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
Mortgage Stress And COVID
Martin North (No paywall)We have completed our mortgage stress analysis for July, and there is a significant correlation between mortgage stress hot spots and COVID hot spots. ... Rental stress – again measured in cash-flow terms is most predominant in 2540, 4217 and 2145, quite diverse areas, but with real issues in terms of income growth, against a backcloth of rising rents. We expect more pain ahead. (Digital Finance Analytics)
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/mortgage-stress-and-cov…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Tiny homes combating youth homelessness ABC Mildura-Swan Hill
Debra Pearce and Jennifer Douglas ABC (No paywall)More than 27,000 Australian young people experience homelessness each year, sleeping rough without a safe or secure place to call home. CEO of Kids Under Cover Jo Swift said homeless children were displaced through no fault of their own, often due to family conflict, overcrowding, or poor housing conditions. ... The Kids Under Cover project provides early intervention to prevent young people from becoming homeless in the first place, by installing studio apartments in the backyards of family homes, giving young people their own space to sleep, study and provide respite from family conflict, while also teaching them a level of independence.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/homeless-kids-under-cover…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.Is it better to rent or buy? I ran the numbers to find out...
Jessica Irvine The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Just before purchasing my first home nearly two years ago, I was paying $650 a week rent to live in a similar, two-bedroom unit in an adjacent suburb. Property enthusiasts would no doubt bemoan this money as “dead money” and celebrate my entry into the hallowed halls of home ownership. But am I really ahead? Are the substantial costs I’ve incurred for home ownership – including stamp duty, mortgage interest and strata fees – really less than the rent I was paying? Or is it true, as some argue, that you are better off renting and investing your savings in some alternative vehicle, such as shares? This week, I decided to run some of my own numbers to find out. ... Adding that all up, I get a total “dead money” cost of ownership of about $540 a week at a 10-year tenure and $440 if I don’t move. Yes, it’s a bit less than the rent, but not overwhelmingly so. Of course, fast-forward 30 years – or however long it takes me to pay off my loan – my interest costs will disappear. If I didn’t buy, I’d be facing rental costs for my entire lifetime. ... And then there’s the non-financial costs and benefits to consider, which only an individual can answer. Do you like a sense of security that you don’t have to move, or does it make you feel pinned down? ... Overall, my take-out is that the rent versus buy decision is one you have to make for yourself, depending on your own unique circumstances. Yes, in my case, I feel home ownership has been a good decision, so far. But it’s a more finely balanced equation than many would imagine.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/is-it-better-to-rent-or-b…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership.Buyers plead to break contracts after purchasing in 'defective' Parramatta development
Josh Bavas ABC (No paywall)A group of apartment buyers are pleading with the NSW government to help break their contracts after purchasing off-the-plan units in a Parramatta development where defects were recently discovered.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/imperial-towers-defects-b…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, State Government.Homeowners vote with feet to lock-in record low mortgage rates
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Mortgage refinancing hit a record high in June as variable interest rate borrowers moved to lenders offering lower rates. Many switched to fixed-rate mortgages, which have lower rates than variable-rate mortgages, to lock in long-term savings at the bottom of the interest-rate cycle.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/homeowners-vote-with-feet…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Rising above the tide…and other things
Russell Hay The Fifth Estate (No paywall)After a few other provocative contributions to the thinking reader, here’s the next missive from Brisbane based Russell Hall on Queensland’s penchant for raising up houses above the site.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/rising-above-the-…
# Australia, Housing market.The $500 billion money wave keeping mortgages cheap
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As lockdowns inflict a growing financial toll on many households and businesses, there have been calls for the Reserve Bank of Australia to do more to support the economy. But official interest rates are already at a record low of 0.1 per cent, so what more can the central bank realistically do? Print more money, of course. That is effectively what the RBA has been doing since November, when it started buying many billions of dollars worth of government bonds. So, the recent debate has been more about whether the bank should be creating even more money than it already is. However, it’s fair to question how printing more cash would really help those people struggling through lockdowns.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/the-500-billion-money-wav…
# Australia, Housing market.‘Nightmare’: Changed orders keep buyers locked into defective Parramatta towers
Matt O'Sulliavn The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Buyers of apartments in two 22-storey Parramatta towers with serious defects fear changes to orders imposed on a developer by the NSW building watchdog will strip away their right to rescind contracts and get their deposits back. The purchasers of apartments off the plan in the Imperial complex in Parramatta’s CBD are demanding to know why changes were made to a prohibition order last month. They are concerned that it will enable the developer to register a strata plan, stopping them from exiting their contracts, and claiming back their deposits, after a sunset clause expires on August 30. Sunset clauses allow buyers to terminate off-the-plan contracts if events such as the registration of a strata plan do not occur by a specified date.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nightmare-changed-orders-kee…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.