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
‘Shocking’: dodgy plumbing jobs rife at new home building sites
Zach Hope The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An inspection blitz by Victoria’s building regulator has uncovered a “shocking” level of shoddy workmanship and corner cutting in plumbing jobs at new home construction sites, with unwitting property owners forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars for repairs.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/shocking-dodgy-plumbing…
# Australia, Housing market.Inequality Watch
(Paywall)From the United States:
Empty homes vs homeless people in the US
14.2 Million empty homes in the US
0.5 Million homeless people in the US
(Sources: US Census Bureau, National Alliance to End Homelessness)
(New Internationalist)
Social housing production continues to languish, while demand has soared
Hal Pawson City Futures (No paywall)Official figures released this week reveal that Australia’s social housing stock actually declined in 2019-20. The combined total of public housing, community housing, state owned and managed Indigenous housing and Indigenous community housing dwellings, dropped from 429,316 to 428,497 over the year. ... Australian governments have been woefully failing to grow social housing to keep pace with growing need. Read the full article.
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2021/01/social-housin…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Housing market.‘I can’t save money for potential emergencies’: COVID lockdowns drove older Australians into energy poverty
Sara Wilkinson, Alan Morris and Caroline Porto Valente The Conversation (No paywall)Many of us who endured lockdowns in Australia are familiar with the surge in energy bills at home. But for older Australians who depend on the Age Pension for income, lockdowns drove many deeper into “energy poverty”. Some faced up to 50% higher bills than in 2019, as a result of COVID. Energy poverty involves low-income households restricting their energy consumption by avoiding certain activities like showering, spending high proportions of their income on energy and, sometimes, being unable to pay bills. Read on ...
https://theconversation.com/i-cant-save-money-for-potential-emer…
# Must read Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Older people.It’s our turn to borrow now as recovery plan shifts
Alan Kohler The New Daily (No paywall)The economic recovery plan has shifted from the government borrowing money and handing it to people and businesses, to the government offering to help with the deposit on a new house. In other words, the government is putting the brakes on its own borrowing by getting households to borrow instead.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/01/28/alan-kohl…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market.Sydney house prices reach record high, outstrip pre-pandemic levels
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Sydney house prices have reached a record high and outstripped pre-COVID-19 prices by nearly $50,000, with median prices jumping by six figure sums across in-demand pockets, new data shows. Sydney’s median house price is now a whopping $1,211,488 after surging by 4.8 per cent during the December quarter alone, the latest Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday, revealed. ... Apartment prices have also stopped falling, with the median nudging 0.2 per cent higher to $729,840 – still $20,000 short of the median recorded in the pre-pandemic March quarter.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-price-report-1020801/
# NSW, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Report shows Sydney unit values shrinking as house prices reach record high
Jamie McKinnon ABC (No paywall)House prices in Sydney reached a record high at the end of 2020, but the harbour city's units have lost the most value of all capital cities, according to a new report.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/nsw-sydney-property-sees-…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Regional NSW.New Productivity Commission data prompts calls for more housing investment
Luke Michael Pro bono Australia (No paywall)Homelessness groups warn that Australia’s housing system remains in urgent need of repair. More than half of low-income private renters are spending unsustainable amounts on rent, despite the temporary boost to income support reducing the number of households in rental stress by more than 150,000.
New data from the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2021 shows that 50.2 per cent of low-income households privately renting face rental stress – defined as paying more than 30 per cent of their income towards rent. Read on ...
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2021/01/new-productivity-co…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Housing market.