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
Coronavirus gave rural USA a chance to lure young professionals to save their shrinking towns
Barbara Miller and Peter Jones ABC (No paywall)Quintina Mengyan is one of millions of Americans who took the pandemic as an opportunity to give up an expensive apartment in a crowded city for a new life in regional USA. ... But there are also risks associated with reshaping communities. Rural gentrification can eventually push out locals who are no longer able to afford property in their own towns. ... A smaller community's infrastructure may also not be able to cope with a sudden influx of new residents.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-20/coronavirus-sends-america…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Planning and development.Cut-price mortgage battle could stymie moves to slow booming housing market
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A price war between banks trying to lure new customers with cheap interest rates could dull the impact of the banking regulator’s recent move to slow the housing market, underlining the risk of further loan curbs, analysts say.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/cut-price-mo…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.We are stretched to our limits': Advocates push for extension of Ontario rent freeze
Noushin Ziafati (No paywall)From Canada ... Monique Gordon is worried about her rent increasing next year as the pandemic wears on. The single mother was laid off at the start of the pandemic and had to make do with funds from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which left her with only a couple of hundred dollars each month after paying for rent, utilities and her phone. With Ontario’s pandemic rent freeze set to expire at the end of the year, Gordon’s monthly rent payments are set to rise by $15 in January. The Toronto resident has been called back to her job as a security guard but is concerned about potentially being laid off again while having to pay more in rent. ... Several tenant advocacy groups say they want to see the provincial government extend the current rent freeze to help individuals who have yet to fully recover from the economic fallout of COVID-19.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/10/15/we-are-stretched-to-our-l…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Rents in some mining towns surge more than 45 per cent in a year: Domain Rent Report
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Re-surging resources prices may have struck gold for the Australian economy, but residents in some of those areas are now paying rents that have skyrocketed 45 per cent in a single year. The pain is being felt most acutely in Western Australia, the home of many of the country’s biggest mines, a new Domain report has revealed, but the reverberations are nationwide.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/rents-in-some-mining-towns-surge-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Sydney housing ‘overvalued’ as Australian home buyers take on more debt compared to incomes: UBS
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Sydney property prices are overvalued and Australian households are taking on more debt compared to their incomes to keep up, a new report from investment bank UBS has warned.
But there’s little relief in sight for homebuyers as property prices are likely to keep rising unless interest rates go up, the report said, a scenario the Reserve Bank views as unlikely before 2024.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-housing-overvalued-as-aust…
# NSW, Housing market, International.Homes due for demolition to make way for rail line expansions ahead of Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games
Rachel McGhee ABC (No paywall)It may sound like a similar plot to the Australian classic film The Castle, but in a suburb south of Brisbane, dozens of people are living Darryl Kerrigan's worst nightmare and face a far less heart-warming fate. A proposed rail project between the Gold Coast, Logan and Brisbane, is set to make train travel more efficient in time for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. But it's costing dozens of Logan residents their homes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-21/qld-homes-demolition-trai…
# Australia, Planning and development.NY Landlords Renew Challenge To Eviction Protections
Emma Whitford (Paywall)A due process "fix" contained within New York's anti-eviction law is a "mirage" that effectively bars landlords from housing court, several property owners and a trade association argued in their latest attempt to block pandemic tenant protections. (Law360)
https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1431866/ny-landlords-ren…
# International, Eviction, Tribunal NCAT, Coronavirus COVID-19.The Sydney suburbs with big gaps between house and unit rents
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Sydney tenants are facing a record price gap between house and unit rents, with free-standing homes in dozens of suburbs now leasing for double the cost of an apartment.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-sydney-suburbs-with-big-gaps-…
# NSW, Rent, Strata, Housing market.