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
China's property bubble may be about to burst, and it could cost Australia dearly
Ian Verrender ABC (No paywall)China's transformation from an agrarian-based economy into an urbanised industrial powerhouse over the past 40 years has been achieved on a scale and speed never before witnessed in history. With the introduction of a free market came the opportunity for fabulous wealth from real estate as millions of farm workers flocked to newly built cities. Thus began the rise of the property moguls. Just as in the West, real estate speculation has become a national pastime as prices have gone into orbit. The end result has been much the same. Sky high rents, unaffordable housing and younger generations seething that they have been locked out of the market. ... How does this affect us. That's easy. Our raw materials have played an instrumental role in China's property boom. All those apartment towers require a huge amount of steel. In fact, property developers account for around half of all China's iron ore demand.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-06/china-property-bubble-may…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market, International, Landlords and agents.Wilcannia gets COVID repreive as motorhomes arrive to form isolation hub
ABC (No paywall)The promised motorhomes to help the people of Wilcannia to safely isolate during the COVID-19 outbreak have arrived in the small town in far west NSW. The 30 vehicles, which have been set up at the town's showground, will provide temporary accommodation for the close contacts of anyone infected with the coronavirus. It is hoped the arrangement will reduce the transmission of the virus in the community of about 800 people. Concerns had been raised about residents' ability to safely isolate from infected family members in overcrowded homes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-05/nsw-wilcannia-motorhomes-…
# NSW, Aboriginal renters, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Health.Some properties ‘uninsurable’: Price hikes ahead as Queensland takes the heat
Tony Moore The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Queenslanders face the bulk of Australia’s insurance premium hikes because of the state’s susceptibility to a warming climate, bushfires and localised flooding. Six regions - including the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Moreton Bay- are among the top 10 Australian locations for escalating insurance costs linked to fires, soil erosion, beach erosion and inundation from rivers and oceans. The rising insurance costs scenario is contained in Infrastructure Australia’s 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan released on Friday.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/some-properties…
# Australia, Climate change, Tax.Housing affordability and home ownership
Saul Eslake (No paywall)The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue is conducting an inquiry into Housing Affordability and Supply. Saul Eslake says this is an issue about which I’ve written and spoken at considerable length for more than thirty years. Check his charts and discussion. ... Here's an example: Although ‘negative gearing’ isn’t as attractive a strategy as it once was ... the most recent data from the Australian Taxation Office shows that over 1.3 million individual taxpayers (12% of the total) were still doing it in 2018-19 (Chart 4). They, moreover, are disproportionately high-income earners: 22% of all taxpayers in the top tax bracket were negatively-geared property investors, compared with just 8.6% of those with taxable incomes of $180,000 or less. ... He concludes: For all the crocodile tears which politicians of all persuasions routinely shed about the difficulties facing those wishing to get their first foot on the property ladder, deep down they know that there are far more people who already own at least one property (and who therefore have a very strong interest in policies which result in continued property price inflation) than there are who don’t, but who would like to ... And, sadly, there’s no reason to think that political calculus is going to change. Nor, therefore, are the housing policies which have resulted in created the housing system which Australia has today.
https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=4938c555-d68f-4d4b-…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax.COVID-19 exposes Australia's stark health inequalities — and threatens to entrench them further
Olivia Wells ABC (No paywall)Australians, on the whole, are fortunate when it comes to their health. Generally, people enjoy a high standard of living and access to universal health care, and Australia consistently ranks well on measures such as life expectancy and mortality rates. But beneath gross measures of health and high OECD rankings lies deeply-entrenched, longstanding inequalities. The gap in health outcomes between Australia's rich and poor is substantial, and has been laid bare for all to see over the course of the pandemic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-09-04/covid-19-exposes-a…
# Hot topic Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Health, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.120 ordered into isolation as COVID case sends Hunter Valley hotel for homeless into lockdown
Giselle Wakatama ABC (No paywall)A motel near Newcastle is in lockdown with scores of guests tested for COVID-19 after a woman staying there tested positive to the virus. The woman is among 10 new COVID cases in the Hunter Valley region on Friday. She was staying at a motel about 20 kilometres out of Newcastle with, the ABC understands, about 120 guests. The motel offers cheap accommodation for people without permanent housing due to a rental crisis in the region.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-03/covid-nsw-motel-homeless-…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Homelessness.Homeless people in Cornwall ‘turfed out’ of housing as landlords try to ‘make a quick buck’ from staycations
Serina Sandhu (No paywall)Hundreds of homeless people in Cornwall have been “turfed out” of hotels and temporary housing due to the unprecedented demand for tourist accommodation. Landlords have been accused of making “a quick buck” from the staycation boom, with many holidaymakers opting for the South West of England rather than abroad because of Covid-19 travel restrictions.
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/homeless-people-cornwall-turfed-out-…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market.10,000 Airbnbs and nowhere to live: Cornwall’s housing crisis
Indra Warnes (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Cornwall is a county of two halves. Green fields and bright blue seas. Tourists and locals. A playground for the rich and famous, and the second poorest region in northern Europe. More than 18,000 empty homes and 16,000 people on a waiting list for council housing. Some 10,000 Airbnbs and, at one point last month, fewer than 50 homes available to rent. (openDemocracy)
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/10000-airbnbs-a…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.