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
Queensland’s rental crisis spreads to manufactured home parks
Eden Gillspie The Guardian (No paywall)When Betty Blythe bought into a manufactured home park, she had no idea that years later she’d been cutting back on groceries and scrapping her home insurance due to increases in rent. While she owns her home in southern Queensland, Blythe leases the land from the park owner, with rent going towards shared facilities and utilities. Her rent is now $31 a week more than what it was four years ago, and Blythe said as a pensioner every cent counts.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/03/queenslan…
# Australia, Land lease communities.‘It’s shown me how independent I can be’ – housing designed for people with disabilities reduces the help needed
Jacinta Douglas and Di Winkler The Conversation (No paywall)The federal government has been warning that the rising cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is unsustainable. More than a third of NDIS funding is spent on in-house support provided to 5% of NDIS participants with the highest needs. ... Well-designed homes that foster more independent living and increase community connection can potentially reduce support costs and the need for younger people to live in aged care.
https://theconversation.com/its-shown-me-how-independent-i-can-b…
# Australia, Disability, Housing market, Young people.Extending Right to Buy ‘hare-brained idea’, says Shelter boss
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Over the weekend, The Telegraph reported that prime minister Boris Johnson plans to revive the Right to Buy scheme, which allows social housing tenants to buy their homes at a discount rate. The scheme was first introduced by Margaret Thatcher for council tenants in the 1980s. By 1997, more than 1,700,000 homes in the UK had been sold under the Right the Buy. According to Shelter, only 5% of the social housing sold under the Right to Buy has been replaced. Ms Neate [Shelter boss] said there “could not be a worse time to sell off what remains of our last truly affordable social homes” as the current cost of living crisis means “more people are on the brink of homelessness than homeownership”.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/extending-right-to-buy…
# International, Public and community housing, Home ownership, Housing market.One-size-fits-all model of accessible housing ‘a disaster’ for Australians with disability
Calla Wahlquist The Guardian (No paywall)Elijah Armstrong’s wheelchair is 76cm wide. The doorways at the rental home he shares with his family are 78cm wide. ... accessible housing for families is in short supply, so [his mother, Grace Dlabik] has made the best of what is available on the private rental market. They moved into their current home, a large art deco house in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, in September. Dlabik found it during a daily scour of realestate.com.au, after spending a year searching for an accessible property.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/one-size-…
# Australia, Rent, Disability, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Personal stories.Thousands call for homeless help, but phones ring out as staff are swamped
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Half of all calls for homelessness help went unanswered in Victoria in January, and experts say no new permanent support staff have been funded in the past decade despite a three-fold increase in after-hours demand.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/thousands-call-for-home…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness, State Government.With interest rates about to start rising, experts estimate almost 300,000 mortgage borrowers are at serious risk of default
Nassim Khadem ABC (No paywall)Tara Higginson pulls no punches when asked what will happen if interest rates rise on Tuesday, off the back of soaring inflation. "I'm up shit creek", says the single mother of four who, in the midst of the pandemic, took out an interest-only variable loan of $510,000 – more than six times her income. "I don't have a second income to be able to buffer that fluctuation when it [interest rates] increase," she says. "There would have to be cutbacks."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/borrowers-home-loans-mort…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Personal stories, Women.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.