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
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.When will interest rates rise and how can home buyers and owners prepare?
Chloe Breitkreuz Domain (No paywall)Record-low rates may soon be a thing of the past, with economists tipping the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to start increasing the 0.10 per cent cash rate as early as the second half of this year. But, the big four banks, as well as many other lenders, now expect rates to start rising from June. For buyers and owners alike, the timing and magnitude of any rate rise will be closely watched, as an increase could mean hundreds of dollars more in mortgage repayments per month.
https://www.domain.com.au/money-markets/when-will-interest-rates…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Bidder numbers fall below key threshold, lifting buyers’ chances
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)The average number of bidders at auction has fallen below a key threshold that suggests property price growth is set to level out.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/bidder-numbers-fall-below-k…
# Australia, Housing market.