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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
Daniel Andrews invests $30 million in ARKit sustainable prefab modular homes
Andrew Sadauskas The Fifth Estate (No paywall)The Victorian state government is rolling out 114 energy efficient prefabricated modular homes to provide housing for people, mostly in regional areas, who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/daniel-an…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Utilities electricity water gas, Homelessness.‘Like a buyer’s agent but for renters’: Sydneysiders seek professional help to find homes
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Time-poor Sydneysiders are turning to renter’s agents to help them find a home in the tightest market in five years. A handful of renter’s agencies have opened up in the past few years, advertising themselves as “like a buyers’ agent but for renters”, with fees to find a new home ranging from $500 to $2000.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/like-a-buyer-s-agent-but-for…
# NSW, Rent.Albanese’s property story goes from one form of public housing to another
Lucy Macken Domain (No paywall)In 1927, there were two significant public housing projects completed that would play a significant role in the life of Australia’s newly elected prime minister Anthony Albanese. ... The other is a low-rise, council-owned housing estate [in Camperdown] called Alexandra Dwellings, also built 95 years ago and whose first resident was George Ellery, grandfather of Albanese, and where the future Labor leader was born and raised by his late mother, Maryanne Ellery.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/albanese-s-property-story-g…
# NSW, Public and community housing, History.How are governments supporting first home buyers in Australia?
AHURI Brief AHURI (No paywall)Commonwealth and state/territory support for home buyers takes a number of different forms; however, government support has long term public benefits when it focusses on increasing the number of dwellings in the community.
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/brief/how-are-governments-supp…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, State Government.Understanding downsizing
AHURI Brief AHURI (No paywall)With government policies and election promises seeking to promote downsizing amongst older Australians, it is important to understand just what it entails. Downsizing is the process by which a household moves from one dwelling to another that may be either smaller in size or of lower value, or both. The concept of downsizing is usually applied to older Australians when they move prior to or during their retirement. However, a move into aged care isn’t usually seen as downsizing.
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/brief/understanding-downsizing
# Australia, Housing market, Older people.We reserve homes for over 55s. Why don’t we have villages for first home buyers?
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)There are retirement villages everywhere. Homes reserved for retirees. Why don’t we have the same for first home buyers, where they could have first dibs on affordable property without having to compete with investors and cashed-up downsizers? It could be done a number of ways, experts say, if there was political will and developers had an incentive to deliver. ... University of Sydney professor of urban and regional planning Nicole Gurran University of Sydney professor of urban and regional planning said the most obvious way to ensure first home buyers could buy into the market was for governments to enshrine it in legislation by requiring that a proportion of new homes be earmarked for them. “Of course we could [have first-home buyer villages]. That’s inclusionary zoning and that’s the method used in South Australia and many countries around the world,” Gurran said. ... Gurran said while it took some time to embed in South Australia (starting in 2005 with a 15 per cent target), there is now a pipeline of affordable housing in the state.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/we-reserve-homes-for-over-5…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing market, Planning and development.A landlords’ market
Maani Truu ABC (No paywall)Long searches, skyrocketing prices, and diminishing quality. Sydney has become a landlord’s market, and desperate renters are paying the price. Advertised bedrooms that are no bigger than closets. A stair railing hanging loose from the wall. Bathrooms that don’t have a door. Mould — and a lot of it. None of these details mentioned on a recent rental listing asking for upwards of $1,000 in rent a week. For people who haven’t been on a rental hunt in a while, this might sound like a horror story. But for those looking for a somewhat affordable home in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs, it’s a Saturday morning bingo card. Here’s how it often plays out.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-21/rental-crisis-in-sydney-w…
# NSW, Rent, Housing market.Reject the language of the spiv: true conservatives know our housing injustice invites societal peril
Gray Connolly The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)For well over a decade, anyone aged 40 and under knew of the, frankly, catastrophic inequities of Australia’s housing situation. If you wanted to buy a property in a reasonable distance from a major urban area, you needed historically large multiples of the average salary to afford a deposit on an apartment – forget your dreams of a house.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/reject-the-language-of-the-spiv-…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market.