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
'Renting is very expensive' - NZ's global distinction
Susan Edmunds Radio NZ (No paywall)Wellington woman Cara has watched her rent climb steadily over the years, and says it is "by far" the biggest financial stress of her life. "Ten years ago, I paid $400 a week for a three-bedroom house in Johnsonville. Then three years ago I paid $650 for a much worse three-bedroom house in Karori. Now I pay $710 for a three-bedroom house in Whitby." The solo parent - whom RNZ has agreed not to name, says from time to time she has had to have flatmates to help share the rent. "A couple of years ago I was earning $75,000 a year and paying $650 a week in rent, which was roughly the average rent in Wellington, but I figured out that it was more than 50 percent of my income." As rents have pushed up in recent years on the back of high migration, New Zealand's rental market has achieved a record that tenants would rather not set, and global distinction the country would probably prefer not to achieve.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/520050/renting-is-very-expen…
# Must read International, Rent.Labour under pressure to be more radical about reforming private renting
Robert Booth The Guardian (No paywall)Labour is facing pressure to deliver more radical reforms of private renting amid fears landlords will find new ways to evict tenants despite the party confirming it would end no-fault evictions, ban bidding wars and introduce time limits to fix potentially lethal mould. In a campaign push aimed at the “rip-off private rented sector”, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, claimed private renters would be £250-a-year better off under a Labour government after it forces landlords to improve the energy efficiency of leaky rental homes.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/19/labour-u…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Repairs, Utilities water energy internet.No-cause evictions have the potential to hurt renters – with little gain for good landlords
Myra Williamson The Conversation (No paywall)Housing security for New Zealand’s 1.7 million renters could be threatened if the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill becomes law. Among some potentially positive changes in the amendment – such as the introduction of a pet bond – are rule changes that could cause real harm to renters. In particular, the proposed return of “no-cause” evictions is troubling. Landlords will be able to give a 90-day termination notice to end any periodic tenancy, at any time, without giving a reason. Currently, landlords can evict someone for being more than three weeks late with rent, when the owner wants to live in the house themselves, or wants an employee to live on the property, amongst other grounds.
https://theconversation.com/no-cause-evictions-have-the-potentia…
# Must read International, Eviction.How a disastrous Tory policy blew up the housing market
Oliver Wainwright The Guardian (No paywall)With a penthouse in Santa Monica, a rambling Georgian manor in North Yorkshire and a five-bedroom mews house in Kensington, Rishi Sunak knows a thing or two about the joys of home ownership. “I want everyone to feel what I felt when I got the keys to my first flat,” Sunak said in his recent televised debate with Keir Starmer, recalling the moment he stepped into his South Ken pied-à-terre for the first time. Launching his election manifesto, Sunak reiterated the Tory party’s eternal commitment to estate agents, house builders and the transformational power of bricks and mortar. “From Macmillan to Thatcher to today,” he declared, “it is we Conservatives who are the party of the property-owning democracy in this country.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2024/jun/21/h…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Election 'last chance to fix broken renting system' - as leaders urged to make 'serious policy offer'
Faye Brown Sky News (No paywall)The general election may be "the last chance" to fix the UK's "broken renting system", housing organisations have warned as they called on party leaders to come up with bolder solutions to the crisis. In an open letter to Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, groups representing tenants said thousands more people "face homelessness, poverty and exploitation" unless a "serious policy offer" is put on the table. It comes as one renter told Sky News how he has been priced out of his home following a 40% increase in rent - despite the flat having "an excessive mould issue". The groups, including the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and Generation Rent, want all party leaders to commit to rent controls, a full ban on no-fault evictions and greater investment in social housing.
https://news.sky.com/story/election-last-chance-to-fix-broken-re…
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent.How an ‘Algorithm’ Turned Apartment Pools Green
Maureen Tkacik The American Prospect (No paywall)In 2021, an Austin-based real estate finfluencer named Monte Lee-Wen made what was likely the quickest $50 million of his career selling the “Chronos portfolio,” a group of five working-class Dallas-area apartment complexes he’d purchased the year earlier, to a consortium of investors for $201 million, or $188,785 per unit. This was a nosebleed valuation given that nearly half the apartments were studios and one-bedrooms. The buyers, an upstart private equity firm called WindMass Capital Partners founded by a former investment banker and the massive Fortress Investment Group, which owns more than 110,000 units of multifamily housing, were ostensibly sophisticated investors.
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-06-18-how-algor…
# Hot topic International, .Skyrocketing rent: Some Canadians saying goodbye to half their paycheque
Andrew Johnson CTV News (No paywall)A significant number of Canadian renters are spending more than half their paycheque putting a roof over their head, according to a new Royal LePage report. In Vancouver, 27 per cent of renters are spending more than half their net income on paying the rent. In Toronto, 19 per cent are forking over more than half of their paycheque and one in 10 Montrealers are in the same position. The national average is 16 per cent. "The target is roughly a third of your income to be deemed affordable," said Tom Davidoff, an associate professor with UBC’s Sauder School of Business.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/skyrocketing-rent-some-canadians-s…
# Hot topic International, Rent.The federal government’s new plan to (maybe) give renters straight cash
Rachel M. Cohen Vox (No paywall)DETROIT — The federal government is laying the groundwork for a potentially major change to the nation’s largest rental assistance program, aiming to test an idea that would allow low-income tenants to pay rent directly with cash, rather than use traditional housing vouchers. On Wednesday afternoon in Detroit, at a national guaranteed income conference, HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development Brian McCabe announced that his agency is soon planning to solicit public comment on the prospect of testing whether distributing cash directly to tenants might work better for renters, landlords, governments and even taxpayers.
https://www.vox.com/policy/355088/rent-tenants-cash-vouchers-hou…
# Hot topic International, .