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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
No jobs, no trees: The suburbs where urban sprawl is hurting Sydney
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sydney’s urban sprawl is growing as developers turn green space into suburbia, amid concerns about the environmental, health and economic costs of the city’s expanding footprint. Local councils have also criticised the state government for allowing the development of suburbs on Sydney’s fringe without adequate roads, trees and open space.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/no-jobs-no-trees-the-suburbs-whe…
# NSW, Health, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government, Sydney.Victoria is spending billions on affordable housing, but it isn't keeping up with demand
Leanne Wong ABC (No paywall)Before moving into public housing, Geoffrey Lennie was forced to change homes 43 times in 40 years. A combination of steady rent increases, landlords selling their homes, and the stigma he encountered when he was on a disability pension, forced him to repeatedly navigate the "slaughterhouse" of Melbourne's private rental market. "I remember filling out an application for a rental. I took a few steps from the counter to ask a bloke something, and I watched the bloke I was just talking to already dropping my application in the bin," Mr Lennie said. ... After he eventually applied for public housing, Mr Lennie would still spend another seven years on the waitlist, before finally finding a place to call home in Seaford in Melbourne's south-east. He says having a permanent home has changed his life. ... That was more than a decade ago. Since then, Mr Lennie fears it's only become worse for others waiting for housing, a concern that's reflected in government figures. In March this year, the number of households on Victoria's social housing waitlist grew to 54,945, up from 50,839 in 2021. Of that list, more than half (30,508 applicants) are on the priority access list, meaning their housing needs are urgent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-12/victorian-public-housing-…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.Renters warned to brace for massive hikes to hold onto homes
Gemma Acton (No paywall)As homeowners brace for more interest rate rises, renters across Sydney are facing the nervous wait to see if rent is about to go up. (7 news) View a story with a similar theme from South Australia at: [https://www.facebook.com/7NEWSAdelaide/videos/707794810487158/?extid=NS-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C]
https://www.facebook.com/7NEWSsydney/videos/550337133132852/?ext…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Housing affordability, Minimum habitability standards, No-grounds evictions.Mortgage ‘cliff’ looming for home owners when fixed-rate loans end
Rachel Clun The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)People who bought property during the coronavirus pandemic on fixed-rate loans face a financial cliff next year when their terms expire, as experts predict their repayments could jump by around $900 a month, adding pressure to household budgets.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/mortgage-cliff-looming-f…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Our Bondi pad: A snapshot of generational betrayal as it sells for seven times what we paid
Malcolm Knox The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Twenty-seven years ago this week, I had to have my arm twisted to buy a home. Surely a one-bedroom flat in stinky old Bondi – without parking – couldn’t ever go higher than an extortionate $164,000. ... But the flat was recently sold (not by us) for $1.2 million. So while wages, if they have matched inflation, have doubled in 27 years, the price of that unimproved Sydney one-bedder has multiplied by seven. ... Those who have benefited from a big undeserved Ponzi scheme now see their children reaching adulthood with diminishing prospects of joining in. The lifetime-renting mentality among under-30s is normal in parts of the world where economic mobility is minimal and wealth is deeply stratified across generations. House prices are turning 21st-century Australia into something more like an old-world country, where inheritance trumps all else and if you are born without, chances are that you will stay that way. This is not the Australia that ... I would like to leave behind.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/our-bondi-pad-a-snapshot-of-gene…
# Australia, Housing market.Northern beaches house rent prices have increased 16 per cent
Chloe Coleman (No paywall)Just as Rachael Jackson was starting to feel secure, skyrocketing rental prices have thrown her back into survival mode. The Belrose resident has been renting her four bedroom home for two and a half years, and in that time has seen the rent jump from $850 per week to $920. The single mother of three is the sole provider for her children and a part-time disability support worker. She has experienced health issues and homelessness in the past, but now the extreme cost of rent is adding a huge amount of stress. She wants people to know that people with clean lives and jobs are suffering. (Northern Beaches Review)
https://www.northernbeachesreview.com.au/story/7769520/trying-to…
# NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability.Time running out for land owners in south-west Sydney estate stuck in sewerage limbo
Kamin Gock and Maryanne Taouk ABC (No paywall)Aspiring home owners in south-west Sydney are weeks away from losing their land to developers, as they continue to wait for a sewerage connection. The owners at the Torana estate in Austral were sold on a dream block of land, where prices began at about $600,000. But, three years on, construction has yet to start.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-12/austral-homes-without-sew…
# NSW, Utilities electricity water gas, Home ownership, Landlords and agents, Planning and development.CBA tips 18% peak-to-trough fall in Sydney, Melbourne home prices
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Commonwealth Bank economists expect larger falls in house prices due to this week’s interest rate rise, forecasting peak-to-trough declines in dwelling prices of 18 per cent in Sydney and Melbourne over this year and next.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/cba-tips-18-percent-…
# Australia, Housing market.