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
Australia's rental crisis
ABC (No paywall)Young people are struggling to find affordable rentals across the country. Finding a place to rent is a massive struggle right now. Only one per cent of rental properties across Australia are actually available, and tenants who saw some rent relief during the pandemic are now facing huge price hikes as things get back to normal. (tripleJ HACK)
# TUNSW in the media, Audio Australia, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability.How much do landlords really need to know about their tenants?
Jimmy Thomson (Paywall)How much do you want or – indeed – need to know about the prospective tenants of your property? Previous tenancies? Bankruptcies? Criminal records? How about them knowing their legal rights and whether they’ve asserted them, especially in strata schemes? The issues have been raised as credit check and data analysis company Equifax tries to wean property rental managers away from “manual” checks of references, employment and previous tenancies, saying they waste time and resources. Instead, it says, its National Tenancy Database can provide instant background screening on prospective tenants based on a deep dive of personal data similar to processes it uses for credit checks. ... Unsurprisingly, tenants’ advocates are less than impressed. Leo Patterson Ross, CEO of Tenants’ Union of NSW, says renters already have to provide too much information, the security of which can, generally speaking, be hit and miss. [He continues]: “The application process is effectively unregulated [and] there are no governing guidelines or principles given in the Residential Tenancies Act. The current non-transparent application process leaves many renters frustrated and feeling like they have had to turn over an excessive amount of personal information without really knowing how it will be used. This is especially so for the digital application processes." (Australian Financial Review)
https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/how-much-do-landlord…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Privacy and access, Rent, Landlords and agents.Indigenous sisters evicted from rental property following father's death
Kearyn Cox SBS (No paywall)Three vulnerable Noongar-Yamatji sisters have been left without a guardian or a place to live after a private real estate company evicted them from their property in Perth last week. The girls were left in a vacancy limbo when their father and sole guardian, Aubrey Roe, passed away a week after his first Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in October last year. (NITV)
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2022/04/04/indigenous-sister…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Eviction, Homelessness.Melbourne renters left scrambling as market recovers quickly
By Noel Towell and Thomas Bailey The Age (Paywall)Melbourne faces a fresh rental housing crisis as tenants find properties have dried up in some areas of the city. Both the real estate industry and tenants advocates are warning of a serious problem emerging after the supply of rentals, which peaked at more than 5.2 per cent during the pandemic, dropped to just 1.8 per cent across the city in March, according to the latest research by Domain.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-renters-le…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Rooming house conversion in Carlton apartment block approved despite hundreds of objections
Cara Waters The Age (Paywall)A rooming house will be built inside an established apartment block in Carlton, in what the developer says will be the prototype for similar developments in other residential buildings. ... Melbourne City Council approved the development on Tuesday night despite more than 380 objections and fears from some residents the rooming house could attract drugs addicts and criminals. ... Dr Katrina Raynor, urban planning scholar at the University of Melbourne, said rooming houses were usually social housing or housing of last resort, but the College Square development appeared to have a very different target market. “We don’t really need more housing for professional people on high wages [though], we need more housing for students and people on low incomes,” she said.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/rooming-house-conver…
# Australia, Boarders and lodgers, Housing market, Students.Could a simple change to zoning laws solve Canberra's housing affordability crisis?
Markus Mannheim ABC (No paywall)Canberra is not quite a bustling metropolis. Yet its housing prices are what might be expected in far larger, denser cities. The median value of a house in the ACT is now above $1 million — more than in Melbourne. Rents in the bush capital are the highest of any Australian city, for both apartments and houses. The effects of this price boom on housing affordability are well known: many younger people are losing hope of owning property unless they inherit it. However, a potential solution exists — let's call it "the New Zealand fix" — that could leave almost everyone a winner. Yet it may be too radical for most Australian communities, let alone highly planned Canberra.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-08/can-radical-rezoning-solv…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Local Government, Planning and development.Foreign investment in Australian homes falls to 15-year low
Lucy Macken Domain (No paywall)Foreign investment in Australian residential real estate fell to its lowest level in more than 15 years after the pandemic forced the closure of Australia’s borders last financial year. There were a paltry 4384 residential real estate approvals in the 12 months to June last year totalling $10.4 billion, a drop of $6.7 billion worth of investment on the year prior.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/foreign-investment-in-austr…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.House price squeeze: 'I bid dozens of times but lost'
Natalie Sherman BBC (No paywall)As home prices in the US surge at record rates, the American Dream is moving out of reach. Ethan put in more than two dozen offers on homes after starting his house hunt in Phoenix, Arizona in 2020. But as competition heated up, prices in the sprawling desert city jumped 14% in 2020 and then another 32% last year, finally pushing him out of the market. "It was just absolute insanity," says the 29-year-old statistician, who was repeatedly beaten out by buyers offering cash. "At this point, there's no plan to get back into the market unless something drastic happens," he adds. "If you're not in it right now, it's tough to get in."
# International, Rent.