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
Deciding on a rent rise isn’t easy
Kim Brear Inside Housing (Paywall)Under government rules, English housing associations can apply a 4.1% rent rise from April. But should they? Kim Brear explains how Leeds Federated made its decision ... Following a wider discussion, and taking into account all perspectives, we decided we will raise rents by 4.1%.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/deciding-on-a-re…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent.Geelong house prices almost on par with Melbourne but signs market heat is dying off
Rachel Clayton ABC (No paywall)At the beginning of 2020, speculation about a housing crash fuelled hope in first home buyers that they could, finally, get a foot in the market. But that swell of expectation came crashing down as the record-setting market of the past two years further exacerbated the dividing line of home ownership in Australia.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-09/melbourne-geelong-housing…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Welcome to Boom Town: How sea-changers found new life in Geelong
Jewel Topsfield The Age (Paywall)But Geelong has always been a tale of two cities, divided by wealth, and the pandemic has exposed fissures in a town where intergenerational poverty has long been a problem.
Melburnians have turbo-charged the economy but the sea-change trend has also pushed up house prices and caused a shortage of rental accommodation. Some local residents have found themselves priced out of the town they grew up in, forced to move further afield to Colac or Winchelsea, or give up the dream of home ownership. ... The Urban Development Institute of Australia has warned that land supply in Geelong is approaching a crisis point, putting affordability at risk. ... Rising rents (the median house rent in Geelong has jumped 10 per cent to $440 in the last two years) are putting some locals under enormous pressure.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/welcome-to-boom-town…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Legal help for flood-affected communities
Community Legal Centres NSW (No paywall)Community legal centres are here to help if you've been affected by floods in NSW. Our thoughts go out to the people, families and communities impacted by the flooding, storms, and dangerous rainfall across the state. Read the information page here.
https://www.clcnsw.org.au/legal-help-flood-affected-communities-…
# Must read NSW, Domestic violence, Rent, Home ownership.‘Let’s face it, it’s climate change’: Floods renew debate over where we should live
Michael Koziol, Nick O'Malley and Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk: “I’ve never seen so many natural disasters, we seem to be dealing with more and more; more cyclones, more floods,” she said on Friday. “Let’s face it, it’s climate change.” Prime Minister Scott Morrison also acknowledged we would see more calamities because of climate change. “This is what the Bureau of Meteorology is telling us, this is what all of these things tell us.” Read Eddie Lloyd's article entitled: 'The PM calls this a natural disaster – it’s not natural, it’s climate change smashing down our doors' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/04/the-pm-calls-this-a-natural-disaster-its-not-natural-its-climate-change-smashing-down-our-doors]. Read Daniel Hurst's article entitled: '"It’s not a footnote. It’s the story": Climate Council says too many Australian leaders silent on cause of floods' in 'The Guardian' at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/07/its-not-a-footnote-its-the-story-climate-council-says-too-many-australian-leaders-silent-on-cause-of-floods]. Read Robyn Fitzgerald's article entitled: 'Why the listless reaction from governments, the hush on climate change?' in 'Michael West Media' at: [https://www.michaelwest.com.au/why-the-listless-reaction-from-governments-the-hush-on-climate-change/].
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/let-s-face-it-it-s-climate-c…
# Australia, Climate change.‘Beyond dire’: how the Queensland and NSW floods are worsening the rental crisis
Conal Hanna The Guardian (No paywall)The loss of thousands of homes means renters will have fewer properties to bid for and they will also be competing against flood-hit owner-occupiers. ... Digby Hughes, senior policy officer at Homelessness NSW, describes the Northern Rivers housing market pre-floods as “beyond dire”. Rental vacancy rates in the region have hovered around 0.6%, according to Leo Patterson Ross, chief executive of the Tenants’ Union of NSW, compared with a healthy natural vacancy rate of somewhere between 3-5%. “Anything under that means there are more tenants than available houses, which puts pressure on prices and people find it hard to find a home. ... Patterson Ross said while affordability had been an issue in Byron Bay for some time, the problem had spread in recent years as locals began relocating to cheaper surrounding areas. “Places like Lismore that were nice places to live, but weren’t right on the beach, hadn’t experienced that same level of desperation until recently,” Patterson Ross said. Based on SQM Research property data, Patterson Ross estimated the Northern Rivers was 2,300 homes short of a healthy tenancy rate ahead of the floods. Now, would-be renters will not only have fewer properties to bid for but be competing against flood-hit owner-occupiers seeking temporary housing, many of whom will be backed with insurance money. [Read on]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/07/beyond-di…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW, Short-term holiday letting.Older People, Housing, and International Womens Day
Housing for the Aged Action Group (No paywall)Housing for the Aged Action Groups email bulletin ... International Women's Day (IWD) has always been a significant day for HAAG, representing the struggle for justice and gender equality in our society, workplaces, on the streets and in our homes. But this year IWD takes on added significance. More than 400,000 older women are at risk of homelessness across Australia, we have a government that has ignored the demands ... [read on]
https://mailchi.mp/ec7b089d99d9/older-tenants-voice-summer-editi…
# Must read Australia, Campaigns and law reform, Homelessness, Women.Leaked documents show public housing plan halved
Rick Morton (Paywall)Leaked documents show the NSW government’s plan to sell the Waterloo Estate to developers will deliver less than half the public housing stock initially deemed possible. ... The New South Wales government’s $1 billion plan to sell the Waterloo Estate public housing land in central Sydney will deliver fewer than 100 additional “social” homes over the next five years, ultimately doing nothing to relieve pressure on a waiting list that is currently more than 50,000 households long. A confidential briefing paper to the Perrottet government’s powerful expenditure review committee, obtained by The Saturday Paper, reveals the proposal – which only went on public exhibition on Thursday – has settled on the sale of the high-value inner-city land to developers in return for 3050 new homes, 28 per cent of which will be social. This is less than half of what was initially deemed possible for the project. A further 64 per cent will be ordinary private homes and 8 per cent will be “affordable”. The submission recommends the government approve the three-stage procurement process for the project, which is expected to start in May. Shelter NSW says the current approach to selling off land is “cannibalising” the housing stock. “NSW needs 5000 additional dwellings per year for a decade just to catch up.” … Under the $22 billion “Communities Plus” program, which has been largely scrubbed from government websites but is still referenced internally, the state’s Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) “redevelops sites throughout metropolitan Sydney and regional NSW into sustainable mixed communities”. The asset recycling strategy is explicitly designed to cost the NSW government nothing and the nominal ratio of social to market homes built in the wake of land sales – 30 per cent and 70 per cent – is configured bluntly to achieve a budget-neutral renewal of old public housing stock. “We will continue to call on the state and Commonwealth governments to make an urgent and widespread investment in social housing acquisition and construction. NSW needs 5000 additional dwellings per year for a decade just to catch up,” its chief executive John Engeler said. (The Saturday Paper)
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/03/05/exc…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Estate renewal, Federal Government, Planning and development, State Government.