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
Who’s living in Melbourne CBD, and how can more be convinced?
Michael Fowler The Age (Paywall)Matt Moss and Josh Jessup moved to Melbourne CBD a year ago on the back of a self-confessed, lockdown-induced existential crisis. “We wanted to change career path and focus on our art and design business,” Mr Jessup says. ... The couple, in their mid-20s, is sold. But with the Real Estate Institute of Victoria estimating 6000 apartments in the city for sale or rent and thousands more sitting empty with owners overseas, the City of Melbourne knows it faces a task convincing more people to follow suit.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/who-s-living-in-melb…
# Australia, Rent, Strata, Landlords and agents.‘Stranded’: horror month for Australian homelessness services as Omicron ravages sector
Luke Henriques-Gomes The Guardian (No paywall)Stephanie Oatley recalls a day in late December when she needed to get a whole unit of young people experiencing homelessness tested for Covid. “We had a young person who started showing symptoms, and a second young person got an itchy throat,” says Oatley. “In the van they hopped. There was only one place open … They got there at 9am, and waited for nine hours.” Oatley is the chief executive of Platform Youth Services, which provides crisis accommodation to people as young as 12 in Sydney’s west, Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury regions.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/30/stranded-…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Work, employment.COVID-19 booster rollout in NSW aged care too slow to prevent deaths, peak body says
Danuta Kozaki ABC (No paywall)Australia should have been better prepared for another COVID-19 variant like Omicron in order to help stop the high number of deaths in New South Wales nursing homes, a peak national aged care group says.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-31/aged-care-covid-19-rollou…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Health, Older people.Deposit gap growing faster than first-home hopefuls can save
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)First-home hopefuls who’ve spent the past year trying to buy would need to find tens of thousands of dollars extra for their deposit to keeps pace with property price rises, new analysis shows.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/deposit-gap-growing-faster-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Time to get used to the idea that house prices could drop
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Australian house prices have risen to extraordinary levels. It costs more than $1 million to buy a median-priced house across Australia’s capital cities, a 25.2 per cent jump over the past year, the latest Domain House Price Report for the December quarter shows. ... The pandemic property boom has been driven by remote workers searching for more space, sending detached house prices up at a faster pace than apartments. This has been enabled by rock-bottom interest rates that allowed buyers to borrow more and turn up at auction armed with bigger budgets. ... Is it sustainable?
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/time-to-get-used-to-the-ide…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Sydney's median house price now just over $1.6m, but massive growth expected to slow
Ruby Cornish ABC (No paywall)The median house price in Sydney increased by around $1,100 a day last year, to more than $1.6 million, according to a new report. Domain's latest House Price Report, released today, revealed the median cost of houses in Australian capital cities rose to $1.06 million in the December quarter. In Sydney, it's considerably higher at just over $1.6 million —that's an average increase of $1,100 per day over the course of 2021, or a total rise of $400,000. According to Domain, the median unit price for a unit in Sydney is just over $800,000, ahead of Melbourne ($593,000) and Brisbane ($416,000).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-27/sydney-median-house-price…
# NSW, Housing market.Regulator will ‘sit tight’ on further property lending limits: Economists
Jennifer Duke Domain (No paywall)Home buyers may not face more lending restrictions this year with top bank economists saying the regulator will likely sit tight amid prospects of an earlier than expected interest rate rise and signs of slowing property prices in Sydney and Melbourne.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/regulator-will-sit-tight-on…
# Australia, Housing market.House prices in every Sydney suburb have risen, one by more than 50 per cent
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Houses ruled supreme in Sydney last year as prices in every single suburb recorded annual growth, shooting up by as much as $745,409, new figures reveal. The housing boom was so strong that even the bottom 20 suburbs in the city posted growth in the 12 months to December 2021, Domain’s Quarterly House Price report reveals.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/house-prices-in-every-sydne…
# NSW, Housing market.