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
Tenants awarded thousands after living in disrepaired Sydney rental
Elizabeth Daoud 7 News (No paywall)A pair of Sydney tenants have been awarded thousands of dollars after taking their landlord to court over their rental property’s state of disrepair. The tenants rented the three-bedroom Greenacre townhouse, in Sydney’s west, from January 2019 to July 2023. In the months before they vacated the property, the tenants had been paying $550 a week for rent. They applied to the Civil and Administrative Tribunal with claims their rent was excessive in the final year they were renting due to the fact their oven was not working, the blinds and cabana on the property were in a state of disrepair and there was mould in the house.
https://7news.com.au/news/tenants-awarded-thousands-after-living…
# Must read NSW, Rent, Repairs, Tribunal NCAT.I knew the facts about millennials but I wasn’t ready to admit the life my parents had would never be mine
Miles Herbert The Guardian (No paywall)It took working on a podcast about what’s happening to young people for me to let go of the idealism about my future and face the sobering reality. The uncertainty facing my generation was not new to me. I have read articles just like the one I am now trying to write. I have seen the reports. I have watched the TikToks. But the life I am living was by far the biggest clue that my generation is facing a growing economic crisis. I just was not ready to admit it.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/mar/25/millennials…
# Hot topic NSW, .Five ideas to make life easier for renters and first homebuyers
Max Maddison The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Liberal MPs have urged the party to embrace renters as the “new forgotten people”, with one warning a failure to appeal to the growing cohort “will make us unelectable for decades to come”. Davidson MP Matt Cross and MLC Chris Rath called for the party to adopt policies aimed at supporting renters, including providing landlords who offer long-term rental agreements of three years or more tax breaks and replacing bonds on rental properties with “simple insurance products” to protect landlords.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/five-ideas-to-make-life-easi…
# Hot topic NSW, .Six more train stations added to high-density housing plan
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)The Minns government’s signature density reforms around train stations will be expanded, adding an extra six stations to the existing 31 after several councils asked for more suburbs to be included. Belmore, Lakemba and Punchbowl stations will be added, as well as Cardiff and Cockle Creek near Newcastle, and Woy Woy on the Central Coast. All six were suggested by the local councils for inclusion. The bulk of reforms, which will amend planning controls to allow six-storey residential apartment buildings within 400 metres of the station in the 37 chosen suburbs, are due to start this month.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/when-the-new-planning-rules-…
# Legal significance NSW, .Power to the renters: Demographic changes give them new clout
The Herald's View The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)For many Sydneysiders, renting or trying to rent is a brutal reminder of their true powerlessness in a society that values homeownership as shelter and investment. Through no fault of their own, renters have been made to pay the spiralling costs for a roof over their heads while owners continue to receive all sorts of assistance to ease their burden. Little has been done to help tenants face the runaway train of paying rent in Sydney. But the realisation they may shape the future of politics in marginal seats has raised the possibility that renters possess powers never realised.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/power-to-the-renters-demogra…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.I joined a bunch of landlord groups to subtly manipulate them into being better people
Luke This Is A Lot (No paywall)So, about a year ago I joined a bunch of a landlord groups on Facebook and Nextdoor. I’ve worked diligently to manipulate them into taking pro-tenant actions, and it actually has kind of worked? Here’s the general strategy: 1. Make some posts detailing how I run my “businesss”1 and ask a few questions. 2. Establish credibility by earning their trust by posting helpful information. 3. Politely suggest taking actions that unequivocally benefit the tenant by dressing them up as beneficial to the landlord.
https://www.thisisalot.com/unhinged-opinions/i-joined-a-bunch-of…
# Hot topic International, Rent.We must incentivise landlords and tenants to access energy improvement grants
Dan Wilson Craw Politics Home (No paywall)Private renters have been more exposed than other tenures to increased energy costs in the two years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One in four private renters is in fuel poverty, and 55 per cent of private rented homes have an energy efficiency rating of band D or below, compared to 30 per cent of social housing. Poor energy efficiency means it costs hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds more to keep your home warm. Many of us simply can’t afford to, so put up with cold temperatures in our homes. This has a direct impact on our health – but an indirect one, too, because cold temperatures lead to condensation and mould. The health impacts of poor housing are estimated to cost the NHS £1.1bn per year.
https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/incentivise-landlo…
# Hot topic International, Utilities electricity water gas.‘If I Had to Leave This Place, I Would Probably Leave New York’
Wendy Goodman Curbed (No paywall)Joshua Charow’s book, Loft Law, The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts, from Damiani Books, tells the story, through pictures and interviews, of the people who live in some of the most romantically bohemian spaces in the city. Many of them have lived in their lofts for decades, even before it was legal to do so, fixing up the drafty, derelict spaces. Gentrification followed, and landlords did their best to cash in, often by getting rid of these pioneers. So a band of artists got together in 1979 and worked to found what became the Loft Law in 1982, which helped establish the Loft Board to oversee the conversion of raw spaces into rent-stabilized residential homes.
https://www.curbed.com/article/brooklyn-artists-loft-law-joshua-…
# Must read, History International, Rent.