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
Maggie's renting story: Living in and Leaving Affordable Housing
Maggie Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)Maggie has lived in an Affordable Housing apartment with their partner and children for three-and-a-half years. They're about to move out, into a property they'll be privately renting from some family members. Maggie has given us permission to republish their tweet thread as a guest blog for This Rented Life. See Riley's explainer below for more info about 'Affordable Housing' as a specific model of rental housing.
https://www.tenants.org.au/blog/maggies-renting-story-living-and…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market.Climate change has made old measures predicting weather events 'essentially worthless'
Penny Timms ABC (No paywall)When Jo Groves bought her property in Lismore, she worked hard to make it her own and thought she would grow old in it. Now, she's unsure when she'll be able to return and, even then, she's apprehensive about it. ... Ms Groves is one of many Australians on the east coast — and in Lismore in particular — who have been displaced after two years of record rainfall and widespread flooding. When she bought her home in late 2016 she knew flooding was a risk. "But I'm a low income earner and my choices were limited in terms of affordable housing in Lismore," she said. ... With the help of a government grant, she even elevated her home four metres off the ground. She said it was as high as was legally allowed, and it put her floor 80cm above what was known as Lismore's crucial "one in 100 year flood" level. ... But in February this year, another unprecedented flood swept through the town. Ms Groves ended up with 1.25m of water through her home — a flood more than two metres above the one-in-100-year-flood level. ... David Karoly, one of Australia's leading climate scientists, said the impact of climate change meant these measures were now "essentially worthless".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-19/climate-change-projection…
# NSW, Climate change, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Personal stories.Greens say federal government should help pay for cost of raising homes in flood-prone regions
Joe Hincliffe The Guardian (No paywall)Homeowners at risk of flooding could receive $20,000 to help raise their houses under a $7.8bn plan released by the Greens which has been welcomed by some in the building and insurance industries. The Greens say the flood adaptation scheme would mainly support homeowners in south-east Queensland and the NSW northern rivers who have been hit by multiple floods over recent months.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/19/greens-sa…
# NSW, Housing market, Regional NSW.Glebe picketers demand: ‘Give us decent homes’
(No paywall)A crowd of public housing activists is picketing to demand that the right to a decent home should be an election issue. “We are organising a street picket on May 19 to demand that the next Federal Government take real and effective steps to solve the housing crisis and ensure that all our citizens have a decent home,” said Denis Doherty from the community group Hands off Glebe. (South Sydney Herald)
https://southsydneyherald.com.au/glebe-picketers-demand-give-us-…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Federal Government, Housing market.Developers blame planners for limited housing supply, critics say they’re banking land
Jackson Graham The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Property developers are blaming lengthy state planning processes for an undersupply of housing that is pushing up prices, amid claims developers are also drip-feeding new supply into the market to boost their returns.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/developers-blame-pla…
# Australia, Housing market.London council ordered to pay family of seven £6,000 after leaving them in one-bedroom flat during pandemic
James Wilmore Inside Housing (Paywall)A London council has agreed to pay a family of seven £6,000 after they were left living in a one-bedroom flat for more than a year during the early stages of the pandemic.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-ordered…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Local Government.Did Boomers or Millennials have it harder buying a house? We try to answer this age-old question
Emilia Terzon ABC (No paywall)I was on a suburban street filming a story about young people struggling to get into the housing market, when a woman unpacking groceries in her driveway asked about my topic. ... This generation is greedy," she concluded. On the other side of the footpath, it's not unusual to hear Millennials malign their parents for negative gearing their way to retirement, and inflating prices for today's buyers along the way.
So which generation had it harder buying a home? ... [Take the words of 28-year-old single-mother, Shana]: "I've basically come to terms with the fact that I will be renting for the rest of my life, until maybe I inherit something from somewhere. Or I marry someone very rich," she jokes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-19/housing-buy-home-millenni…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.The homes with the largest price drops in the cooling market
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Smaller houses have taken the biggest hit to property prices in the cooling Sydney and Melbourne markets, with buyers less willing to compromise on the size or quality of their next home.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-homes-with-the-largest-…
# Australia, Housing market.