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
Opportunity knocks for Michael Gove – but will he take it?
Simon Jenkins The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... [Michael] Gove has been asked in effect to recast non-metropolitan Britain. He must revive local democracy and reverse the centralist planning regime of his predecessor, Robert Jenrick ... Gove must sort out the intellectual vacuum that is Conservative housing policy, with its casual pledge of 300,000 new homes. He must also reveal what Johnson really meant by “levelling-up” the north. He has even been told to rescue the union with Scotland in his spare time. If he can pull all this off, Gove will be a hard man to beat. ... At the heart of Jenrick’s planning fiasco lay a confusion over housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/26/opportunit…
# International, Housing market, Planning and development.Aged care homes founded by bankrupt chicken-killer brothers to close with massive debts
Cameron Houston The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Two aged care homes founded by a pair of bankrupt brothers convicted of appalling animal cruelty will be shut down after amassing potential debts of almost $25 million – with more than 60 elderly residents forced to find new accommodation. ... The pair used aliases, dummy directors and a family trust to conceal their involvement in Chronos Care, while also siphoning funds from the business to pay for their mortgages, holidays and luxury cars.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/aged-care-homes-foun…
# Australia, Housing market, Older people.The units you can buy for less than $500,000 in the major cities
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Units are growing in popularity among buyers on a budget, agents say, after house prices shot up by up to 30.4 per cent in the biggest capital cities over the past year. However, with the median price for an apartment now sitting at $609,642 nationally, finding an affordable option is still a tall order. Here is what you can buy for less than $500,000 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-units-you-can-buy-for-less-th…
# Australia, Strata, Housing affordability, Housing market.Calls to ban 'no grounds' evictions as renters pushed to 'brink of homelessness'
Tim Fernandez ABC (No paywall)Tenancy support services in regional NSW claim they are being overwhelmed with calls for help as a growing number of tenants are evicted without cause. The price of rent in the regions has increased by an average of 13 per cent in the past year, fuelled by a mass exodus from capital cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The demographic shift has put significant strain on regional housing supply and made it more difficult for local residents to secure a lease. Phoenix van Dyke from the Illawarra and South Coast Tenants' Advice Service said staff had been inundated with calls for help. "Yesterday during a three-hour advice shift we were able to advise 15 people, but we had 41 callers who did not get through," she said. "It is a desperate situation out there. Hardly a week goes by where somebody doesn't talk about suicide."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-23/call-to-ban-no-grounds-ev…
# NSW, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, Regional NSW.Rental affordability declines back to pre-pandemic levels, prompting calls for rent control
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Rapidly rising rental prices are leaving a growing number of Australians in rental stress, with affordability for low-income households falling back to pre-pandemic levels, a new report has found. Low and moderate-income households are facing moderate to extreme rental stress nationwide the latest Rental Affordability Index (RAI) shows, prompting calls for caps on rent hikes and more financial assistance to combat poor affordability. ... Rental affordability is now worse than before the pandemic, said National Shelter executive officer Adrian Pisarski, with COVID taking a toll on renters and wiping out improvements made in previous years as a result of rent rises and income losses. Low-income households had fared worst over the past year after seeing an improvement due to increased support payments the previous year. ... Rent regulation should be on the agenda for governments given rapid rent increases, said Chris Martin, a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales’ City Futures Research Centre. “Different ways of doing rent control should be considered … it hasn’t been a part of reviews of tenancy legislation for decades,” Dr Martin said, adding indexing rent rises to the consumer price index would make the most sense. If such controls were to deter investors, as some in the industry fear, it would leave more room for first-home buyers and more scope for the affordable and social housing sector to deliver homes, which would in turn ease pressure on the private rental market, he said. Rent assistance should also be increased and expanded, Dr Martin said, as price caps hadn’t moved in line with rents in decades and assistance is limited to those receiving social security payments. This left many lower-income earners – who are paying unaffordable rent – ineligible for help. You will find the latest Rental Affordability Index report at: [https://www.sgsep.com.au/projects/rental-affordability-index]
https://www.domain.com.au/news/rental-affordability-declines-bac…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Rental stress on the rise as low-income Australians priced out of market
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Low-income Australians are completely priced out of the rental market, with housing affordability worse than pre-pandemic levels in some areas, and Hobart is now the least affordable city for renters, an analysis has found.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/24/rental-st…
# Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Peter Costello says RBA 'irresponsible' on rates, but who is responsible for housing affordability?
Alan Kohler ABC (No paywall)Former Treasurer Peter Costello has labelled the Reserve Bank of Australia "irresponsible" for stating it would keep interest rates where they are until 2024. ... While the RBA has now dropped that wording, the central bank is saying it is "plausible" that rates will stay where they are until 2024. Mr Costello made the comments on 7.30 in an interview on Australia's skyrocketing property market, a boom that has seen house prices increase 22 per cent in 12 months. ... However, for his part, Mr Costello defended his decision in 1999 to introduce a 50 per cent discount to capital gains tax, which many analysts believe is also partly responsible for the housing affordability crisis. In its submission to an ongoing Parliamentary inquiry into housing affordability, the NSW Government singled out the tax — which provides a major tax break for those selling properties they have owned for 12 months or more — as being a part of the housing affordability problem. "These tax benefits of property investment have contributed to the growing housing affordability issue," the NSW Government said in its submission. ... Professor Emma Baker, housing researcher at the University of Adelaide, said that the housing affordability crisis was "actually a crisis of our own making". "I think we can put that down to the fact that we have no plan for housing in Australia," she said. "We don't deal with housing as a system. We respond in piecemeal ways." ... Also, it would help if conditions were better for tenants so that families were willing to keep renting rather than wanting to buy, by lengthening lease terms, allowing pets and generally tilting the playing field in favour of tenants. "At the moment we have a rental sector where it's designed as a transition tenure, on the assumption that people eventually make it into home ownership," Professor Baker said. "So why not look at the rental sector and say, 'How can we make this the kind of tenure that you want to live in for your whole life?' Let's increase the average lease length from 12 months and put some minimum standards in. Let's make the rental sector feel like a place that you can live".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-23/peter-costello-says-rba-i…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Home, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Canterbury renter wins at Tenancy Tribunal: Landlord jacks up the rent
Ben Leahy (No paywall)From New Zealand ... A Canterbury tenant has accused his landlord of jacking up his rent by $60 a week as retaliation for winning a $1000 payout at the Tenancy Tribunal. Luke Dyer said the increase comes just four months after his tribunal win in July. The increase is also less than 12 months after he signed a fixed-term tenancy and set rental price for his Rangiora house. He said the case highlighted why tenants often felt intimidated or like it wasn't worth the trouble to take their landlords to the Tenancy Tribunal. (New Zealand Herald)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/canterbury-renter-wins-at-tenancy-…
# International, Rent, Tribunal NCAT.