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
Robin’s home sold for 150 times what he paid for it, so he helped homeless women
Wendy Tuohy The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When he bought his home near the centre of Box Hill in 1973, Robin Friday paid a then typical price – $28,000. But as Mr Friday’s street became transformed by developments and offers flooded in over recent years to buy the home he shared with his late wife MaryLou, they decided it was time to sell. He describes the price they were offered and accepted, $4.6 million – or 150 times the home’s original sale price – as an “unearned windfall profit”. Having been a Box Hill city councillor, and mayor for a time, Mr Friday was aware of social issues including homelessness and, having seen it increase in recent years, he called his family together to decide how best they could support people in need with a big chunk of the money. ... With the help of family members, he spoke to several community housing organisations before settling on supporting women and children fleeing family violence through a ground-breaking new housing model which integrates support services and offers them stable housing with no fixed exit date. [Read on ...]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/rob-s-home-sold-for-150…
# Must read Australia, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Personal stories, Women.Everyone deserves a decent, secure life. It’s time New Zealand talked about rent controls
Chloe Swarbrick The Guardian (No paywall)When you can’t put down roots, there’s no sense of belonging nor ownership and no incentive to invest in what could be your community. Kids move schools with each new neighbourhood. You can’t plan for a future you’re not afforded. Our communities aren’t a game of Monopoly – which, by the way, was invented to showcase the ludicrousness of capital accumulation at the expense of productive investment. We can change the rules when they don’t work for the majority of us. And they don’t. So we should.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/may/09/ever…
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent.Federal Budget 2021: First-home owner measures met with mixed reactions as experts urge more supply
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)The Morrison government’s budget measures to help Australians into home ownership have been met with mixed reactions ... Announcing such schemes was easier than phasing out favourable tax concessions such as negative gearing arrangements and capital gains tax discounts, said Brendan Coates, director for household finances at the Grattan Institute. “This is another example of the government taking the easy way out,” Mr Coates said. “These policies sound good. At the margin, they will help some people. [Read more ...]
https://www.domain.com.au/news/federal-budget-2021-first-home-ow…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Tax.‘Minimal help, maximum hype’: Single parents housing package criticised for helping only a ‘handful’
James Massola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Australian Council of Social Services chief executive Cassandra Goldie said the policy would “help a handful of single parents on modest middle incomes to get their foot in the door of an expensive housing market”. But she said the announcement should be seen in the context of “what the government has done already to hit the economic security of single parents, mostly women, particularly those on low incomes”. “One in three single parents live below the poverty line now and as a result of cuts to social security we now have about 40 per cent of single parents and their children below the poverty [line],” Dr Goldie said. “We are one of the richest countries in the world by median income; we can afford for every single parent and child to have enough to eat and to have a house to live in.”
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/minimal-help-maximum-hyp…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Welfare, Women.Northern Ireland government lays out plan to improve protection for private renters
Nathaniel Barker Inside Housing (Paywall)Northern Ireland’s government has laid out plans to tighten up lax regulations surrounding the private rented sector. Northern Ireland’s government has laid out plans to tighten up lax regulations surrounding the private rented sector. The proposed changes include a requirement for all private tenants to receive a written tenancy agreement and for rent increases to be restricted to once a year. Civil servants have been tasked with drawing up draft legislation to effect the reforms, which will also increase the eviction notice period from the current four-week minimum and to limit deposits. Private landlords in the region will for the first time be obliged to provide smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and carry out periodical electrical safety checks. Meanwhile, councils could be granted new powers to introduce and enforce minimum energy-efficiency standards in private rented homes. Communities minister Deirdre Hargey said: “It is clear reform is urgently needed to improve protections in the private rented sector, particularly for the most vulnerable in our communities. “The initial bill is only the start. In the longer term I will also address issues such as letting agent regulation, the introduction of grounds for eviction and fitness standards.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/northern-ireland-gover…
# International, Bond, Eviction, Rent, Local Government, Minimum habitability standards, No-grounds evictions.First-home buyers get budget help to enter skyrocketing market
David Crowe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Australians will be given more help to buy their first homes in a budget boost that offers loan guarantees and more scope for people to use superannuation to save a deposit that helps them enter the booming housing market. First-home buyers will be able to release $50,000 from special accounts within their super funds as long as they are going to live in the properties they buy with the proceeds. The move increases the maximum withdrawal from $30,000 to recognise the rise in house prices since the scheme began four years ago, amid a political row over whether to use super for housing. [Read on]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/first-home-buyers-get-bu…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Tax.More than 400,000 private tenants may be in ‘significant rent arrears’ by end of this year, LSE research reveals
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)The report, titled 'Homelessness and rough sleeping in the time of COVID', uses the government’s prediction of unemployment rising to 6.5% to inform the calculation that more than 400,000 renters will fall into “significant” arrears this year. Almost all of these tenants will be at risk of eviction if the government begins to lift its suspensions on evictions from 1 June as expected, the report said.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/more-than-400000-priva…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Scammers prey on Victorians amid scramble for rental properties
Henrietta Cook and Benjamin Preiss The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Victorians desperate to secure rental properties are being preyed upon by scammers posing as landlords on Facebook. As fierce competition drives up rents across regional Victoria, scammers lurking in Facebook groups are advertising fraudulent rental properties and demanding money to secure a lease.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/scammers-prey-on-victor…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.