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
A decade of savings isn’t enough for most first home buyers, as deposits soar out of reach
Nassim Khadem ABC (No paywall)It takes a first home buyer almost 11.5 years to save a 20 per cent deposit for an average priced home. And as of March 2022, the national median dwelling value was estimated to be eight-and-a-half times the median annual household income level nationally. This is a record high according to CoreLogic's latest housing affordability report and has increased from 6.8 since the onset of COVID-19 two years prior. Also, read Elizabeth Redman's article entitled: 'It now takes more than a decade to save a home deposit' in Domain at [https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/it-now-takes-more-than-a-decade-to-save-a-home-deposit-20220511-p5aket.html]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/housing-affordability-fir…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Michael Gove promises Renters’ Reform Bill will deliver ‘new deal for renters’
Liam Geraghty (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Ministers detailed the Renters’ Reform Bill in the Queen’s Speech, promising to boost the standard of private rent homes and to scrap no-fault evictions after three-year wait. (The Big Issue)
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/government-promise-renters…
# New policy announcement International, Public and community housing, Rent, Tribunal NCAT, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, No-grounds evictions.More regional aged care homes to close unless government funds pay rise, experts say
Natasha May The Guardian (No paywall)Many more rural Australians may have no choice but to spend their final years away from their families and communities given two-thirds of regional aged care homes are operating at a loss. Closures are already happening and will accelerate if the next federal government fails to properly fund a pay rise for aged care workers, experts say.
At the end of 2020, regional nursing homes were teetering, with almost half (48%) operating at a loss.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/13/more-regi…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people, Regional NSW.Queen’s Speech: regulator to get powers to impose emergency repairs in social housing homes
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... In documents accompanying the [Queens Speech], ministers outlined some of the additional powers that will be given to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) as part of the Social Housing Bill, including that it will be given the ability to arrange emergency repairs within tenants’ homes. This will occur following a survey and where there is evidence of systemic failure by the landlord.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/queens-speech-regulato…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs.Public housing eviction leaves mother and son homeless in 'heartless' trend in the NT
Roxanne Fitzgerald ABC (No paywall)In the dark of the night, on a humid March evening, Cherylene Campbell opened the rickety front door of her dream house to security guards and was handed a reminder. She was to be in housing court the very next morning to defend herself against numerous allegations of anti-social behaviour. In a matter of minutes, Ms Campbell and her then 14-year-old son were given two weeks to vacate and find a new home in a pocket of Australia where people remain on a waiting list for public housing for up to a decade. ... Phil Andrews, a solicitor at the Darwin Community Legal Service who has been advocating for Ms Campbell, said evictions of public housing tenants were on the rise in the NT, despite a critical shortage of affordable homes and some of the highest rates of homelessness in Australia. In the four years between 2018 and 2021, just one public housing tenant was evicted, a spokeswoman from the NT government confirmed. But since January of this year, there have been eight evictions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-14/public-housing-eviction-l…
# Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing.Michael Gove is right about one thing: building more homes won’t solve anything
Simon Jenkins The Guardian (No paywall)The UK has enough housing to go around – the problem is that the market is inefficient. Boris Johnson’s Queen’s speech was largely empty of substance. So thank goodness for the housing and planning secretary, Michael Gove. ... In plain terms, what Gove meant was that Johnson’s mantra of “build, build, build” (a parroting of his chief party donors, the construction lobby) was senseless. The build-or-be-damned policies of David Cameron and George Osborne had funnelled jobs, people and money into the south-east of England, spawning characterless housing estates from Hampshire to East Anglia. This had enraged Tory voters in villages and small towns, because it sucked the life out of existing communities, crushing high streets and closing local pubs.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/13/michael-go…
# International, Housing market.Toxic flood sludge leaves Northern Rivers residents of Broadwater homeless
Miranda Saunders ABC (No paywall)Thick black toxic sludge still sticks to every part of Dean Wilson's Broadwater home north of Evans Head in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. "I want to come home. I've been homeless for 10 weeks. I've been put up in decent accommodation but I'm not home," he said. For the past 10 weeks, all Mr Wilson's worldly possessions have sat in his house, growing mouldy and covered in flood mud and sludge.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/toxic-sludge-leaves-resid…
# NSW, Homelessness.Sydney upsizers face record gap between unit and house prices
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Making the leap into a larger home has become increasingly difficult for Sydney upsizers, who need to bridge a record price gap to trade up from a unit to a house. Sydney houses now cost twice as much as units, Domain data shows, with the price difference between the two property types widening rapidly during the pandemic.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sydney-upsizers-face-record…
# NSW, Strata, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing market.