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
How the RBA allowed Australia to become a servant to property prices in a $9 trillion market
Ian Verrender ABC (No paywall)A decade ago, when Main Street was forced to bail out Wall Street and taxpayers around the world stumped up trillions of dollars to save commercial banks and the entire capitalist system, it was all the justification that was required. The banks, they said, were Too Big To Fail. Once again, it has become the phrase du jour. A few weeks back, it was China Evergrande. ... Here's another one to add to the list: our very own residential property market. ... Having created the biggest real estate bubble in history, our very own Reserve Bank now has its hands tied. Property is now Too Big To Fail. ... If they can't raise rates to slow down inflation, the onus will fall to government to slash spending. That is never popular with voters. Declining housing prices aren't either. And given there are far more voters who own homes than those who dream of owning one, guess which side governments are likely to favour? That's why, when our leaders talk about affordable housing, they're talking through their backsides.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/rba-australia-a-servant-p…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Special Rapporteur on the right to housing to the UN General Assembly: Discrimination in the context of housing
(No paywall)Mr Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, will be presenting to the UN General Assembly his new Report on discrimination in the context of housing ... The report highlights that discrimination in housing is a global problem and continues to be one of the most pervasive and persistent barriers to the fulfilment of the right to adequate housing. Housing discrimination includes discriminatory access to private and public housing, to building land, housing for rental, mortgages and credit and inheritance, ensuring equal security or tenure, protection against evictions, habitability, equal and affordable access to public services, such as water and sanitation, energy, public transport and others. The report sets out the human rights obligations of States, public authorities, regional and local Governments, public and private housing providers to ensure non-discrimination in housing. It provides an overview how public authorities can work towards elimination of housing discrimination through regulation and anti-discrimination legislation, and ensure that victims of housing discrimination have access to justice and remedies through judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. (International Union of Tenants News)
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/special-rapporteur-on-the-right-t…
# International, Housing market, Human rights.Now it’s Liberals telling us we are going to have to cut the capital gains tax concession if we want to get Australians into homes
Peter Martin The Conversation (No paywall)NSW is doing what Labor’s Bill Shorten could not – explaining why Australia’s capital gains tax concession is knocking first home buyers out of homes. Shorten went to the 2016 and 2019 elections with a plan – Labor would halve the capital gains tax concession used by landlords who buy and sell properties. ... Now, as we prepare for yet another election, the NSW Coalition government has done what Australia’s Labor opposition could not – make a cogent argument for winding back the capital gains tax concession, saying it “pushes first home buyers out of the market”. In a submission placed quietly on the federal government’s housing inquiry website late last week the NSW government argued that if the concession was cut, housing would be used “more for accommodation needs than investment needs”.
https://theconversation.com/now-its-liberals-telling-us-we-are-g…
# NSW, Federal Government, Housing market, Landlords and agents, State Government, Tax.A Wave of Upstate Cities Could Ban Eviction Without “Good Cause”
Colin Kinniburgh (No paywall)From New York ... In June 2019, following a wave of progressive election victories and a months-long campaign by housing rights organizers, New York State passed its biggest expansion of tenant protections in decades. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act closed key loopholes in New York’s rent stabilization laws and extended them across the state, allowing cities to gradually opt in. But for organizers, the 2019 law was missing a key component: “good cause eviction,” which would bar landlords from removing a tenant without justification. Two years later, despite a concerted campaign from organizers and progressive lawmakers, the policy is no closer to passing; the bill languished in committee in both the 2020 and 2021 sessions. So organizers have shifted their efforts to the local level ... (New York Focus)
https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/07/16/upstate-cities-good-cause-ev…
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, No-grounds evictions.And now the real housing affordability crisis of soaring rents
Michael Pascoe The New Daily (No paywall)The real housing affordability crisis is rapidly worsening. No, not the cost of buying a home that hurts a relatively small number of people, but the cost of renting which hits a third of the population, including the Australians least able to cope with it. ... Australian governments’ collective retreat from social housing provides a floor for the private rental market while developers’ self-interest and land banking ensure prices rise.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2021/10/27/michael-pascoe-hou…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government.Bush Summit 2021: Paul Toole’s vow to solve NSW housing crisis
Matthew Benns and Lachlan Leeming Daily Telegraph (Paywall)New Deputy Premier Paul Toole has vowed to tackle the housing crisis in the bush that has seen rents double and people even forced to sleep in their cars. “We’re going to open up more blocks of land we’re going to cut the red tape through the planning system to allow housing development to occur within a number of areas to open them up,” Mr Toole said. The NSW government’s Regional Housing Taskforce, set up to address the housing issues in the bush, will release a raft of recommendations later this month on measures to address the shortfall. It cannot come too soon for employers in the bush already struggling to find workers in the regions and desperate for homes to house the people they do manage to recruit. ... Leo Patterson Ross, chief executive of the Tenants’ Union of NSW, said the state needed “a big [public and community housing (words omitted from article)] construction boom” for housing supply to catch up with runaway demand. “We’re seeing double figure rent increases in so many of the regions. People are being asked to move and, having nowhere else to go, they’re sleeping in cars,” he said. He said ousted tenants were calling the union for help while camped in the overcrowded homes of family and friends. “They’re really shocking and sad stories,” he said. “At the end of the day, people can’t find homes that they can afford.”
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/bushsummit/bush-summit-2021-de…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Housing market, Regional NSW, State Government.'Breaking point': rejected for a rental 70 times, this mother and daughter have now bought a tent
Caitlin Zerafa (No paywall)After 70 rental rejections, a long-term Sunshine Coast resident says she’s bracing for life in a tent with her elderly mother and their two pets. Jayanne Hughes and her 70-year-old mother Dianne, who is recovering from major surgery, will soon have to leave their Alexandra Headland rental property of almost 17 years. The timing could not be worse as the rental market on the Sunshine Coast continues to tighten ... Close to “breaking point”, Ms Hughes, who works in mental health, has been forced to purchase a second-hand tent that they will have to live in if they can’t find a suitable home in coming weeks.
https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2021/10/22/rental-rejection…
# Australia, Eviction, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, Women.Housing emergency declared by northern NSW MP as rental costs go 'crazy'
Bruce MacKenzie ABC (No paywall)Greens MP Tamara Smith says the housing situation in her electorate of Ballina, on the NSW north coast, has grown from a crisis into a full-blown emergency. New data from Domain shows median rents in the Ballina Shire have risen by 25 per cent in 12 months, to $650 a week. The neighbouring Byron Shire is still the most expensive place to rent in regional New South Wales with a median rental cost of $850 a week, up 22 per cent in the past year. "That's crazy, it's a crazy hike," Ms Smith said. "It's beyond a housing crisis ..."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-26/ballina-mp-declares-housi…
# NSW, Rent, Housing market, Regional NSW, State Government, Work, employment, Young people.