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
Singapore moves to cool housing market
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Read item at 2:29pm by Bloomberg ... Singapore introduced residential property curbs for the first time since 2018 to cool a surge in home prices over the past year ... the government said it’s raising additional stamp duties for second-home buyers and foreigners purchasing private property.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-set-to-rise-fed-sets…
# International, Housing market.CBA raises fixed rates again
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Read item at 11:02am ... Commonwealth Bank has made the latest increase in fixed mortgage rates, as the cost of locking in an interest rate continues to rise in response to market changes. The country’s largest lender on Thursday increased owner-occupier fixed rates by between 0.05 percentage points and 0.25 percentage points.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-set-to-rise-fed-sets…
# Australia, Housing market.Brisbane has more tree cover than any other Australian capital, new aerial imagery shows
Tony Moore (Paywall)Greater Brisbane has more suburbs with good tree cover than any other Australian capital city, new aerial analysis has revealed. However, like other Australian capital cities, Brisbane is feeling the pressure of rising city temperatures as developers remove trees to provide less expensive housing in small-lot, high-density estates.
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market, Planning and development.Finally, dangerous power cuts are in the past for NT's first public housing tenant with rooftop solar
Samantha Jonscher ABC (No paywall)Norman Frank Jupurrurla's yard is green and tidy, no easy feat in Tennant Creek's often sweltering dry heat. In the past 12 months the small town in Central Australia experienced temperatures above 40 degrees on almost 50 days. Now, the Warumungu community leader and his family are more prepared than ever to face the heat, thanks to his brand new rooftop solar system. ... [The NT's Minister of Indigenous Essential Services, Chansey Paech] said the NT government was in talks with regional councils and land councils to understand how rooftop solar could be rolled out more widely.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-19/tennant-creek-rooftop-sol…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change.Vulture landlords and the justice-washing of housing struggle
David Kelly, Kate Shaw and Libby Porter (No paywall)Activism in St Kilda in the 1970s and ‘80s produced community-centred provision of housing for low-income households ... It resulted in a portfolio of truly affordable housing and a small local non-profit to manage it—a model since emulated in other council areas in Australia. Port Philip council protected the local affordable housing stock it had through the establishment of the housing trust, but was powerless to subvert a future where its own creation became the bedfellow of vulture funds. By policy design and necessity under the neoliberal economic regime, CHOs must expand or be swallowed up by a bigger entity. As they become small empires, CHOs maximise public subsidies by attracting private capital. Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis. (Overland)
https://overland.org.au/2021/12/vulture-landlords-and-the-justic…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Landlords and agents.Living conditions of rental properties must improve
Kayla Canberra Times (Paywall)You shouldn't have to choose between heating for bone chilling days in winter or air conditioning for more frequent and severe heatwaves in summer - but that's exactly what I was forced to do. In early 2019, myself, my partner and our beloved cat secured a rental in Orange, NSW. Our condition report indicated our ducted gas system and split air conditioning worked fine. Turns out neither worked reliably. ... That's why I am taking part in Better Renting's Healthy Homes for Renters campaign. It's calling on the federal and state governments to implement minimum energy efficient requirements for rental properties.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7542769/living-conditions…
# Australia, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Health, Housing market.New Zealand has adopted a radical rezoning plan to cut house prices – could it work in Australia?
Eva Corlett and Caitlin Cassidy The Guardian (No paywall)From New Zealand ... Councils won’t be able to block townhouses or apartments under a sweeping reform aimed at improving affordability – but will it work? And could the idea cross the Tasman? ... The country has been in the midst of a housing crisis for more than a decade, driven by multiple factors including restrictive planning law, a lack of housing supply, an unchecked property investor market, and a widening gulf between income and housing costs. ... Last year, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, visited New Zealand and called the housing situation “a human rights crisis” and “a dark shadow that hangs over the country”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/15/new-zealand-has-ad…
# International, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Housing is both a human right and a profitable asset, and that’s the problem
Brian Doucet The Conversation (No paywall)From Canada ... It seems like everyone is talking about housing these days. For many, it is in a state of crisis. But for others, it is a market doing exactly what it should be doing: making money. The crux of the housing problem is that it is both a basic human right and a commodity from which to extract wealth. Most housing debates largely ignore this contradiction.
https://theconversation.com/housing-is-both-a-human-right-and-a-…
# International, Housing market, Human rights, Landlords and agents.