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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Homeless deaths surge by 80% in two years
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The number of people dying while experiencing homelessness increased by 80% over the past two years, new research has found. An annual piece of work by the Museum of Homelessness (MoH), named the Dying Homeless Project, found that 1,286 people died while homeless across the UK in 2021 compared with 710 in 2019. The numbers, which include people sleeping rough and those placed in emergency accommodation, increased by 32% from 2020 to 2021, with a death now occurring on average every seven hours.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/homeless-deaths-surge-…
# International, Homelessness.How a million Australians could be lifted out of poverty through tweaks to tax
Rachel Clun The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Tweaks to superannuation and personal income tax could fund a boost to income support payments and rental assistance, and lift a million Australians out of poverty as people grapple with increasing hip-pocket pain, particularly for the country’s poorest. ... Renters and single parents have the highest poverty rates, according to the research ... The ANU researchers outlined three potential models for reducing poverty and the tax adjustments that would be required to fund them. The low model, which would lift JobSeeker by $150 per fortnight and increase Commonwealth rent assistance by 50 per cent, could be paid for by reducing the capital gains tax concession from 50 per cent to 37.5 per cent. [Read on]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/how-a-million-australian…
# Research alert Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Landlords and agents, Tax.NSW floods: drone footage shows scale of devastation in Lismore – video
The Guardian (No paywall)Communities across the New South Wales northern rivers, Australia, have been hit by major flooding for the second time in a month, with Lismore’s flood levee overflowing and the rising waters forcing people across the region to evacuate. Angus Gray, a photographer and Lismore resident, has been using a drone to film flooding in the area and is sharing it with people forced to leave their homes so they can assess the damage to their properties
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2022/mar/31/nsw…
# Video NSW, Housing market, Regional NSW.Property values soar in suburbs at risk of coastal erosion
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Property values in suburbs at risk of coastal erosion and storm surge have jumped over the past five years, but values of the most affected homes are likely to take a hit when they are no longer insurable or when it becomes harder to find buyers, experts said.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/property-values-soar-in-sub…
# Australia, Housing market.Interest rates are predicted to rise. Here's what you can do to stay afloat
Emily Stewart ABC (No paywall)Keeping up with your mortgage repayments might soon get harder. Not only is the Reserve Bank likely to raise official interest rates sometime this year, but other costs like petrol, food (even coffee!) are getting more expensive. At the same time wages growth hasn't caught up.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-31/interest-rates-mortage-re…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Regional Home Guarantee may ease housing shortages but buyers will have to wait for new builds
Emily JB Smith ABC (No paywall)Ongoing construction delays could blow out further due to a new scheme that encourages people to build homes in the bush, stakeholders have warned. The Regional Home Guarantee (RHG), announced as part of Tuesday night's federal budget, will allow eligible applicants to build or buy newly built homes in regional Australia with only a five per cent deposit. From October, the scheme will offer 10,000 places a year to first home buyers, people who have not owned a property in the past five years, and permanent residents.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-30/regional-home-guarantee-a…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Regional NSW.Could the property market pendulum be swinging back in favour of buyers?
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)The housing market pendulum is starting to swing back in favour of buyers, as new data shows double-digit falls in one measure of buyer interest in Sydney and Melbourne homes for sale.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/could-the-property-market-p…
# Australia, Housing market.Trees and fences source of rising neighbour disputes in South Australia
ABC (No paywall)It's something you can't guarantee when you move into a new home. How are the neighbours?
Neighbour disputes are on the rise in South Australia, and the battles being waged on suburban streets can quickly escalate. Chris Stone from the Legal Services Commission tells Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz how to prevent a small dispute from becoming a big problem.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/breakfast/bad-nei…
# Audio Australia, Neighbours.