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
First home buyers locked in new battle with investors
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The number of first home buyers entering the property market has fallen as the return of cashed-up investors, reduced government incentives and higher property prices make it harder for young people to get a foot on the property ladder.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/first-home-buyers-locked-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Communal areas of apartment blocks risky for Delta coronavirus variant, health authorities warn
Tony Ibrahim ABC (Paywall)Australians living in apartment buildings should be on high alert in communal areas due to the rapidly spreading Delta variant of COVID-19, experts warn. The advice comes after two apartment buildings on the nation's east coast were ordered into hard lockdowns on July 12, following visits from people who had coronavirus.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-14/coronavirus-variant-can-s…
# Australia, Strata, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.The push to clear homeless camps from Venice Beach: ‘I don’t know where we’ll go’
Sam Levin The Guardian (No paywall)From California ... At the edge of the sand of Venice Beach, rows of tents, recycled furniture and makeshift structures dot the palm tree-lined boardwalk, providing flimsy shelters for a community of unhoused people that has ballooned during the Covid pandemic. The encampment in the tourist destination has become the latest flashpoint in Los Angeles’s homelessness debate, with council members, mayoral candidates, police leaders, activists, anti-encampment protesters, TV crews, citizen journalists and service providers descending on the boardwalk in a vicious public fight over a growing humanitarian crisis. The unhoused residents have been caught in the middle – and while the city has pledged to help find housing for those struggling to survive at the beach, many fear the intense attention will not result in long-term help.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/venice-beach-hom…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.How much would Australia’s house prices have risen without COVID-19?
Ellen Lutton Domain (No paywall)Australia’s property prices have risen well above what they would have if COVID-19 had never happened, new analysis shows. Most capital cities were due for an upswing in 2020, according to a report from KPMG Economics, but ultra-low interest rates and government support to the housing market during the pandemic gave the market a further shot in the arm, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars extra to property values.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/how-much-would-australias-house-p…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.The One Trick Landlords Don’t Want You To Know About: Housing Co-Ops
Ruby Lott-Lavigna (No paywall)A group of tenants in south east London is trying to fight an eviction notice by turning their home and artistic space into a mutually-owned co-operative. Can they do it?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xq9w/the-one-trick-landlords-d…
# International, Eviction, Public and community housing.Canberra homebuyers left in lurch after developer backflips on sales three years after deal
Isaac Nowroozi and Michael Inman ABC (No paywall)Peter O'Dwyer, a single dad with three daughters, bought an off-the-plan townhouse in Canberra's north in 2018. ... But in May the developer, 3 Property Group, rescinded its contract for the Throsby property — despite having been paid a deposit. ... There are currently no laws in the ACT that specifically prevent developers, such as 3 Property Group, from rescinding contracts in a rising market — unlike in New South Wales.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-11/act-homebuyers-left-stran…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.The tube houses of Hanoi – in pictures
Photographs by Manan Vatsyayana The Guardian (No paywall)Tall, thin and brightly coloured, Hanoi’s ‘tube houses’ dominate the city’s streets as people compete for space in Vietnam’s capital.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/jul/09/the…
# History International, Housing market.Buyers face hot competition for property as auction bidders rise above the last boom
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Home buying hopefuls are facing tougher competition at auction this year than during the last property boom, with new figures showing the number of bidders per home has jumped. There were 3.6 average active bidders fighting it out for each auction in the last week of June, ...
https://www.domain.com.au/news/buyers-face-hot-competition-for-p…
# Australia, Housing market.