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
Why Building Alone Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis
Ronda Kaysen The New York Times (Paywall)The United States has not built enough housing for years, and a consensus has coalesced around a simple solution — if communities simply built more homes, rents and home prices would come down. But a new report raises doubts about that narrative, finding that in cities that aggressively built housing in recent years, rents rose dramatically for low-income households and stabilized for wealthier ones. The new rental housing that was built was often luxury housing, with studios and one-bedrooms, units that targeted young, single professionals but were too small and too expensive for low-income households with children. New single-family homes for sale were larger than they were in the past, aimed at wealthier buyers, rather than cash-strapped, first-time home buyers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/realestate/affordable-housing…
# International, .Overseas landlords risk falling foul of rental reforms
Helen Gregory Landlord Zone (No paywall)Complying with the Renters’ Rights Act will be more difficult for landlords who live overseas, the capital’s watchdog has been told. Propertymark warns that 18% of rental homes in London are owned by overseas landlords who fully rely on letting agents to manage their tenancies but will be expected to join the new PRS Database and Landlord Ombudsman scheme – something a letting agent can’t do on their behalf. Agents who don’t voluntarily sign up to higher standards might not be aware of the new requirements or will not be sure of them due to conflicting guidance, it says.
https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/news/overseas-landlords-risk-fall…
# International, .Israel lobby sells stolen Palestinian land to Australian investors
Joshua Barnett and Stephanie Tran Michael West Media (No paywall)Hard-right Zionist lobby group, the Australian Jewish Association (AJA), is promoting an Israeli real estate scheme with its ‘partners’, Noam Homes and Selling Israel, selling land in the the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank. There is no evidence from the marketing materials that the operators of the scheme have proper authorisation in Australia: either a licence to provide financial advice or a licence to sell property – let alone property deemed illegal under international law.
https://michaelwest.com.au/israel-lobby-sells-stolen-palestinian…
# Must read Australia, .Will the government finally deliver a housing policy that stops making a bad situation worse?
Greg Jericho The Guardian (No paywall)Excuse me while I let out a long sigh of frustration. Australia’s housing policy has for so very long been about making the problem worse by juicing up demand. This is undeniable. The evidence is long and clear. Whether it be the 50% capital gains tax discount John Howard introduced in 1999, the continuation of negative gearing, or the use of first home buyer grants, government policies have overwhelmingly ensured more people are bidding for houses at auctions.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2026/feb/12/gov…
# Australia, .If you live in public housing, what rights do you have to stay in your home?
Bill Swannie The Conversation (No paywall)Around 544,000 people live in public housing in Australia. And there’s huge demand for more: 169,000 households are waiting for public housing, up almost 10% from a decade earlier. But what happens when a state government decides to move public housing tenants? Do tenants have any legal rights to stay? Several court cases – including a new High Court appeal for Melbourne tenants, and an unexpected win for three Canberra tenants – show how some people are challenging their relocation when laws aren’t properly followed.
https://theconversation.com/if-you-live-in-public-housing-what-r…
# Australia, Public and community housing.Cost-of-living crisis sees more young women neglecting health and basic needs, report finds
Jordan Bissell ABC (No paywall)Every week, 23-year-old Ruby Neisler begins her ritual — trawling for supermarket bargains. She starts at Tribe of Judah, a church-backed discount supermarket in Logan, south of Brisbane, which sells heavily reduced grocery items — many of them end-of-life pantry staples. Ms Neisler says when shopping at the major supermarkets she is limited to buying what is on special, with full priced items out of reach after covering the cost of her rent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-13/young-women-cost-of-livin…
# Australia, .55,000 extra social housing homes are being built. But a new study shows that boom still falls short
Hal Pawson The Conversation (No paywall)Thanks to an unprecedented lift in public funding in the 2020s, an extra 55,000 new, good quality homes around Australia will be available to people on the lowest incomes by 2030. That’s almost triple the increase of 20,000 homes in the previous decade. Residents in these modern “social” homes will generally pay only 25% of their income in rent. Social housing refers to government-subsidised homes, with below market rents.
https://theconversation.com/55-000-extra-social-housing-homes-ar…
# Australia, Public and community housing.Building 1.2m homes will barely put a dent in Australia’s housing affordability, one expert says. Here’s why
Patrick Commins The Guardian (No paywall)Is building more homes the answer to Australia’s housing crisis? No, it’s not. Not even close. In fact, delivering an unrealistically massive overbuild of homes over the next two decades would barely put a dent in housing affordability, according to Christian Nygaard, a professor of housing economics at the UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre. The Albanese government’s housing accord has the “aspirational” target of delivering 1.2m homes over the five years to mid-2029. Despite best efforts at federal and state level, nobody thinks we will get there.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/18/building-…
# Must read Australia, .