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
‘No need for overdevelopment’: Labor, Liberal councillors united in opposition to apartment towers
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Labor and Liberal councillors have criticised plans to build two 10-storey apartment towers in Bondi Junction, as congestion and overdevelopment loom as flashpoints in council elections next week.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/no-need-for-overdevelopment-…
# NSW, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Local Government.‘Out of touch’: Labor slams government for ignoring surging cost of rents
Colin Brinsden The New Daily (No paywall)Renters have seen the cost of keeping a roof over their heads skyrocket over the past year, making it harder to get ahead when wages have flatlined. Labor’s housing spokesman Jason Clare says this is the biggest bill that millions of Australians pay every week and many are struggling to keep up. “The fact that Scott Morrison says this isn’t a problem shows just how out of touch he is,” Mr Clare said in a statement on Sunday. “He needs to get out of The Lodge and into the real world.” He said while rent has skyrocketed across most of the country, in regional Australia it is through the roof.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/11/28/labor-rip…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market.What happens when your builder goes bust? For some, their life savings disappear
Fiona Blackwood ABC (No paywall)Kate and Rod Iskander's building site with views across Hobart's River Derwent is littered with bricks and hardening bags of cement after their builder stopped work on their home two months ago. They say they are financially out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars and are faced with the prospect they may not be able to finish their home. ... The couple are calling for the Tasmanian government to agree to an inquiry to look at how consumer protections can be strengthened.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-29/tas-family-despair-as-bui…
# Australia, Home ownership, State Government.Homeowners to face higher insurance costs due to construction boom
Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Homeowners are being told to prepare for big jumps in insurance payments, with soaring construction costs leaving experts warning households are at risk of being under-insured.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/homeowners-to-face-highe…
# Australia, Housing market.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.