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
COP26, climate change and why housing matters
Duncan Smith Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The eyes of the world are focused on Glasgow because the Conference of the Parties (COP26) is taking place. ... So why does housing and our homes matter when it comes to climate change? ... Here in the UK, part of the issue is that our buildings are some of the least energy efficient in Europe. About 36% were built were before 1944 and only 17% of our homes were made from 1990 onward. ... Because of our homes’ age and poor energy efficiency as well as how we heat them, about 79,000,000 tonnes of CO2 is emitted every year, year on year, in the UK—directly contributing to climate change.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/cop26-climate-ch…
# International, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change, Minimum habitability standards.Why building more homes won’t solve the affordable housing problem for the millions of people who need it most
Alex Schwartz and Kirk McClure The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... Even before 2020, the U.S. faced an acute housing affordability crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic made it a whole lot worse after millions of people who lost their jobs fell behind on rent. While eviction bans forestalled mass homelessness – and emergency rental assistance has helped some – most moratoriums have now been lifted, putting a lot of people at risk of losing their homes. One solution pushed by the White House, state and local lawmakers and many others is to increase the supply of affordable housing, such as by reforming zoning and other land-use regulations. As experts on housing policy, we agree that increasing the supply of homes is necessary in areas with rapidly rising housing costs. But this won’t, by itself, make a significant dent in the country’s affordability problems – especially for those with the most severe needs. In part that’s because in much of the country, there is actually no shortage of rental housing. The problem is that millions of people lack the income to afford what’s on the market.
https://theconversation.com/why-building-more-homes-wont-solve-t…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘I am panicking’: the vulnerable renters at risk as housing subsidy expires
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)The end to the National Affordability Rental Scheme could leave thousands at the whim of the private market. ... [Marion Trench] has been renting her townhouse in Bethania, halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, for just under two years, and she loves it. ... [But] Trench is one of 32,000 renters benefiting from the National Affordability Rental Scheme (NRAS), a program developed and implemented by the federal Labor government under former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008. NRAS was designed to draw in the private sector to the provision of cheaper housing, by paying property owners a subsidy in exchange for them making new homes available at below-market rents for a decade. ... [And] over the next three years, the vast majority of NRAS properties are going to lose their subsidy – and those renters benefiting from it are starting to feel stressed. ... Community housing advocates say many NRAS renters are likely to transfer across to social housing waitlists when their rent goes up. ... Leo Patterson Ross from the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales says more tenants are calling the organisation, asking about their rights when the rent goes up on their affordable housing. ... Patterson Ross would like to see the federal government reconsider direct capital grants to the states for housing and state tenancy laws overhauled to disallow no-grounds eviction and control rent hikes, both of which he says reduce funding efficacy by making tenancies less sustainable.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/15/i-am-pani…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, No-grounds evictions, State Government.A broken dream: outer Melbourne has affordable houses but no train or school
Elias Visontay The Guardian (No paywall)When Jade Seenarain and his wife Aideanna bought the plot for their home in Truganina in Melbourne’s west in 2015, the couple thought they were buying into a leafy, suburban dream. ... But three years after moving into their four-bedroom, two-bathroom, double-driveway home, reality bears little resemblance to the life the Seenarains thought they would be living. ... Since the couple moved in, plans for a local primary school have been derailed, and plots of land still lie empty while residents wait for shops, services and infrastructure. Urban planning experts say such problems are common across Melbourne’s outer suburbs.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/15/a-broken-…
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market, Planning and development, State Government.NSW regional towns outstrip Sydney’s house price growth
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Regional house price growth in NSW is galloping ahead of Sydney with prices in some towns rising by $7591 a week, new figures reveal, as tree and sea-changers continue to fuel real estate markets where there is intense competition and limited supply. Sydney’s house price growth has reached record heights – the latest figures from Domain put the median at nearly $1.5 million after house prices grew by a massive 30.4 per cent over the year to September. But outside of the capital, there is a long list of towns that have grown by that much or substantially more.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-top-10-regional-house-price-i…
# NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.How our cities work: essential lessons from lockdown
Matt Wade The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As Melbourne and Sydney roar back to life it might be tempting to forget all about the lockdowns of 2021. But the pandemic drew attention to vulnerabilities in our two biggest cities that often remain invisible. It would be foolish to ignore them. Cities are always marked by differences of wealth and income. But the lockdowns shone new light on stark geographical inequalities in Melbourne and Sydney. ... The pandemic has drawn attention to where our essential workers live. Holloway found that in Sydney it’s mostly in the city’s west and south-west, while in Melbourne, the highest proportion of essential workers reside in the north and west growth areas on the city’s outer edges. These locations also recorded a high share of infections during this year’s Delta outbreak. Sydney’s west and south-west also experienced the most stringent lockdown restrictions. A key reason for the high concentration of essential workers in those places is the cost of housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/how-our-cities-work-…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development, Work, employment.Why a huge surge in US inflation could cause Australian house prices to drop
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)The Australian property market has for many years defied the laws of gravity. But is that all about to change? Analysts are warning a huge surge in US inflation has potential to derail the Australian property market. The US central bank is expected to respond by raising interest rates sharply and analysts say that will flow through to higher Australian mortgage rates. The property market is influenced by more than just interest rates, but the fear is that the increase is fixed rates, combined with tighter macro prudential regulation, will knock the wind out of the market. Let's explore this further.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-13/us-inflation-interest-rat…
# Australia, Housing market, International.New Zealand rushes in on upzoning where Australia fears to tread
Jago Dodson and Iain White The Fifth Estate (No paywall)Australian planners and economists are currently debating the role of planning policies and regulations in dwelling production as part of the federal parliamentary inquiry into housing supply. Meanwhile the New Zealand government has announced it intends to dramatically roll back residential zoning across the country’s major cities in response to high house prices. This simplistic policy poses risks for strategic metropolitan planning and Australia should pay attention.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/new-zealand-rushe…
# International, Housing market, Planning and development.