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
Time is running out for Beijing to fix China’s property crisis
Shuli Ren The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)To avoid hurting the broader economy, China is considering easing rules to let its distressed real estate developers sell off assets to avoid defaults. ... Desperate times demand desperate measures. Beijing has vowed not to bail out Evergrande, already the world’s most indebted developer. But market conditions have worsened since it made that promise in mid-October. Even investment-grade builders like Country Garden have seen its bonds tumble, a sign that contagion risk is real. China has to find a workable solution to fix the developer debt crisis. Time is running out. Also, check out the story at: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/china-home-market-slump-deepens-as-prices-fall-for-second-month]
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/time-is-running-out-…
# International, Housing market.You don’t have to hit everything with a hammer’: APRA boss weighs housing risks
Elizabeth Knight The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Last week the financial regulator warned banks it might play a part in cooling the sizzling Australian home lending market. On Monday its chairman Wayne Byres appeared to tone down the risk the regulator would further stick its regulatory oar into mortgage lending.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/you-don-t-ha…
# Australia, Housing market.Prime land in Sydney suburb of Haberfield expected to go under hammer after 18-year delay
Tony Ibrahim ABC (No paywall)A large parcel of land in a sought-after Sydney suburb is scheduled to go on sale after being stuck in a bureaucratic logjam for nearly two decades. The Department of Defence will put its old army base in Haberfield on sale by early next year, freeing up 19,000 square metres just 7 kilometres west of the CBD. Work is underway to divide the land at 140A Hawthorne Parade into 21 lots that can be developed into residential homes, ranging in size from 500 to 1,048 square metres. Real estate agents value it between $40 million to $60 million.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-16/former-haberfield-army-ba…
# NSW, Housing market.Property price discounts on the rise in most Australian capital cities as hot market shows signs of cooling
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Home vendors are starting to offer discounts to secure a sale, new data shows, especially in Sydney and Melbourne where signs point to the super hot market beginning to cool. But as veterans of the longest lockdowns flee the major capitals and move interstate, strong demand in the relatively affordable Brisbane and Hobart markets has ensured those cities buck the trend and discounts remain uncommon.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/property-price-discounts-on-the-r…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership.Watch this show before you utter these four words
Jenny Leong The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Earlier this year, while filming SBS series 'Could You Survive on the Breadline?', I was left to my own devices and told to try and find work. The accommodation I was staying in was an empty shopfront turned low-rent accommodation. It had an outdoor toilet with a shower, but the drain was blocked so when you tried to shower the dirty water all came up and flooded the floor. ... "Just get a job” to those currently living on income support is as problematic and offensive as any of these other insults.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/watch-th…
# NSW, Personal stories, Work, employment.Evicted for a yoga studio: The dark side of Byron Bay’s property boom
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When Byron Bay resident Fintan Callaghan’s rental accommodation was converted into a yoga studio, he did not expect to wind up homeless. His landlord gave him three months’ notice and Mr Callaghan, 52, immediately started looking for a place that he and his two teenagers could call home. “You’d go to a house inspection for a tiny little flat and or a converted garage and there would be maybe 20 couples lined up at the front door,” Mr Callaghan said. “I probably put in at least 30 applications over that three-month period – I basically just applied for everything I could afford and a few things I knew I couldn’t afford … because it was getting desperate.” ... It took until May before they were reunited in public housing in Suffolk Park, a suburb of Byron Bay. He describes the fact they have a bedroom each, a backyard, and that the rent is set at a third of his income as “life-changing”.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/evicted-for-a-yoga-studio-th…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Regional NSW.Dream of Buying a Home Gets Harder for Single Mothers
Tara Siegel Bernard The New York Times (Paywall)From the United States ... Lost pay during the pandemic and high costs threaten strides they had made in homeownership, often a key driver of long-term wealth. ... Even without the benefit of a second earner, single mothers — those who have never married — have made up a growing share of home buyers over the past three decades. Although they still lag single fathers and married couples, a quarter of single mothers were homeowners in 2019 — roughly double the rate in 1990, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute. But the pandemic threatens to dampen that progress, experts said. Women have borne the brunt of the job losses over the last year and a half, while also shouldering most of the child-care responsibilities — an acute challenge for single mothers, especially those with young children. At the same time, the housing market has grown highly competitive: Prices of single-family homes rose nearly 20 percent in August, the latest data available, from a year earlier ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/your-money/single-mothers-hom…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Women, Work, employment.NSW renters now able to access $4500 support payment, as eviction moratorium ends
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Renters in NSW who have lost work due to the coronavirus pandemic can now directly access up to $4500 in rental support, as the state’s four-month eviction moratorium comes to an end. The original scheme has provided more than $34 million in rental rebates to landlords since July, for more than 15,360 tenancies, said minister for better regulation Kevin Anderson. It has now been further extended and simplified – scrapping the requirement for a landlord to apply – to ease COVID-related financial stress. ... It is hoped opening applications up to tenants will help clear rental arrears, and help to avoid disputes and recovery action for rent during the three-month transitional period that will follow the end of the eviction moratorium on Thursday. “This is a really good move and we’re very very pleased to see it,” said Leo Patterson Ross, chief executive of the Tenants’ Union of NSW. “It will make a big difference for a lot of people who have been left frustrated and not getting the support that they needed [from their landlord or property managers] during the last few months.” ... However some tenants had been fearful of seeking support via their property manager in the first place, Mr Patterson Ross noted, concerned they could be deemed a risky tenant and face a no-grounds eviction down the track. He said no-ground evictions had also made it too easy for landlords to sidestep around the moratorium, and needed to be reformed.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/nsw-renters-now-able-to-access-45…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, State Government.