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
Interest rate rises expected in June with mortgage repayments to rise
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke Domain (No paywall)Home buyers could face higher mortgage repayments as early as June as financial markets and economists warn a rapid run-up in inflation could force the Reserve Bank to lift official rates above 2 per cent within a year. In a development that feeds into growing federal concerns about cost-of-living pressures ahead of an election due by May, the nation’s biggest lender, the Commonwealth Bank, said it believed the RBA would have to start increasing interest rates by the middle of the year. Even a 1 per cent rise could add hundreds of dollars a month in repayments on the average new mortgage.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/interest-rate-rises-expecte…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Investor with 8000 homes calls for negative gearing to be axed
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Investment adviser Robert Kiyosaki says the Australian government should axe negative gearing to provide an incentive for property buyers to choose wisely rather than “reward them for bad decisions”. The American author of the best-selling book Rich Dad Poor Dad is urging a debate over negative gearing to take centre stage during the upcoming 2022 election campaign. ... Independent economist Saul Eslake agrees. He said he’s been campaigning for the policy’s abolition ever since it was reintroduced in 1987 and believes claims that rents would increase dramatically without it are completely baseless.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/investor-with-8000-homes-ca…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Regional property prices are still surging, but rate rises could end the party
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Property prices in Australia's major regional areas are still surging, raising questions about how long the cycle can last. It's seen the divergence between price increases in capital city markets and regional areas get even larger. It comes as Commonwealth Bank economist Gareth Aird says the Reserve Bank may start lifting the cash rate target as early as June. ... when you drill below the large regional areas in Australia to look at property prices in smaller local government areas (LGAs), there has been exceptionally strong price growth in smaller parts of the country in the previous 12 months. ... It said, for example, house prices in the Kiama LGA — which is 90 kilometres south of Sydney — recorded the largest increase of any LGA in the previous 12 months, at 43.9 per cent, taking its median house value to $1,633,086. Byron Shire on the NSW North Coast has the highest median house value of any regional LGA, at $1,838,286,(up 30.2 per cent in the previous 12 months.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/regional-property-prices-…
# Australia, Housing market, Regional NSW.Hobart's rental market is 'tightest' out of Australia's capitals and it may be getting worse
Laura Beavis ABC (No paywall)Hobart chef Callum Cowie summed up trying to find a new rental in Tasmania's capital city in one word: "nightmarish". The 27-year-old and his partner had 10 days left on their current lease and had been searching for a new rental home since the start of the year. "Looking for stuff that suits both of us, in our budget, that has some of the things that we need … has just been nightmarish," Mr Cowie said. "I have about 60 [rental] applications open at the moment. I'm just checking my email and actually, I've been rejected for three more right now. That sucks."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-16/tas-hobart-rental-market-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Government proposes further changes to social housing rules for domestic abuse survivors
Stephen Delahunty Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Domestic abuse survivors could find it easier to move to another area and remove their perpetrators from joint tenancies under proposals announced by the government.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/government-proposes-fu…
# International, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Women.What is hoarding disorder and how can you help someone who has it?
Nick Baker and Emma Nobel ABC (No paywall)Professor Jessica Grisham works at the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, where she focuses on hoarding, obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety disorders. She's trying to make Australians understand that hoarding disorder is a treatable mental health condition and put an end to the stigma around it. "It's a chronic disabling disorder and it just doesn't go away on its own." ... It can pose serious health and safety risks and sometimes results in tragic consequences. A study sponsored by the Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade found hoarding-related fire incidents "accounted for only 0.25 per cent of all residential fires but 24 per cent of preventable fire fatalities" over the same time period. And according to NSW Fire and Rescue, 12 per cent of all fire fatalities in the state are persons "reportedly living in hoarding and squalor conditions." Listen to Professor Grisham at: [https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/helping-someone-who-hoards/13736302] (ABC Radio National Life Matters)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-17/what-is-hoarding-disorder…
# Audio NSW, Security and safety, Families, Health.Western Sydney will swelter through 46 days per year over 35°C by 2090, unless emissions drop significantly
Hannah Melville-Rea The Conversation (No paywall)If emissions continue to accelerate, Western Sydney can expect to endure up to 46 days per year over 35℃ by 2090, a new analysis from the Australia Institute finds. This is a fivefold increase from the historical average of just under nine days of extreme heat per year. Western Sydney, home to around 2.5 million people, is highly vulnerable to extreme heat and is 8-10℃ hotter than east Sydney during heatwaves. The region is too far inland to benefit from coastal breezes, and lacks the altitude of the neighbouring Blue Mountains.
https://theconversation.com/western-sydney-will-swelter-through-…
# NSW, Climate change, Health, Planning and development.Where you can buy a house for the cost of a Sydney deposit
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)House hunters looking to enter the Sydney property market now need more than $320,000 just to afford the deposit for the city’s median house price. ... While the six-figure sum won’t stretch as far as it used to – with prices booming across much of the country – it could still cover the median house price in parts of other capital cities and regional markets.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/where-you-can-buy-a-house-f…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.