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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Housing is scarce on the Capricorn Coast, but beach community rejects plans for high-rise development
Michelle Gately ABC (No paywall)[Former Sydneysider Rahela Beevers] was one of nearly 200 locals who made public submissions to Livingstone Shire Council [in central Queensland] opposing the multi-million-dollar proposal. Only a handful of submissions were in favour of the development, which could see up to 49 apartments built over seven storeys and commercial space on the ground floor ... saying it would help boost housing, especially for retirees.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-10/emu-park-high-rise-propos…
# Australia, Local Government, Older people, Planning and development.Housing affordability should be a federal election priority
Editorial The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An expected slowdown in property price rises this year may bring some relief to frustrated first home buyers who have been shut out of Australia’s booming housing market, or those who need a larger dwelling to house their growing families. ... Housing affordability is a key political issue that many Australians – or their children – now face. If major parties continue to avoid seriously tackling this issue, it will be the nation’s loss.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/housing-affordability-should-be-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax, Young people.Could collaborative living provide an answer to the housing crisis and climate change? Some people think so
Maani Truu ABC (No paywall)Donna Lavell is no stranger to sharing her home with people. In her 20s, she lived in share houses in Sydney's inner suburbs; later, after buying a home in Newcastle, she offered up her spare rooms to friends in need, housemates and Airbnb guests. Now, at 61, she's decided to build a home with three women she met less than a year ago. "I have such a good experience of sharing spaces with people," she says. "It just makes more sense to me." Donna — along with her future housemates Joanne, Lisa, and Sarah — has secured a plot of land inside Narara Ecovillage — an "intentional community" of more than 100 people on the NSW Central Coast. ... [Collaborative living] encompasses many different models; from ecovillages, where multiple people live on a single piece of land, often owned by a cooperative, to urban co-housing developments, where everyone has their own apartment but shares common space. What they all have in common, however, is the rejection of the traditional model of property ownership. Typically, this looks like a single person or a couple purchasing a standalone property with a mortgage and without a focus on the surrounding community.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-05/collaborative-housing-cou…
# NSW, Share houses, Climate change, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.Forecasters predict Australia’s hottest property market in 2022
Sarah Webb Domain (No paywall)More jobs, more interstate migrants and the 10-year insurance policy of hosting the world’s biggest sporting event will send South East Queensland property prices to record heights next year, industry experts say, with the current housing boom tipped to burn into the early months of 2022.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/forecasters-predict-austral…
# Australia, Housing market.Glimmer of hope for first-home buyers in 2022
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)First-home buyers whose new year’s resolution was to get into the property market might have to think again, with experts forecasting another tough year for aspirational homeowners. But there are some signs of hope: more homes are expected to hit the market, giving buyers better choice and potentially less competition, possible interest rate rises that should put downward pressure on unprecedented price growth, and green shoots of wages growth in a tight jobs market.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/glimmer-of-hope-for-first-h…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.‘It’s going to annihilate our view’: War over boarding house
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)It’s one of Sydney’s most sought-after buildings, in the heart of the “Paris end” of Macleay Street, Elizabeth Bay. But residents of the Pomeroy apartments are now living in fear that their gleaming harbour views are about to be walled up – literally. That’s because directly behind them on Billyard Avenue, the long-standing landowners are planning to erect a six-storey, 29-room boarding house that would block views from the Pomeroy up to at least the third floor. ... [Mr Pooley] wants to do something for the community by providing more low-cost - though tiny - housing. Tone Wheeler, the architect of the proposed boarding house, said the surrounding neighbours were mostly wealthy people and “they find it very hard to understand that John and Prue’s motivation for this is to provide some lower cost housing”. Not leaving anything to chance, the Pomeroy’s residents have appointed a sub-committee of the owners’ corporation to take up the fight, and hired a lawyer, architect, town planner and heritage consultant.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-s-going-to-annihilate-our…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, Planning and development.Australian property prices surged 22pc last year, its biggest jump since the 1980s
Samuel Yang ABC (No paywall)Record low interest rates have driven Australian housing prices up 22 per cent last year — its sharpest rise in three decades. The nation's median property price has risen for a 15th straight month. It comes after another 1 per cent gain in December, according to the latest figures from CoreLogic. But prices have been rising at a slower pace each month, as property became increasingly unaffordable for first-home buyers. Last month, Australia's median price rose by 1 per cent to $709,803.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-04/australia-house-prices-co…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Even in a hot market, L.A. won't allow rent hikes for most tenants until 2023
Liam Dillon (Paywall)As part of its COVID-19 rules, the city of Los Angeles is prohibiting rent increases for tenants in rent-controlled buildings. Elsewhere rents have gone up by double digits in recent months. (Los Angeles Times)
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-01-03/even-i…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.