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
‘Game changer’: Buyers able to rate record of apartment developers
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Prospective buyers of apartment buildings will be able to access a system that will rate 100 developers and builders from next March, helping them decide whether to purchase units in high-rise buildings across NSW.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/game-changer-buyers-able-to-…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Nothing was done for months. Now this family is stuck in a damp, mouldy flat
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Unexplained delays by the NSW government’s property tribunal have forced a mother, her five-year-old daughter and her elderly parents to move back into their damp, mouldy apartment. Sarah Wu’s family moved out of their home in Sydney’s north-west into rented accommodation for three months, paid for by the owners’ corporation, in a deal brokered by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to enable problems to be fixed. But when they moved back they discovered nothing had been done to the interior – only exterior walls had been worked on – because the tribunal hadn’t delivered its final verdict within that period.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/nothing-was-done-for-months…
# NSW, Strata, Tribunal NCAT, Mould.Bed in a garage: Auckland property listing slammed by MP
Adam Jacobson (No paywall)An Auckland rental ad – showing a bed in a garage – has been slammed by an MP and a renters union. Posted to a West Auckland Facebook group looking for flatmates, images showed a bed directly next to a silver sedan in a garage. ... It was unclear what price the landlord was seeking. When approached by Stuff for comment, the landlord immediately hung up. They have since posted another listing for $225 a week, showing different images of the inside of what appears to be the same property. (Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/127236531/bed-in-a-garage-auckl…
# International, Rent, Minimum habitability standards.‘Postcode privilege’: Australia edges towards UK and US levels of inequality
AndrewTaylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Australia is edging towards British and American levels of inequality, with the COVID-19 crisis widening the gap based on wealth and where people live. Nine out of 10 Australians believe there is a growing social divide that has worsened during the pandemic, according to the report Australia’s social fabric: Exploring features of the modern Australian spirit. ... Professor Randolph [a professor in the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW] said the housing market was widening wealth and income differences and “this has simply got out of control”. “However, governments are simply unwilling to challenge the power of the property lobby on this issue and also fear the wrath of the boomers who stand to lose if house prices were seriously impacted or held back,” he said. Professor Randolph said there was a “clear need” to address minimum wages and consider taxes on inherited wealth, “which is where the new social divide is opening up”.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/postcode-privilege-australia-edg…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Housing market, Young people.Disabled people under-represented and under-reported in housing sector, NHF research finds
Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Data from 174 social landlords, submitted using a new equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) tool developed by the industry body, showed the representation of disabled people across staff, executive and board members was just 8% for each category. This compared with disabled people making up 24% of the population by housing stock location – a finding that Kate Henderson, chief executive at the NHF, described as “the most shocking” to come out of its analysis. “This is a shortcoming we urgently need to address – especially given that a higher proportion of people in social housing [compared with other tenures] are disabled,” Ms Henderson said.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/disabled-people-under-repre…
# International, Public and community housing, Disability.Government faces legal challenge for ‘misleading public’ over Everyone In scheme
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Lawyers are arguing that the government ended its Everyone In scheme without consulting charities and is in breach of the “transparency principle”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/government-faces-legal…
# International, Federal Government, Homelessness.One graph that shows why it’s harder for Millennials to buy a house
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Home ownership is looking further out of reach for anyone without family wealth, as property prices soar and wages fail to keep up. One graph from the Reserve Bank lays bare the challenge facing today’s first-home hopefuls, showing the extraordinary growth in housing prices compared to incomes over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, housing prices hovered around 2.5 times household disposable incomes, but now, the same metric tracks about 5.5 times.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/one-graph-that-shows-why-it…
# Australia, Families, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Tel Aviv: poverty and eviction in the world’s most expensive city
Bethan McKernan and Quique Kierszenbaum The Guardian (No paywall)In one of Tel Aviv’s most affluent neighbourhoods, a collection of ramshackle one-storey homes with rusting roofs known as Givat Amal Bet still sits in the shadow of the high-rise towers looming above. Israel’s economic centre has recently been named the world’s most expensive city to live in, overtaking Paris and Singapore in the 2021 rankings compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. As the Mediterranean city’s reputation as a global tech hub continues to attract foreign investment, however, and prices for goods and services soar as Israel’s economy makes a strong recovery from the pandemic, locals fear the widening gap between rich and poor is pushing out working-class residents and creating damaging new social divisions. ... The community is still fighting a decades-long legal battle for compensation with development companies, the state and the Tel Aviv municipality, but the last of the neighbourhood’s residents were forcibly evicted from their homes last month. ... Gentrification is a problem in cities across the world, but Israel’s recent political paralysis has compounded Tel Aviv’s housing crisis. No public housing has been built in the last two years, even though 30,000 people are on waiting lists.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/12/tel-aviv-poverty-e…
# International, Eviction, Public and community housing, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.