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
Housing crisis worries advocates who say children are being raised in tents and caravans
Angel Parsons and Cristy-Lee Macqueen ABC (No paywall)Housing groups estimate almost half of the Whitsunday's homeless community are children. The Chugg family from Mackay say raising kids without a home has been worse than a nightmare. Support agencies say there's no permanent solution to the crisis in sight.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-14/housing-crisis-sees-gener…
# Australia, Eviction, Land lease communities, Public and community housing, Rent, Families, Homelessness, Housing market.Higher interest rates ‘priced in’ by the market: Treasurer’s warning to mortgage holders
James Massola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned Australians to brace for higher interest rates, while claiming the Coalition government is best placed to help people cope with the rising cost of petrol, food and mortgages.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/higher-interest-rates-pr…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.The Sydney councils most likely to refuse your renovation plans
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hunters Hill, Mosman and Strathfield are the hardest areas in NSW in which to get the green light to renovate your home, with development application (DA) refusal rates among the highest in the state.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-sydney-councils-most-lik…
# NSW, Home ownership, Local Government.Outback Queensland residents say banks are making it 'just impossible' to buy a home
Victoria Pengilley ABC (No paywall)Residents in outback towns claim banks are either denying home loans or requiring deposits of up to 50 per cent. They say it's "postcode discrimination" and lending criteria needs updating. The big four banks say it's not happening.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-13/securing-outback-home-loa…
# Australia, Discrimination, Housing market.Is this the worst time in a decade to buy a home?
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Australians believe it is the worst time to buy a home since the global financial crisis, a new survey shows, after property prices surged to record levels and interest rate rises loom. Not since 2008 have Australians had such a pessimistic response when asked whether it was a good time to buy a dwelling in the monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment survey.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/is-this-the-worst-time-in-a…
# Australia, Homelessness, Housing market.‘Hidden’ Homelessness in Northern Ireland
Simon Community, Ulster University (No paywall)The ‘hidden’ homeless – that is, people who may be considered homeless but whose situation is not ‘visible’ either on the streets or in official statistics, continues to receive much less practical focus than other forms of homelessness which are more easily documented.
# Research alert International, Homelessness.Reimagining the economics of public housing estate renewal and the role of government – new research
Shelter NSW (No paywall)Late last week Shelter NSW released new research, calling on the NSW Government to rethink its traditional approach to supplying social housing across the state – an approach that is holding back its key agency the Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) and compromising the delivery of enough social housing to make a material difference to the housing crisis. You can read the report at: [https://shelternsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reimagining-the-economics-of-public-housing-at-Waterloo_FINAL.pdf]
https://mailchi.mp/shelternsw/reimagining-the-economics-of-publi…
# Research alert NSW, Public and community housing, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market.Housing in the coming federal election
Hal Pawson Pearls and Irritations (No paywall)Very largely thanks to economic stimulus pumped into the economy to ward off COVID recession, Australia’s housing is now 30% more expensive than in 2019. Add to that, the recent spike in rent inflation greater than at any time since 2008, and it’s obvious that the pandemic has exacerbated this country’s longstanding housing affordability challenge. The scene is therefore surely set for housing affordability to feature as a significant flashpoint in the coming federal election – just as in three of the last five national contests. ... the cost of continuing to muddle through will be high – both for many individual housing consumers, and for the economy as a whole.
https://johnmenadue.com/housing-in-the-coming-federal-election-b…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability.