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 worrying trend of landlords banning tenants from working from home
Emma Guinness The Independent (No paywall)Landlords have come under fire for banning prospective tenants from working from home, resulting in calls for new legislation to protect renters. In what appears to be a new trend, adverts for shared homes have been appearing, specifying that the potential new occupant must not work from home. Now, the charity Generation Rent has called upon the new government to impose regulations to stop the practice, which is arguably given force by Section 21 “no-fault” eviction powers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/landlord-housing…
# Must read International, Eviction.Empty homes: A solution to record homelessness?
Simon Maybin BBC (No paywall)A housing standards boss is leading trailblazing work turning empty houses in his area into homes for people who desperately need them. The number of homes empty for at least six months in Wigan has fallen by nearly 200 in the past year, from 1,286 to 1,093. It bucks a national trend that saw the number of empty homes rise on average by 5% over the same period, according to data from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. There are now more than 260,000 long-term empty homes in England. At the same time, there are nearly 113,000 homeless families or single adults in temporary accommodation - the highest number on record.
# Hot topic International, Rent.Renters with disabilities live in fear of eviction. Now, this man with PTSD sleeps in a shed
Natalie Stechyson CBC (No paywall)Sidney Wood says he was evicted last month because he couldn't pay his rent. Wood, 41, couldn't afford the $1,620 per month for a basement apartment in Edmonton that he shared with his two teenage children. Not after he and his wife separated in March, and not on his CPP disability income that he says is $1,403 per month. So Wood, who is unable to work due to PTSD after 11 years as a correctional officer in a maximum security prison, had to move back to St. Theresa Point First Nation, an Oji-Cree reserve in Northern Manitoba.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/disability-rent-canada-1.7254118
# Must read International, Rent.Are Singapore Rent Prices for HDB and Condos Finally Coming Down?
Yahoo News (No paywall)Singapore rent prices have been a topic of conversation for a while now. For those who have to take on a unit or room for rent in Singapore, you’ve witnessed how rental prices surged to record highs throughout the pandemic. 2023 saw a softening of the buoyant rental market. Our latest Singapore Property Market Report Q1 2024 shows that asking rents have stabilised and have been dipping slowly since Q1 2023. So begets the question: Will Singapore rent prices for HDB flats and private properties finally come down in 2024?
https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/singapore-rent-prices-hdb-cond…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Labour’s housing policies have already been tried – and have failed. Here is the radical solution
Richard Sennett The Guardian (No paywall)My heart sank when I read the Labour manifesto on housing. A litany of proven past failures is presented as the shining future. For instance, the party wants to build high-density housing on brownfield sites – which has meant erecting tower blocks set in open spaces. This kind of housing has proved a social nightmare outside cities as various as Paris and Seoul; elderly people suffer from isolation, the middle-aged spend long hours commuting to work, and adolescents are more prone to the ills of drug use, depression and lack of exercise than in inner-city neighbourhoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/03/la…
# Hot topic International, Rent.What does a world without Airbnb look like?
Laura Hall Radio NZ (No paywall)With Barcelona announcing a total ban on short-term rentals from the end of 2028, how will decisions to curb Airbnb and others in the world's major cities change how we travel? On 21 June, Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni announced plans to ban short-term rentals in the city starting in November 2028. The decision is designed to solve what Collboni described as "Barcelona's biggest problem" - the housing crisis that has seen residents and workers priced out of the market - by returning the 10,000 apartments currently listed as short-term rentals on Airbnb and other platforms into the housing market.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/521160/what-does-a-world-withou…
# Hot topic International, Rent.NSW Landlords Complain About Potential Ban Of No-Grounds Evictions: ‘It’s Not A Charity’
Lachlan Hodson Pedestrian (No paywall)In response to upcoming changes to tenancy rules by the state government, NSW landlords are having a classic landlord whinge about the potential banning of no-grounds evictions. And they think renters are the entitled ones. Going into the state election last March, both the NSW Labor and Liberal parties promised to ban no-grounds evictions — AKA, kicking out a tenant without providing a reason — if they won government. But now it’s 15 months later, and the Chris Minns‘ Labor government is yet to make good on that promise.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/nsw-landlords-no-grounds-eviction…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent.NSW government to sell land near Sydney CBD to private developers despite affordable housing crisis
Ursula Malone ABC (No paywall)A prime parcel of government-owned land in inner-city Sydney is to be sold off to private developers with no requirement for any social or affordable housing to be built. The site on Parramatta Road in Camperdown is just 20 minutes from the CBD and sits on a major transport corridor with a bus stop right outside. Opposition parties have accused the government of breaching a key election commitment. Labor went into last year's election pledging that any development on public land would subject to an affordable housing quota.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-08/nsw-government-owned-land…
# Must read NSW, Public and community housing.