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
Apartment tower given temporary reprieve after engineer’s warnings of collapse
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The state government has decided not to evacuate an apartment tower in Sydney’s south-west despite an engineer’s report warning that the building was at serious risk of collapse due to structural flaws. After emergency inspections on Wednesday, NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler said inspectors from Public Works Advisory had advised that there was “no immediate safety risk” to residents of the 10-storey tower in Canterbury. “They will now take the time necessary to review the materials gathered during the investigation,” he said. ... The inspection was sparked by a structural engineer hired by owners warning that the 10-storey tower was a “risk to occupants”, and a collapse would also lead to “catastrophic damage” to two other apartment buildings that make up the Vicinity complex. ... The complex on Charles Street has about 276 apartments, and was completed about six years ago by Toplace. ... The concerns about the Canterbury complex come just months after Toplace agreed to provide $11 million in security to fix any future defects in a Castle Hill apartment complex, as well as agreeing to guarantee its structural integrity for the next two decades.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/apartment-tower-under-threat…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, State Government.Housing played ‘significant role’ in higher COVID-19 rates among Black and minority ethnic people, says official report
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... [The report entitled] 'Coronavirus: lessons learned to date' ... said the death rates among people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities was “unacceptably high” and pointed to housing, working conditions and “possible biological factors” as things that contributed to “unequal outcomes”. The wide-ranging 145-page report was published today by the Health and Social Care Committee and lays out the mistakes made and the successes of the government’s response to COVID-19 during the first year and a half of the pandemic. “Increased exposure to COVID-19 as a result of people’s housing and working conditions played a significant role” in the higher death rates amongst BAME people,” it said.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/housing-played-signifi…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.Heritage-listed Victorian terraces in historic The Rocks precinct sell for $36.25m
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)The NSW government has sold off a set of heritage-listed Victorian terraces in historic The Rocks for $36.25 million under a 99-year leasehold of the land. Also, check out the same story in 'The Urban Developer' at: [https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/longs-lane-the-rocks-sold-assembly-nashcap]
https://www.domain.com.au/news/heritage-listed-victorian-terrace…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Heritage listings, Housing market, State Government.Considering buying property off the plan? Here are 6 crucial steps to protect yourself
Sacha Reid, Melissa Pocock, Savindi Caldera and Therese Wilson The Conversation (No paywall)Buying property is the largest personal investment decision most Australians will ever make. With pricing for standalone houses rising dramatically in many capital cities, more people are looking to buy apartments. Buying an off the plan apartment can be one way to enter the property market. Buying off the plan means consumers commit to buying a property, at today’s prices, before it’s built. Settlement happens once construction is finished. This approach comes with risks and challenges — but following six key steps can help consumers protect themselves.
https://theconversation.com/considering-buying-property-off-the-…
# Hot topic Australia, Strata, Home ownership, Housing market.‘No trust’: Buyers of defective units in Parramatta vent their anger
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Buyers of apartments in two 22-storey Parramatta towers found to have serious defects say they are trapped in a nightmare, with some no longer able to get loans from banks to settle on their purchases. The plight of the buyers of apartments off the plan in the Imperial complex in Parramatta’s CBD was detailed during a NSW parliamentary inquiry on Monday into the regulation of building standards.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/no-trust-buyers-of-defective…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.A Place to Call Home
Melissa Fulton (No paywall)When COVID struck last year, more than 40,000 Australians were housed in emergency accommodation. Melissa Fulton asks, where are they now? (The Big Issue)
# Australia, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Sydney house rents hit record high and unit prices back on the rise: Domain Rent Report
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)The cost of renting a house in Sydney has reached new heights, with asking rents increasing by at least $50 a week in three months in some regions, despite the city’s lockdown.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-rents-hit-record-hig…
# NSW, Rent, Housing market.What needs to be done to fix the tax system?
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Some of Australia’s top economists and policy experts are calling for higher taxes on capital gains, the introduction of death duties and a hike in GST as part of a major reform to help the federal budget, strengthen the economy and cut taxes on ordinary workers. ... In the past month, both the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund joined the chorus urging wide-ranging reform of the tax system. ... Ken Henry has a swathe of improvements he wants to see implemented quickly but near the top is a total overhaul of how tax is charged on returns from rent, interest and capital gains. He proposes a dual income tax system, also known as a Nordic tax system or Schedular system, which not only taxes earned income at progressive rates as it does currently but also levies a consistent tax on other earnings. This would help capture lightly taxed property gains and other forms of wealth currently contributing to rising inequality. “I think that there is considerable appetite [for] that now,” he says. ... [Saul Eslake says] “In addition ... our tax system is so riddled with loopholes that many people who should be paying the top tax rate don’t actually pay it,” he says. “And in my view, almost all these loopholes should be cut out.” This includes negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts, franking credits and what he considers to be the excessively generous tax treatment of superannuation assets, all of which can allow the legal minimisation of tax. You might also check Shane Wright's article at: [https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-time-to-have-another-conversation-about-tax-reform-or-the-goose-is-cooked-20211004-p58x4w.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-needs-to-be-done-to…
# Hot topic Australia, Landlords and agents, Tax.