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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
The Guardian view on the house price boom: the asset-rich get richer
The Guardian Editorial The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Treasury measures to boost demand for property and a neglect of social housing are making a dysfunctional market worse
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/18/the-guardi…
# Hot topic International, Public and community housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Next month’s federal budget is the time to stop talking about aged care and start fixing it
Stephen Duckett and Anita Stobart The Conversation (No paywall)Australia’s aged-care system is in a state of a disaster. The aged care royal commission’s final report, released last month, is just the latest in a decades-long string of depressing reports and inquiries exposing horrific abuse, neglect, and systemic failures. Aged care needs a complete overhaul. Piecemeal reform will not be enough. Although the two commissioners didn’t agree on everything, they did agree on the fundamental reforms needed to throw out the old paradigm of rationed care, which has left too many older Australians with inadequate care — or none at all. In a new Grattan Institute report, we navigate the commissioners’ disagreements and identify four key criteria for transformational change.
https://theconversation.com/next-months-federal-budget-is-the-ti…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.Perth’s rental prices the highest in six years as vacancy rates continue to fall
Heather McNeill The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Perth rentals are at their highest asking prices in almost six years with the median house costing $430 a week – the biggest yearly increase across the country.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-s-rental…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Infrastructure struggling to keep pace with growth in Western Sydney's urban sprawl
Kathleen Calderwood and Lori Youmshajekian ABC (No paywall)Gurnek Singh purchased a home in the outer suburbs to find space and an affordable home for his young family. But after three years living in Austral, about an hour's drive from Sydney's CBD, there are still no local parks nearby, the public school is at capacity and a piece of land earmarked for a public high school has been sold to a private college. ... Mr Singh's experience is playing out in new suburbs across Australia, where key infrastructure is struggling to keep up with rapid housing growth. But Sydney has felt the growing pains for longer.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-18/western-sydney-urban-spra…
# NSW, Housing market, Planning and development, State Government.It’s not what you earn, but what your parents have that truly counts
Torsten Bell The Guardian (No paywall)New work from the London School of Economics shows that whether your parents were homeowners became more important between 2000 and 2015 in determining whether you managed to get on to the property ladder. Resolution Foundation research found that, in the 1990s, 30-year-olds whose parents had property were twice as likely to be homeowners as those whose parents did not, but from the mid-2000s they were three times as likely.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/18/its-not-wh…
# International, Families, Housing market.Housing shortage, fire impact and COVID-19 creating employment nightmare in NSW, inquiry hears
Kelly Fuller ABC (No paywall)The first regional hearing of the Senate's job security inquiry has heard calls for continued employment support for bushfire-affected areas and evidence about the dilemma of finding and keeping work during the housing shortage crisis.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-15/south-coast-job-security-…
# NSW, Housing market, Regional NSW.‘End this nightmare’: Mascot Tower owners call for resolution ahead of possible sale
Laura Chung The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Almost two years after Mascot Towers in Sydney’s south was evacuated, the beleaguered building could sell for up to $42.5 million depending on how quickly owners can agree to the sale terms. ... The future of the building will be decided at an extraordinary general meeting in about two weeks when owners will vote on the preferred outcome. ... “We are still pushing for the collective sale of the building,” Mascot Towers Owners Corporation chairman Gary Deigan said. “We are standing in a bucket of shit. What matters is how deep it is and we make the decision to get out of it.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/end-this-nightmare-mascot-to…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Mascot Tower owners take step towards collective sale almost two years since evacuation
Laura Chung and Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Owners of Sydney’s beleaguered Mascot Towers will thrash out their options on Thursday night to try to resolve the long-running stand-off over the empty apartment building, including the possibility of selling the tower. ... Many remain doubtful that a motion for a collective sale of the building will receive the required support of 100 per cent of owners. ... Owners and tenants have been unable to return to their apartments since the building was evacuated, leaving many in dire financial straits. The estimated cost of repairing the building and repaying a 15-year strata loan escalated to almost $54 million last year, about $10 million higher than forecast.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/mascot-tower-owners-take-ste…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.