improved-…
# Australia, Utilities electricity water gas, Federal Government, Fixtures - lights, aircon etc, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, State Government.Central station redevelopment aims to heal Sydney ‘scar’ – but is it a missed opportunity?
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)Almost 150 years after inner Sydney was sliced in two, the state government is planning an ambitious operation to stitch it back together. Under the “once in a generation” scheme announced last Monday, parkland, homes and workspaces will be built over rail lines leading into Central station, rejoining Surry Hills to Ultimo after the inner city suburbs were separated by tracks in 1874. The plan to construct a bridge over the busiest lines in the country includes 15 mixed-use buildings, ranging from four to 34 storeys, and more than 60,000 sq metres of green space.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/28/central-s…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government, Sydney.Tenants in Limbo After Sale of ‘Naturally Affordable’ Apartment Building
Guy Oron (No paywall)Tenants of a Capitol Hill apartment complex are fighting to stay in place after their building — an example of “naturally affordable” housing in Seattle — was sold to a private company. Meagan Angus has made her home in the historic Madkin Apartments building, which sits at the intersection of the Central District, Capitol Hill, and Madison Park neighborhoods. Angus — the president of the building’s recently formed tenants association — and her neighbors are organizing to prevent the displacement of the building’s residents. ... Tenants in the building say that the previous owner, Fally Tyson, intentionally kept rent at a below-market rate to keep the units affordable. That allowed residents to stay in the building for decades and build a genuine sense of community with their neighbors — a rarity in Seattle’s housing market. Tyson passed away in 2020 at the age of 79.
https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/08/22/tenants-in-limbo-afte…
# International, Rent, Affordable housing.Homeless numbers plummet after push to help people sleeping rough
Harriet Alexander The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sometimes it takes a crisis for decisive action to be taken. ... For homeless people more generally, the crisis was the pandemic, which gave the NSW government the impetus to find accommodation for every rough sleeper and an opportunity to ensure they did not return to the street. The number of people sleeping rough in Sydney has nearly halved since 2017, which the NSW government is partly attributing to two new programs aimed at ensuring people who are given housing do not revert to their old temptations.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeless-numbers-plummet-aft…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Local Government, State Government, Sydney.Generation Z faces a brutal truth. Finding a decent home will be a lifelong struggle
Sonia Sodha The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... It is grim being a renter in your mid-20s in 2022, given the way rents have spiked in the last couple of years; the fact that, even a few years ago, renters were paying the highest rents in Europe, spending 36% of their income on housing compared with 12% for mortgaged owners; and the grotty state of much that’s on offer and the fact you have no idea where you’ll be living once your tenancy comes to an end. But imagine still being subject to the whims of a landlord and substandard housing – around a quarter of privately rented homes don’t meet the decent homes standard – when you have young kids, worrying about when the next move is, how far it will take you from school, grandparents and friends, whether you will have to downgrade and lose a bedroom just as they are getting older. Then imagine how scary your approaching retirement will be, with a state and private pension system that simply isn’t designed for people who haven’t either already paid off their mortgage or who don’t have the long-term security and controlled rents of social housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/28/life-is-be…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Families, Housing market, Welfare.Solar solutions could be the key to climate-proofing homes in Aboriginal town camps
Stephanie Boltje ABC (No paywall)In the Red Centre's Hidden Valley, traditional owner Benedict Stevens is proud to call his late grandmother's 1970s house his home. But this home wasn't built with insulation, heating, and cooling in mind. "The cold gets to about 0 degrees Celsius in winter, and during summer it goes up to about 45 degrees," Mr Stevens told The Drum. Mr Stevens lives in Ewyenper-Atwatye, also known as Hidden Valley, one of the Aboriginal town camps that dot the edges of Alice Springs. ... Tangentyere Council is connecting PV solar panels to prepayment systems on its community centres within the town camps to show how they could work to individually secure energy for residents.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-25/solar-solutions-climate-p…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change, Health, Minimum habitability standards.