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
Hungry home hunters push prices up in capital cities
Sarah Webb Domain (No paywall)A pre-Christmas shopping spree on Saturday led to many millions of property dollars being clocked across the country, including a Sydney land parcel that fetched almost $1.5 million over reserve, a $9 million Brisbane Queenslander and a charming Melbourne cottage that sparked a bidding war.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/hungry-home-hunters-push-pr…
# Australia, Housing market.Sydney, Melbourne house prices in surprise fall at auction
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Home buyers are showing signs of fatigue in the face of sky-high property prices, with the median auction price for houses falling slightly last month in Sydney and Melbourne, figures show.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sydney-melbourne-house-pric…
# Australia, Housing market.‘Woefully inadequate’: calls for NSW government to help growing number of homeless older women
Michael McGowan The Guardian (No paywall)... the advocacy group Housing for the Aged [has] released a new report looking at the state of homelessness for older women. It cites the New South Wales government’s own 2018 NSW Homelessness Strategy to show that the state saw an 88% growth in the number of women over the age of 55 accessing homelessness services between 2013 and 2017. In 2021, there were still almost 5,000 women over the age of 55 on the waiting list for social housing in the state. The Housing for the Aged report calls for changes to social housing policy to make it easier for women like Day to access social housing. ... Along with expanding the age for priority access, the report joins a growing chorus of advocacy groups in calling for the state government to massively increase the number of social houses built each year, including those specifically for older people. ... NSW Labor’s shadow minister for housing, Rose Jackson, said it was “appalling” that so many older women in the state were at risk of homelessness. She said the government should invest in a specialist homelessness service for older people, and consider changes to the way access to priority housing was decided. You will find a link to the report at: [https://www.oldertenants.org.au/news/new-report-calls-for-early-intervention-and-preventative-approach-to-end-homelessness-for-older].
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/03/woefully-…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Older people, Women.States’ social housing boom no substitute for federal funding commitment
Hal Pawson The Fifth Estate (No paywall)As tens of thousands of people prepare to take a financial hit with the end of COVID-related disaster payments, new research shows that renters on low and modest incomes are already in the grip of a housing pincer, especially in regional Australia. Inflamed by surging private rents, this also reflects an intensifying shortage of social housing after a decade of Commonwealth neglect. Despite widely-supported calls for the inclusion of social housing investment in Australia’s national economic revival program, this was firmly rejected by the Commonwealth Government in 2020. But, as revealed in our new research, four state governments (Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia) have announced significant self-funded public housing construction programs as a component of post-pandemic stimulus, pledging nearly $10 billion to this cause. ... Through its tax, borrowing and currency-issuing powers, it is the Commonwealth government, not the states, that holds the real financial firepower in Australia. Shifting prime responsibility for funding social housing growth to the states is untenable. A sustained national construction revival is only possible if the federal government resumes its historic role as the main source of investment for additional affordable homes. You may also catch this article at: [https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2021/12/states-social-housing-boom-no-substitute-for-federal-funding-commitment/]
https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/states-so…
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government, Tax.What Clover Moore is planning to do in her fifth term as Sydney's Lord Mayor
Paige Cockburn The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Despite housing being a state government responsibility, Ms Moore says she will pressure developers to include more social and affordable housing in their plans, to keep people living in the city. The council wants 7.5 per cent of all properties in the City of Sydney to be affordable or social housing by 2030. Ms Moore's critics, including fellow Sydney councillors, say this isn't good enough, and more money should be tipped into the city's affordable housing fund.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-05/clover-moore-wins-sydney-…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Local Government.‘Twelve square metres is tiny’: The reality of ‘affordable’ housing in Sydney
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Essential workers such as nurses, police officers and firefighters could be asked to stay in rooms as small as 12 square metres to live near their place of work as part of an affordable housing policy that opponents describe as offering substandard accommodation. ... Boarding houses are touted by developers and the state government as a solution to Sydney’s affordable housing crisis but have been criticised in the past by residents and Sydney mayors. ... Chris Martin, a senior research fellow at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW, said developments such as the Elizabeth Bay proposal were not traditional boarding houses “but really small blocks of very small flats”. “Twelve square metres is tiny, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s not much more in there than a bed and typically a little sink and cooker top, and walled off toilet and shower.” ... Dr Martin said rooms in these new types of boarding houses were much smaller than even a studio apartment, and were not required to meet ventilation and solar access standards otherwise required for residential flats. Yet rooms tend to cost about as much as an older-style studio apartment, although rents had fallen during the pandemic. “I think there are questions to be asked about the extent to which this ‘tiny amount of space’, which isn’t ordinarily allowed by our planning system for what it calls residential flats, should be allowed in the name of affordability,” he said. ... Jenny Leong, housing spokeswoman for the Greens, said key worker housing that does not have more than a place to shower and sleep denies its residents the right to a home.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/twelve-square-metres-is-tiny-the…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Planning and development, State Government, Work, employment.Surge in loans to property investors raises prospect of regulator intervention
Jennifer Duke and Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Investors are piling into the nation’s priciest property markets and crowding out first home buyers in numbers not seen for years raising the chances of more intervention from prudential regulators. Lending to property investors reached $9.7 billion in October 2021, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows. The 1.1 per cent jump marks the 12th consecutive growth month in landlord loans. This is the highest level since a record $10.1 billion in April 2015.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/surge-in-loans-to-proper…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Almost 700 people died while homeless last year, official estimates show
James Wilmore Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... An estimated 688 people died while homeless in England and Wales in 2020, new official figures have shown. Despite the total being an 11.6% fall on the previous year and the first decrease since 2014, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) warned the figure was not “statistically significant” as it was likely to be an underestimate due to the pandemic. The ONS said the Everyone In scheme, designed to accommodate rough sleepers during the height of the pandemic, had made it more difficult to officially identify people who were homeless through its mortality records. Around 37,000 people have been provided with emergency accommodation since March 2020, the ONS said. The 668 figure still represents a 43% increase on the number of deaths registered in 2013, when records began.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/almost-700-people-died…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.