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
Concerns tight Gold Coast rental market means tenants won't assert their rights
Dominic Cansdale ABC (No paywall)There are concerns that low vacancy rates in the Gold Coast rental market are discouraging tenants from asserting their rights with real estate agents and landlords. ... Burleigh Waters resident Aline Christ said her real estate agent proposed a 15 per cent increase to her rent, due to the competitive market. ... "[The owner] had no idea the real estate was proposing to raise my rent that much," she said. ... enants Queensland chief executive Penny Carr said that, with such low vacancy rates, many renters were desperate. "People are taking things sight unseen, tenants are up-bidding the rent and offering long periods of time upfront to pay the rent," she said. "The past few months have created a lot of problems for renters."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-01/gold-coast-rental-market-…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Australia’s five biggest cities on course for double-digit house price growth
Euan Black The New Daily (No paywall)Sydney home owners will see their wealth increase by more than double the nation’s average wage this year if economists’ house price predictions come true. Economists are tipping property values to rise by at least 6 per cent in Australia’s five largest cities over the next seven months and by 8 per cent in Sydney and Perth.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/05/31/house-pri…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.‘I’m now broke’: Without his usual four shifts, lockdown means Ed can’t pay his rent
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Casual worker Ed Westlake doesn’t know how he will pay his rent this month after his usual four shifts a week working in events were cancelled due to Victoria’s seven-day lockdown. He is one of thousands of people paying for lockdown in lost wages without any support after the Morrison government shrugged off a push to revive its JobKeeper wages subsidy.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/i-m-now-broke-without-h…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.The $5,000 lakeside house: bargain Australian home comes with water view – while it lasts
Anne Davies The Guardian (No paywall)Imagine. Your own private beach and views from your porch to water as far as you can see – all for $5,000. That is not a misprint. It was the price Don Murphy, 76, paid for a waterfront house on the shores of Menindee Lake in the hamlet of Sunset Strip, more than 100km east of Broken Hill in the New South Wales outback. The house came with a car, furniture and utensils, but there are a few catches. [Read on]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/30/the-5000-…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing market, Regional NSW.Adelaide councillor Anne Moran says 'voluntary homelessness' should not be allowed after finding homeless man in her house
Patrick Martin ABC (No paywall)An Adelaide city councillor who woke up to find a homeless man in her house says state laws should be reviewed to get homeless people the help they need — if they want it or not. Anne Moran awoke to the man standing in the doorway of her bedroom in her North Adelaide house on Sunday. Councillor Moran, 66, said the man was homeless and lived in the area, and mistakenly believed he lived there. She and her husband had seen him before in Wellington Square. She said he was not aggressive and she did not blame him for seeking shelter on an extremely cold morning. What happened to Adelaide's rough sleepers? Her husband asked him to leave and he did.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-01/adelaide-councillor-anne-…
# Australia, Homelessness.Hundreds of thousands face eviction as ban comes to an end
Dominic Brady Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Hundreds of thousands of private renters in England face eviction as the government’s ban on bailiff-led evictions officially ends, charities have warned. ... Homelessness charity Shelter released research showing that 1.8 million private renting adults in England (22%) are worried they will lose or be asked to leave their current home at short notice. It follows previous analysis by the charity in November which showed that 445,000 private renters were in arrears or had been threatened with eviction. Similar analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimated that 400,000 renting households – 5% of all renters – have either been served an eviction notice or have been told they will be evicted. A further one million renting households are worried about being evicted in the next three months, half of which are families with children. JRF’s research found that renters from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) (18%) backgrounds are almost twice as likely to be worried about being evicted compared with white renters (10%).
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/hundreds-of-thousands-…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.House prices reach yet another record level due to ‘perfect storm’ of low interest rates, improving economy
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Housing prices across the country re-accelerated through May as a combination of ultra-low interest rates, strong consumer confidence and low supply drove prices to their highest levels in every capital city.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/house-prices-reach-yet-a…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Paying off a home loan used to be easier than it looked. It’s now harder. Here’s why
Peter Martin The Conversation (No paywall)So you think it's the right time to dive in and buy a home. I can't tell you you're wrong. I can tell you it would have been better to do it before prices began soaring, and that if they keep soaring it will get worse still. ... For our parents, buying a home was an exceptionally good deal, not only because homes were cheaper — until the end of the 1990s homes typically cost between two and three times household after-tax income, they now cost closer to five times after-tax income — but also because over time the loan became easier to pay off. That isn't because mortgage rates were coming down — at times they were going up — it's because during our parents' times wages (and prices) were climbing.
https://theconversation.com/paying-off-a-home-loan-used-to-be-ea…
# Australia, Home ownership.