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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Tasmanian government wins in court after Sydney couple claimed ownership over house 'erroneously' transferred to them
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)In 2002, Tasmania's Education Department decided to sell a block of flats that it was using to house teachers in the rural town of Rosebery. It sits across the road from the Rosebery District School, but was deemed surplus to requirements. The department also owned a small house next to the flats, separated by a wooden fence. In court documents, the state government argues that it didn't intend to sell or transfer the house. Instead, in its submission in court, it says the Office of the Surveyor-General carried out a tabletop survey that included the flats and house on the same land title — seemingly unbeknownst to anyone at the time. The land was then sold — and the house might have been included with the flats.
# Hot topic Australia, .Economists urge major parties to raise Rent Assistance, as older Australians languish in poverty
Lucy Barbour and Jeremy Story Carter ABC (No paywall)Lyn's first football match was Footscray Bulldogs icon Ted Whitten's last. Her home, deep in a Melbourne industrial pocket where she has rented for 12 years, remains a shrine to her beloved Bulldogs. She is, as Whitten was, an embodiment of the working-class western suburbs. Lyn now faces the very real threat of having to pack up her Bulldogs memorabilia and leave, with nowhere else to go.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-10/older-women-housing-distr…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Most retirees who rent live in poverty. Here’s how boosting rent assistance could help lift them out of i
Brendan Coates, Joey Moloney & Matthew Bowes The Conversation (No paywall)Most Australians can look forward to a comfortable retirement. More than three in four retirees own their own home, most report feeling comfortable financially, and few suffer financial stress. But our new Grattan Institute report paints a sobering picture for one group: retirees who rent in the private market. Two-thirds of this group live in poverty, including more than three in four single women who live alone.
https://theconversation.com/most-retirees-who-rent-live-in-pover…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Australia's housing crisis is driven by lip-service, hypocrisy and an investment culture
Alan Kohler ABC (No paywall)House prices never fall very much in Australia. Even in the recessions of 1982 and 1991 they only fell 6.2 per cent, and in the past 50 years the national median price has only fallen more than 10 per cent once — 10.2 per cent after the APRA crackdown on lending to property investors in 2017, which says a lot. In total, there have been eight housing downturns since 1980 averaging 6.7 per cent, including the current one. Housing is the market that never crashes, it only gently subsides. No wonder it's beloved as an investment asset.
https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.abc.net.au/art…
# Video Australia, .NSW Government’s new Rental Taskforce to crack down on bad landlords, real estate agents
Elizabeth Pike Daily Telegraph (Soft Paywall)Renters still face being evicted for no reason, strict limits on pets, and huge upfront bond payments, with the Minns government yet to bring “long overdue” changes into effect. While rental reforms which passed parliament last year are still not in place, the Minns government has now established an $8.4 million taskforce to crack down on dodgy real estate agents and landlords. Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong said inspection, audit and compliance blitzes will be carried out across the state in the coming months to hold rogue industry actors accountable.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/nsw-governments-new-r…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media, Legal significance Australia, .Politicians scramble to fix WA housing crisis ahead of state election
Courtney Withers ABC (No paywall)Three parents and seven kids crammed into a four-bedroom house with bunk beds stacked on top of each other like Tetris. This is the living situation faced by Perth mother Rebecca Nickels and her four children, who are sharing a home with her sister, brother-in-law and their three kids. While Ms Nickels waits to get into social housing, the 10 people are squashed into the small Maddington home trying to make the best of what they've got.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-07/wa-election-politicians-s…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.From the sublime to the cringeworthy: Tim Ross on Australia’s housing dream (and nightmare)
Kelly Burke The Guardian (No paywall)Australia’s state libraries have opened their archives to writer, TV presenter and half of the Merrick and Rosso comedy duo, Tim Ross, to feed his passion for post-second world war suburban architecture and an ongoing exploration of Australia’s obsession with home ownership. The trove of photographs the institutions unearthed became Ross’s inspiration for a series of live shows touring the country’s state libraries from next week. The Australian Dream? tour to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Canberra trawls through four decades of homebuilding and homemaking in Australia, from the sublime to the cringeworthy.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/feb/08/from-the-sublime…
# Hot topic Australia, .Clock ticking for vulnerable inner Sydney boarding house residents facing eviction
Holly Tregenza ABC (No paywall)The clock is ticking for Richard Anderson. In the 83-year-old's room where he has spent the last decade, the fireplace mantle is still covered in Christmas cards, wedged between a collection of small toy cars and a multitude of medications. There's neatly stacked piles of loose change on his bedside table, a couch with a blanket, a couple of chairs, and not much else. It's modest, but it's home, and it is where Mr Anderson thought he would spend the rest of his life. The 28 men he shares the boarding house with on Selwyn Street in Paddington in inner Sydney chat to one another in the hallway; shoes stand ready at the door; the hills hoist out the back still has laundry on it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-31/nsw-boarding-house-reside…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent.