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
The Canadian Property Bubble Is Pushing Rents Higher As More Apartments Sit Empty
(No paywall)From Canada ... One of Canada’s frothiest market indicators surfaced — rents are rising with vacancies. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data from their 2020 rental survey shows a sharp uptick in vacancies. Normally this is expected to bring prices down, but not in a property bubble. Rental prices continue to rise along with increasing vacancies. In some cases, multi-decade highs for rental vacancies are seeing price growth accelerate. (Better Dwelling)
https://betterdwelling.com/the-canadian-property-bubble-is-pushi…
# International, Rent, Housing market.Reserve Bank 'grappling' with house price boom questions, internal documents show
Daniel Zipper ABC (No paywall)Australia's central bank is "grappling" with questions about risky first-home buyers and a strong increase in home loans, according to meeting notes and internal discussions about the nation's white-hot housing market.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-27/reserve-bank-grappling-wi…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Australian house prices could rise 10 times as fast as wages in 2021
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)House prices could rise more than 10 times faster than wages this year, with a top economist warning that the improving jobs market will make little difference to modest income earners trying to save a house deposit. And experts warn that government grants to home buyers and tax incentives for investors will only make it harder for some to buy a home.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/australian-house-prices-could-ris…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market.HOT OFF THE PRESS ... The Private Rental Sector in Australia: Living with Uncertainty
Alan Morris, Kath Hulse and Hal Pawson (No paywall)First book to discuss the private rental sector in Australia ... [It] explores the decline and growth of the private rental sector in Australia delving into the changing dynamics of landlord investment and tenant profile over the course of the twentieth century and into the present period. It explains why over one in four Australian households are now private renters and investigates the contemporary legal and regulatory frameworks governing the sector. The reform discourses in Australia and comparator countries, and debates around key concerns such as Australia’s advantageous tax treatment of investors in rental property and the power imbalance between tenants and landlords are highlighted. The book draws on rich data: 600 surveys and close to 100 in-depth interviews with tenants in high, medium and low rent areas in Sydney and Melbourne and regional New South Wales. The book provides in-depth insights into this large and expanding component of Australia’s housing market and shows how being a private renter shapes the everyday lives and wellbeing of people and households who rent their housing including short and long-term renters, those on low and higher incomes and older as well as younger people.
# Must read Australia, Eviction, Rent, Repairs, Housing affordability, Housing market, International, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions, Older people, State Government, Tax.A long, winding road: NSW boarding house reform
Jemima Mowbray Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)NSW Fair Trading and DCJ Housing are currently developing a new Shared Accommodation Act to replace the current Boarding House Act 2012. In this blog Jemima Mowbray sets out the push for reform that led initially to the 2012 Act, and now seeks to strengthen and extend the protections that were won. Indeed, we’re hoping the proposed NSW Shared Accommodation Act will be the next step along that path towards more comprehensive and effective protections for the many NSW renters who have, so far, missed out.
https://www.tenants.org.au/blog/long-winding-road-nsw-boarding-h…
# Must read, History NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent, Share houses.The Evictions Surprised Trailer Park Residents. The Protest Stunned Officials.
Campbell Robertson The New York Times (No paywall)From the United States ... Under a slate-colored sky, the holdouts gathered in what remained of the North Fork Mobile Home Park. Around them it looked as if a hurricane had blown through, leaving scattered cinder blocks, capsized sofas and porches affixed to thin air. The small circle — among them single mothers, a factory worker, a retiree, two community organizers — sat on kitchen chairs discussing their next move: recruiting for a boycott. ... For more than two months, a fight has burned in Morehead, a small college town in the hills of eastern Kentucky. It began in early March, when the residents of roughly 65 mobile homes at North Fork were told they had a month and a half to leave and take their homes with them. A new development was coming, bringing restaurants and stores, jobs and tax revenue. The city was subsidizing it. The trailer park had to go. ... And though most of the homes have now been hauled away or left behind, the campaign has rolled on, along with a debate over the obligations of a city to those dislodged by its growth and a lesson about how combative democracy has become — even in a small town — in an age of social media and protest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/kentucky-trailer-park-prot…
# International, Eviction, Land lease communities, Planning and development.Homelessness in regional South Australia is nearing unprecedented levels and it's families who suffer
Kelly Hughes ABC (No paywall)At 45, Minyon Smart, a mother of two special needs children, has found herself "effectively homeless". After her marriage broke down earlier this year, she was forced to move back in with her mother in Renmark, in South Australia's rural Riverland region, and is now struggling to navigate her new way of life. ... Kate Colvin, the CEO of the Everybody's Home campaign, which is trying to fix Australia's "broken housing system", said the housing market did not meet the needs of people across the country. "Too many people are missing out," Ms Colvin said. "Many people were already struggling with housing affordability in the regions, and things are just getting tougher. "We're really concerned about rising homelessness across the country."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-21/rental-shortage-in-the-re…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Regional NSW.Hidden UK homelessness is about to get much worse, with Covid support being cut
Freya Marshall Payne The Guardian (No paywall)From 1 June landlords will be able to evict tenants – a particular concern for women hit by a ‘shecession’ during the pandemic ... Rough sleeping is the most extreme and visible experience of poverty and injustice in the UK. So, a year ago, when the pandemic hit and people were advised to “stay home”, the vulnerability and visibility of people on the streets forced the government to roll out its Everyone In scheme. It showed what campaigners have long known to be true: that rough sleeping could be ended if there was a consistent political will. ... [But] rough sleeping is only the tip of the iceberg that is Britain’s homelessness crisis,the majority of which still goes unseen. Hidden homelessness includes rough sleepers never officially counted by the ministry of housing, communities and local government but also people sofa-surfing, crammed into overcrowded private rentals without their own space, squatting, living in vehicles, starting new relationships or staying in abusive relationships to keep a roof over their heads. ... We are also seeing a “shecession”, with women furloughed and laid off at higher numbers than their male counterparts, which is exacerbating the existing gender housing-affordability gap. Combined Homelessness and Information Network reports show more women being counted on the streets than usual and, because we know that many women sleeping rough carefully hide themselves for safety, numbers will be higher.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/22/hidden-uk-…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Women.