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
Brisbane builders handed more than 800 breach notices
Lucy Stone The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From Brisbane ...Enforcement notices may be issued if a building is in a dilapidated or dangerous condition ... Brisbane City Council has issued 850 enforcement notices for construction or development breaches in the past two financial years, new data shows.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/brisbane-builders-han…
# Australia, Housing market, Local Government, Minimum habitability standards.Regional house prices outstrip capitals for the first time in 16 years, but it could create problems
Matt Johnson The New Daily (No paywall)Australia’s regional house prices outshone the growth in capital cities by more than threefold in 2020, as thousands of workers fled the rat race for tranquil country living. According to property analysis firm CoreLogic, national house prices over the past 12 months rose 3 per cent despite the economic ramifications of the pandemic, spearheaded by a 6.9 per cent increase in rural values. In comparison, the eight capital cities recorded a 2 per cent price rise.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/01/04/regional-…
# Australia, Housing market.New York Bans Most Evictions as Tenants Struggle to Pay Rent
Dana Rubinstein The New York Times (No paywall)The New York Legislature on Monday overwhelmingly passed one of the most comprehensive anti-eviction laws in the nation, as the state contends with high levels of unemployment caused by a pandemic that has taken more than 330,000 lives nationwide.Tenants and advocacy groups have been dreading the end-of-year expiration of eviction bans that have kept people in their homes even as they fell months behind in their rent. Under the new measure, landlords will be barred from evicting most tenants for at least another 60 days in almost all cases. The bill would not only block landlords from evicting most tenants but would also protect some small landlords from foreclosure and automatically renew tax exemptions for homeowners who are elderly or disabled. ... For eviction cases that are already working their way through the courts, the law will halt proceedings for at least 60 days. Landlords would not be allowed to begin new eviction proceedings until at least May 1
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/nyregion/new-york-eviction-ba…
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Landlords and agents.Landlady tears down wall to mother-in-law apartment on NYE; over unpaid rent tenant says
Kevin McNamara (No paywall)An eviction moratorium due to the coronavirus pandemic was extended in Oregon through the end of June but one property-owner seems to have taken the issue of nonpayment into her own hands. A video submitted to News 10 shows the confrontation between Eve Woods and her landlady after the partition separating the mother-in-law apartment that Woods lives in from her landlady's home was knocked down on New Year's Eve. (News 10)
https://ktvl.com/station/landlady-tears-down-wall-to-mother-in-l…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.All-Women Tech Group Launches New Tool to End Section 8 Voucher Discrimination
Rico Cleffi (No paywall)Landlords routinely break the law by refusing to rent to Section 8 voucher holders. The Unlock NYC tech collaborative has partnered with tenant groups to create an innovative tool that could help end that practice. (The Indypendent)
# International, Discrimination, Rent, Homelessness.“HOME” - a documentary by the Public Housing Media Collective
(No paywall)A film made during Melbourne's COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown 2020. Melbourne’s Public Housing Towers are home to a culturally diverse and vibrant community. At the end of May 2020 a new strain of the COVID-19 virus, imported by international travellers, escaped from a mismanaged hotel quarantine program. It spread out in June and Melbourne became Australia’s COVID epicentre. A virus cluster appeared to be centered around the Public Housing Towers ...
# Hot topic, Video Australia, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19.Fair Trading fines 238 real estate agents in five years for underquoting
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)NSW Fair Trading has fined 238 real estate agents a total of $523,600 over nearly five years for deliberately understating the value of a property to lure buyers. However, opinion is divided on whether underquoting laws introduced in 2016 have helped reduce the practice, which prospective buyers often suspect but can rarely prove.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/fair-trading-fi…
# NSW, Housing market, Landlords and agents.More working from home will transport us back to the future
Ross Gittins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)If there’s one good thing to come from this horrible year, surely it’s the breakthrough on WFH – working from home. ... If you measure the rise in house prices over the years, you find the closer homes are to the GPO, the more they’ve risen, with prices in outer suburbs having risen least. But if WFH becomes lasting and widespread, that decades-long trend could be reversed. If you don’t have to spend so much time commuting, why not live further out, where bigger and better homes are more affordable and there’s more open space? Maybe apartment living will become less attractive compared to living in a detached house with a garden, with a corresponding shift in relative prices. And if we’re going to be working at home as a regular thing, maybe we need an extra bedroom to use as a study.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/more-working-from-ho…
# Must read Australia, Housing market, Work, employment.