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
Has the interest rate rise broken Australia’s housing market fever?
Brigid Delaney The Guardian (No paywall)Prices remain high, but the days of frenzied auction bidding may be numbered with the recent interest rate hike and a slowing market
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/09/has-the-i…
# NSW, Housing market.Tasmania's housing market frenzy may be over, but prices still at an all-time high
Isabella Podwinski ABC (No paywall)There are signs Tasmania's real estate market has started to soften, with the Real Estate Institute of Tasmania's March quarterly report indicating the number of property sales has dropped. Despite the easing, there are lingering fears many will still be locked out of Tasmania's housing market due to an increase in property value.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-10/tasmania-housing-market-s…
# Australia, Housing market.Tasmania's Art Deco, modernist architecture captured by photographer Thomas Ryan
Georgie Burgess ABC (No paywall)Tasmania's modern architecture is often overlooked, but one man has spent the past 20 years taking a step back and appreciating it. From the brutalism of buildings like Launceston's Henty House and Hobart's former Murray Street offices to quirky suburban Art Deco, Thomas Ryan has been capturing the art movement of modernism through his lens.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-10/tasmanias-modernist-and-a…
# Australia, Heritage listings.Greens determined to topple decades-long Labor dominance in marginal inner-Brisbane seat of Griffith
Ciara Jones ABC (No paywall)Andrew Beecroft and his partner Lucy Ivers live in a rental property with their newborn daughter in the thriving, inner-city Brisbane suburb of West End. With their lease about to end and affordable properties scarce, they are facing an uncertain future – fighting for a spot in Brisbane's rental market. "It's a worry you don't want to have in your everyday life," Mr Beecroft said. "In this area, the rental crisis is the biggest issue — it's something that needs to be addressed, with more social housing and opportunities to get into a home."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/qld-federal-election-grif…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Housing market.Where homes sold for a loss despite the property boom
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)More than one in 10 homes sold are changing hands at a loss in some neighbourhoods despite the pandemic property boom, new figures show. The losses have been concentrated in apartment-heavy areas where a wave of new supply in recent years met falling demand while international borders were closed.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-homes-sold-for-a-loss…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.‘I’ve never felt this vulnerable’: Guardian readers share their rental crisis horror stories
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Exorbitant rent increases, no-grounds evictions only weeks after moving in, fungi and mould infestations, and scores of denied applications. Renters have shared their horror stories of the crisis in Australia’s housing market.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/07/ive-never…
# Australia, Rent, Repairs, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing affordability, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Mould, No-grounds evictions, Regional NSW.Negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks go to top income earners and men
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)The bulk of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions go to top income earners and men, new figures reveal. Independent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office, commissioned by the Greens, found that 57 per cent of negative gearing deductions go to the top 20 per cent of income earners. Meanwhile, the top 10 per cent of earners claim more in capital gains tax deductions than the remaining 90 per cent combined, the analysis found. A gender analysis of the figures also revealed 72 per cent of these deductions go to men. Across the country, 638,000 people own two or more investment properties, accounting for 1.7 million homes. A whopping 11,200 individuals own seven or more investment properties. ... [Grattan Institute economic policy program director Brendan Coates] said while these tax breaks have a small impact on prices, it has ultimately driven housing inequality. “Negative gearing and capital gains tax definitely contributed to the growing divide between the housing haves and have-nots. You’re talking about $63 billion a decade that is flowing to the richest Australians, which are the ones who own multiple investment properties.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/negative-gearing-and-capita…
# Australia, Housing market, Tax.Property damage
Martin McKenzie-Murray (No paywall)What will it take for Australia to fix the affordable housing crisis? ... For as long as I can remember, renters and young, aspiring homeowners were footnotes to public debates. Interest rates were forever framed by their effects upon homeowners, while rental laws overwhelmingly favoured landlords. It was as if there were no other circumstances; no other reality beyond the one enjoyed by asset-wealthy older generations. Property – and those that owned it – defined so much of the national political instinct. The biggest headlines, the loudest speeches, the most perverse tax concessions – they all ratified the property owner. Rental laws reflected this obsession: underpinning rental insecurity is the assumption that few would be renting for long. It’d be merely transitionary, they reckoned. Houses weren’t simply to be lived in, but leveraged, flipped, fetishised. They were never just homes, but the source of a vacant national obsession ... (The Monthly)
https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/martin-mckenzie-murray/2022/0…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Home, Housing market.