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
Fixed rate or variable? How to navigate the interest rate rise and your mortgage
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)To fix or not to fix? That is the question. The national property market is cooling, somewhat, and both Labor and the Coalition are offering up ways to make it easier for first-home buyers to turn the key on a new property. Prior to the election, home ownership for low-and-middle income earners — without the bank of mum and dad — was little more than a pipedream, but both sides of politics are now dangling the carrot of the Great Australian Dream.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-03/rba-interest-rates-variab…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Where you can buy your first home (if the next government helps pay for it)
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)First-home buyers relying on government help to get into the property market will have greater spending power, with both Labor and the Coalition promising higher price caps for assistance schemes ahead of the election. Labor on Sunday revealed its Help to Buy program, a shared equity scheme under which the government would contribute up to 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to 30 per cent of the price for an existing home. It comes after the Coalition’s pitch to first-home buyers two weeks earlier, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced price caps for the existing Home Guarantee Scheme would be increased from July 1, a move backed by Labor.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-you-can-buy-your-firs…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing market.How Do The Major Parties Measure Up On Housing And Cost Of Living Policy?
Aleksandra Bliszczyk (No paywall)We’ll compare the Coalition, Labor and the Greens’ policies on all the issues important to young people. We’ve narrowed them down to: climate change, the cost of living and housing, women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, First Nations rights, mental health and education. So now let’s look at our fucked housing and rental markets and skyrocketing inflation. (Pedestrian TV)
https://www.pedestrian.tv/federal-election-australia/how-do-majo…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, Young people.The Sydney marginal seats most exposed to rising interest rates
Matt Wade The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Reserve Bank’s decision to lift interest rates this week will weigh heavily on financially pressured home borrowers in marginal Sydney seats who could decide the outcome of the federal election. ... Sydney University housing expert, Professor Peter Phibbs, said higher mortgage repayments would add to other cost of living pressures being felt by borrowers. “For voters it’s another thing they can’t get out of paying at a time when a lot of costs have gone up." ... Professor Hal Pawson from the University of NSW’s City Futures Research Centre said those outer metropolitan regions have a high concentration of recent first home buyers who are especially vulnerable to rising interest rates because they have not had the opportunity to build up much equity in their property.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-sydney-marginal-seats-mo…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘Hunger Games situation’: Rental vacancies at record lows as tenants do it tough
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Tenants are facing tough competition for a rental across the country, with Australia’s vacancy rate remaining at an all-time low in April, new data shows, as rents rise at the same time. The national vacancy rate remained at 1 per cent after reaching the record low in March, Domain’s latest Rental Vacancy Report revealed. ... Economic program policy director at the Grattan Institute Brendan Coates said fewer available rentals and growing demand from tenants, including those moving from overseas, was the perfect recipe for continuing rent rises. ... “In the long term it’s the only solution,” Coates said. “We can’t continue this Hunger Games style situation, so the only way to solve that is by building more homes.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/hunger-games-situation-rent…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Students.Federal Election 2022 – electorate of Sydney
South Sydney Herald (No paywall)All candidates for the federal electorate of Sydney were asked what three areas of reform they would prioritise to achieve social and economic equity for the community they seek to represent. They were also asked to respond to two key prompts on housing and climate change. (South Sydney Herald)
https://southsydneyherald.com.au/federal-election-2022-electorat…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Climate change, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.PIF’s challenge: “Everyone is deserving of a home”
Rose Mary Petrass The Fifth Estate (No paywall)What the foundation tries to do is change the trajectory that many young people can find themselves on without a stable home. ... Since it was established in 1996 the foundation has built 232 bedrooms for homeless youth across the country – including 103 in the past five years. ... Housing in Australia has traditionally been more “asset focused”. “We need to have those conversations with people to change the way they see housing.”
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/pifs-chal…
# Australia, Home, Homelessness, Housing market, Young people.Property prices fall in Sydney and Hobart as national boom slows
Euan Black The New Daily (No paywall)Property prices are falling in Sydney and flatlining in Melbourne as declining affordability and looming interest rate hikes deter buyers from entering the market. But the pandemic housing boom is still surging in other parts of the country, with property values over April rising by 1.9 per cent in Adelaide, 1.7 per cent in Brisbane and 1.1 per cent in Perth. Hobart was the only capital city besides Sydney to see prices fall over the month (-0.3 per cent), according to data released by CoreLogic on Monday.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/05/02/property-…
# Australia, Housing market.