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
Editorial: Californis's plan to 'cancel rent' could miss too many low-income tenants
(Paywall)From the United States ... Allowing landlords to opt out of rent relief means some tenants won't get the full benefit of the federal aid program.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-28/rent-relief-ten…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.How Democrats Can Fix the Affordable Housing Crisis
Josh Cohen (No paywall)From the United States ... Biden has signaled that he understands the scale of the country’s housing crisis and commensurately vast response necessary to address it. In the hours following the inauguration ceremony, Biden signed an executive order extending the CDC’s national eviction moratorium, which had been set to expire on Jan. 31, through the end of March and called on Congress to further extend it to the end of September. He also asked Congress to take on a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 emergency relief package that includes $30 billion for rental and utility assistance and $5 billion to stabilize people at risk of homelessness and to fund rapid rehousing efforts.
https://shelterforce.org/2021/01/22/how-democrats-should-fix-the…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Solving the Housing Crisis: A Political Choice
(No paywall)Here, Dr Rory Hearne of the Maynooth University Department of Applied Social Studies, talks about the Irish housing crisis, its origins and solutions. The title of the interview is Reclaiming, reimagining and rebuilding a vision for public housing for all. In it Rory explains the origins of the housing crisis in a series of factors including the shift to a market model of housing provision, the neoliberal Thatcherite move away from public housing and the financialisation of housing as global investors turn homes into wealth accumulating assets and worsen affordability and access for those in housing need. He details the experience of Ireland in comparison with other countries such as the UK and Austria.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/72TkA81Y63i4UCeVALZFrG?si=1RIXp…
# Audio International, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Housing market.Unit and house price gulf widens in two-speed Melbourne property market
Jennifer Duke and Matt Wade The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The price gulf between detached houses and units in Melbourne has widened sharply after the median price of a standalone residence in the city surged by $3600 a week during the last three months of 2020. Melbourne’s median house price reached a record $936,000 in the December quarter and is now 64 per cent higher than the median unit price, the Domain house price report shows. That compares with an average price gap of 52 per cent over the past decade. This gap is expected to deepen.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unit-and-house-price-gul…
# Australia, Housing market.Fremantle ‘tent city’ homeless sleep in a park despite promise of beds
Marta Pascual Juanola The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Last week was filled with unbelievable scenes as the government took extraordinary measures to dismantle a controversial homeless camp in Fremantle, amid claims it was run by professional protesters and beds were available to rough sleepers who wanted help.
Meanwhile, the state government has only added 24 social housing properties in total to its stock in the past year and estimates only 47 more will be added in the next four years while 24,000 people sit on the waitlist. WAtoday sat with one of those rough sleepers this week as she searched for emergency shelter and was knocked back by every single provider, with one claiming they had been booked out for weeks.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/fremantle-tent…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness.Prospect of a six figure hike in Sydney house prices stokes affordability worries
Matt Wade and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The value of a typical detached house in Sydney will rise by another $120,000 by the middle of this year if price gains of the December quarter are repeated in the first half of 2021, reigniting worries about home affordability in the city. ... University of NSW Professor Hal Pawson warned the next six months would be a challenge for lower-income workers, particularly as the federal government’s wage subsidy scheme JobKeeper ends in March.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/prospect-of-a-six-fi…
# NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market.Australian property market sails through Covid storm as workers reinvent life
Martin Farrer The Guardian (No paywall)Australian property prices are set to rise to record highs this year, driven by a heady cocktail of people seeking a post-Covid lifestyle change, ultra-low interest rates and recession-beating government stimulus, a slew of new data shows.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jan/30/australia…
# Australia, Housing market.Record price difference opens between Sydney houses and units
Matt Wade and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A record price gap has opened between Sydney’s detached houses and units after the median price of a standalone residence in the city surged by $4200 a week during the last three months of 2020. The median price for a separate house in Sydney reached a record $1.21 million in the December quarter and is 66 per cent higher than the median unit price, Domain Group data shows. That is the biggest difference between houses and units in Sydney since Domain began tracking prices in 1993. The average price gap over the past decade has been 46 per cent.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/record-price-differe…
# NSW, Housing market.