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
Number of Northern Irish households in temporary accommodation up 74%
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From Northern Island ... The latest figures on homelessness, released by the Department for Communities last week, show that in February 2022, 3,596 households were in temporary accommodation, compared to 2,065 in January 2019. The majority of households (58%) had been living in temporary accommodation for less than a year, but 5% had been there for five or more years. The number of children in temporary accommodation has increased by 55% from 2,433 in January 2019, to 3,763 in February 2022. Between July and December 2021, 7,404 households presented as homeless.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/number-of-northern-iri…
# International, Homelessness.Property prices rose by 4.7 per cent across Australia's eight capital cities in the last quarter
ABC (No paywall)Property prices across Australia's eight capital cities have risen by 4.7 per cent over the previous quarter, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Brisbane experienced the biggest rise, with property prices in the Queensland capital rising by 9.6 per cent between September and December 2021. Prices grew by 6.8 per cent in Adelaide, 6.5 per cent in Hobart, and 6.4 per cent in Canberra. Sydney property prices rose by 4.1 per cent for the quarter, Melbourne by 3.9 per cent, Perth by 2.9 per cent, and Darwin by 1.5 per cent. Property prices across the eight capital cities have now risen by 23.7 per cent over the last 12 months.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-15/australia-capital-city-sy…
# Australia, Housing market.Guidance on evacuation written without input from disability groups, inquiry hears
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Government-endorsed guidance that said it was “usually unrealistic” to provide evacuation plans for disabled residents of blocks of flats was written without input from any disability rights experts or representatives of disabled people, the [Grenfell Tower] inquiry heard today.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/guidance-on-evacuation-writ…
# International, Public and community housing, Disability.Value of Australia’s housing market swells
Colin Brinsden The New Daily (No paywall)The value of Australia’s housing market now stands at close to $10 trillion after growing at the fastest annual pace in at least 18 years during 2021. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said residential property prices rose 23.7 per cent through 2021, the strongest annual growth since its records began in the September quarter of 2003. It said the value of residential dwellings has risen by just over $2 trillion since the December quarter 2020. In the December quarter of last year, the mean price of residential dwellings in Australia was $920,100, up from $876,100 in the September quarter 2021.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/03/15/value-aus…
# Australia, Housing market.‘Unbelievable boom’: Property wealth skyrockets by $2 trillion. Here’s how to cash in
Matthew Elmas The New Daily (No paywall)Home owners are being urged to revalue their properties after new data revealed a massive surge in housing wealth over the past year. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday that the value of Australia’s property portfolio skyrocketed to $9.9 trillion in 2021, driven by a record-shattering 23.7 per cent annual rise in property prices. The collective wealth of home owners increased by $2 trillion in just one year alone – a sum 30 per cent larger than the annual output of the entire Australian economy. Financial experts are consequently advising Australians to revalue their property to cash in on these paper gains, with the potential for a cheaper mortgage. Doing so could save home owners anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars a year.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/03/15/property-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.How do you know if you’re buying a home with a grisly past?
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)From the outside, 147 Easey Street in Collingwood looks like any other house in the area. Unremarkable. But this home comes with an infamous and dark history. The two-bedroom terrace was the scene of the double murder of housemates Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett in 1977, a crime which remains unsolved. So when the home came up for sale in 2017, agents believed buyers needed to know about it, even though it was more than 40 years after the shocking crime. [Read on]
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/how-do-you-know-if-you-re-b…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Banks lift lending to high-risk home buyers as prices ‘skyrocket’
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Bank lending to highly-indebted home buyers and those with skinny deposits rose in the December quarter as growth remained strong in the $1.9 trillion mortgage market during the lead-up to Christmas. However, a leading analyst said the trend was unlikely to worry financial regulators too much because the rate of growth in a key type of higher-risk lending was slowing, and potential interest rate hikes were also likely to take the heat out of the property market.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-lift-l…
# Australia, Housing market.Living on the edge: City fringe land rush puts squeeze on buyers
Noel Towell The Age (Paywall)Prices for plots of land in Melbourne’s growth suburbs rose faster than for established homes at the end of 2021 as buyers flocked to the fringes searching for larger and more affordable houses. New research from property advisory group RPM, to be published on Tuesday, shows the popularity of building on Melbourne’s fringes is also driving more families into financial stress.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/living-on-the-edge-c…
# Australia, Families, Housing market.