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
Parents cough up record $100,000 to help children buy first home
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Almost 60 per cent of first home buyers are receiving financial help from their parents to get a start in the property market following the price boom of the past two years and as the tight rental market sees rents soar. The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is the ninth biggest lender and parents are gifting or lending a record average of almost $100,000 – up from just under $90,000 a year ago – to help with the deposit, figures from Digital Finance Analytics show. ... Digital Finance Analytics founder Martin North cautions that first time buyers who get substantive help from their parents are three times more likely to default on their mortgage in the subsequent five years compared to those who receive no support.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/parents-coug…
# Australia, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.Rental housing squeeze hits regional hospitality workforce as tourist towns struggle to find staff
Katherine Smyrk ABC (No paywall)The Regional Australia Institute (RAI) recently released a report on housing, titled 'Building the Good Life – Meeting the Demand for Regional Housing'. Part of the paper looked at the lack of "suitable" housing in regional areas, namely social housing and smaller units or apartments for rental. "This is preventing communities from bringing in the kind of workers they need, who are the glue that holds those communities together," Chief Economist Kim Horton said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-13/rental-housing-squeeze-hi…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW, Work, employment.Rented homes that pose a serious threat to health cost the NHS £340m a year
Liam Geraghty (No paywall)Deathtrap homes that pose “a serious threat to the health and safety of renters” are costing the NHS an estimated £340 million a year, MPs have warned. Around 13 per cent of privately rented properties in England currently cause a threat to health – amounting to 589,000 homes according to the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report. But tenants face a postcode lottery with as many as a fifth of homes in areas like Yorkshire and the Humber deemed unsafe. The Westminster government is set to bring sweeping reforms to the sector in the next couple of months through the Renters’ Reform Bill. But the committee said the “poor understanding” of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) on issues such as overcrowding, harassment, evictions and the effect of regulation could hamper its impact.
https://bigissue.com/news/housing/rented-homes-that-pose-a-serio…
# International, Rent, Health, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Italy’s superbonus 110% scheme prompts surge of green home renovations
Angela Giuffrida The Guardian (No paywall)For years, people living in Castelnuovo di Porto, a medieval village close to Rome, had put off doing maintenance jobs on their homes, whether it be fixing the roof or cracks in walls caused by earthquakes, because they could not afford it. So when the Italian government said it would foot the entire bill for a range of renovation works, on the sole proviso of rendering buildings energy efficient and earthquake-proof, they could not believe their luck. ... Thousands of Italian and foreign homeowners have flocked to access Italy’s generous superbonus 110% scheme, which has so far cost the government about €21bn (£17.5bn) since launching in July 2020 as part of the country’s post-pandemic recovery strategy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/italys-superbonus-…
# International, Repairs, Climate change, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Hundreds of buildings with cladding deemed low priority despite possible ‘unacceptable fire risk’
Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The state government taskforce into dangerous flammable cladding has deemed more than 500 buildings a low priority, despite their facades potentially posing unacceptable fire risks. NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford made the finding in a review of reforms targeting unsafe cladding since the material supercharged London’s deadly Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in 2017.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/hundreds-of-buildings-with-c…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Private rent reforms will be hampered by ministers’ ‘poor understanding’ of sector, say MPs
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The government’s plans to address problems in the private rented sector will be hampered by poor understanding of the issues, its watchdog has warned. ... The Public Accounts Committee said that issues such as overcrowding, discrimination and “dodgy” evictions are rife in the private rented sector and has raised concerns about the government’s ability to tackle the problems.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/private-rent-reforms-w…
# International, Discrimination, Rent, Housing market, No-grounds evictions.Building crisis could lead to DIY boom as repairs and renovations stall for lack of tradies, materials
Emilia Terzon ABC (No paywall)Gabriela Stilita and her husband do not own power tools but, with a crisis hitting Australia's building sector, the couple is set for a DIY job to fix storm damage their Brisbane home sustained during the recent Queensland-NSW floods. ... Insurers often organise work for people with approved claims. However, in Gabriela's case, their insurer is giving them a cash payout and asking them to organise their own storm damage repairs.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-13/building-industry-storm-d…
# Australia, Repairs, Housing market.What happened last time house prices fell, and is this time different?
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)House prices could fall by a similar amount to their last major correction if new Reserve Bank modelling comes to pass, but interest rate rises will hit households harder than in the past, economists warn.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/what-happened-last-time-hou…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.