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
Taxes that reward asset-owners and punish wage-earners leading society into crisis, say experts
Daniel Ziffer ABC (No paywall)House prices and the value of the share market have ballooned. But wages are barely growing. The combination means a widening gap between those who make their money from assets and those who make it from their labour – a situation even some of the beneficiaries think needs to change. "I think it's unfair," said Rob Pallin, sitting on the deck of his house. "It's unfair that I get these tax breaks that a younger person cannot get because they're just earning a wage".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-02/the-millionaires-who-want…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Tax.First-home buyers: Why are first-home purchases at a decade high when it’s so hard to buy a home?
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Hopeful first-home buyers face an uncertain outlook only months after reaching their highest levels in a decade, and experts warn many will struggle to achieve home ownership. There were more first-home buyers in January than at any time since the global financial crisis, official figures show, and despite a drop since then, this group is still buying in its highest numbers since 2009. At first glance it seems a paradox when property prices have soared to new records this year, making it harder to get into the market ...
https://www.domain.com.au/news/first-home-buyers-why-are-first-h…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Property double whammy makes saving for a home even harder
Matthew Elmas The New Daily (No paywall)Buying a home just became that much harder after banks adopted tough new lending requirements on Monday. The stricter rules, which will require banks to ensure borrowers can service their loans if rates were to rise by 3 percentage points (up from 2.5 points), are expected to cut the average buyer’s borrowing capacity by about 5 per cent.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/11/01/property-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Signs of housing price boom flagging
Colin Brinsden The New Daily (No paywall)Australia’s house price boom is showing signs of flagging after spiking more than 20 per cent in the past year. The CoreLogic home value index rose 1.49 per cent in October, having steadily lost momentum since hitting a monthly growth peak of 2.8 per cent in March.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/11/01/signs-hou…
# Australia, Housing market.‘Likely to lose momentum’: Australia’s dwelling values continue to grow, though the pace is slowing
Melissa Heagney Domain (No paywall)Australia’s booming property market continued to rise in October but the rate of growth has slowed dramatically since the start of the year, as a lack of affordability, less government stimulus and more listings hit the market, new figures show.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/australias-dwelling-values-contin…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market.Interstate buyers help fuel the Gold Coast’s biggest property boom in years: Domain House Price Report
Sarah Webb Domain (No paywall)Sydney and Melbourne buyers with deep pockets have fuelled the Gold Coast’s biggest property boom in years with house prices in coveted coastal coves surging by $1300 a day, according to the latest Domain House Price Report.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/gold-coast-house-prices-1099486/?…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Ingenia Communities’ largest-ever project in NSW to start by April next year as Winarch Capital’s $235M plan mainly approved
(No paywall)Land lease operator Ingenia Communities can start work on its 25ha portion in the southern end of the former Morisset Golf Club after Lake Macquarie Council approved five of six planning applications for a $235 million project including a water park, hotel, tourist park, hotel, cafes and Ingenia’s over-55’s lifestyle residential village on the site. (The Weekly Source)
https://www.theweeklysource.com.au/ingenia-communities-largest-e…
# NSW, Land lease communities, Older people.Tenants and advocates call for Just Cause Ordinance to end no-fault evictions
Grace Asiegbu (No paywall)From the United States ... [Donna] Mayfield raised her two sons in her two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom apartment and lived there for 27 years without issue, always paying her rent on time, she said. So she was shocked and confused when she came home to a notice on her door in July from a new management company saying that she had two months to find a new place to live or face eviction. “It was like, ‘What is going on? This is unreal,’” she said. “It was like someone punched me in my gut.” ... Evictions such as this, when the tenant has done nothing wrong, are called no-fault or no-cause evictions, and they are legal in Chicago as long as the landlord gives the tenant enough notice. Advocates say no-cause evictions speed the pace of gentrification and price out longtime renters such as Mayfield, leading to further neighborhood destabilization and more demand for an insufficient supply of affordable housing.
https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/housing/2021/just-cause-ordi…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions.