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
Household mould is making some Illawarra families sick
Desiree Savage (Paywall)It has caused serious respiratory issues and debilitating illness, even sending babies to emergency rooms. It's not COVID-19, it's mould, and many Illawarra homes are breeding grounds for the insidious fungal growth. ... The Mercury has spoken with dozens of residents affected by mould, many renting and currently fighting with landlords to get their problems fixed, while others have been forced into Airbnb accommodation while their homes are stripped and repaired. ... Albion Park resident Renee Ellington says the health of her family has deteriorated since mould broke out in their rental property - including a daughter taken to hospital with breathing issues and severe eczema appearing all over her baby son. [Read others' stories]
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7356804/why-some-illaw…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Landlords and agents, Mould, Regional NSW.Australia's 'hidden' housing problem: Migrants and refugees are overrepresented among the homeless population
Norman Hermant ABC (No paywall)Life in Australia has been a long and exhausting journey for Roya Hamidavi and her family. After arriving at Christmas Island with her mother and brother in 2012, she was taken to Adelaide and then Brisbane. The family are Ahwazi Arabs from Iran. They were issued temporary protection visas and in 2015 moved to Melbourne's outer western suburbs. Finding a home has been a constant struggle. "It was very hard to find a place," Roya said. They are refugees, but not permanent residents. Even for places they could afford, their status was a huge barrier. "When we offer our documents, we don't have any. Just driver's licence. That's it. We don't have any other documents."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/australias-hidden-migrant…
# Australia, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, Personal stories, Race and ethnicity.The ruthless decision Albanese had to make
David Crowe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers decided months ago to use the dead of winter to drop Labor’s old tax policies into a deep crevasse so they could lighten their load on the march to the next election.There is a cost to Labor’s new pragmatism. ... [And] by sacrificing its negative gearing plan, the party has given up a costed policy that was welcomed by many economists as a curb on property speculation. Now it has no answer to the 60 per cent of voters who think younger Australians will never be able to buy their own homes.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-ruthless-decision-al…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Tax.Australian house prices: Grim picture for housing affordability as pandemic prices skyrocket
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Australian housing prices are booming, with six capital cities hitting record highs for the past three consecutive quarters. ... But there’s a grim flipside: the old chestnut of housing affordability and the prospect that many young people in Australia’s largest cities might never afford their own home.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/australian-house-prices-grim-pict…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Young people.Regional house price growth in Australian towns reaches dizzying new heights
Sue Williams and Maeve McGregor Domain (No paywall)Regional Australia is continuing its dizzying house price growth, with a jump of 4.5 per cent this last quarter alone, and a spectacular 12.5 per cent rise over the past year, latest figures show. It’s being driven by tree- and sea-changers leaving the cities for the main lifestyle areas of the country, either to relocate completely or to buy second homes.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/regional-house-price-growth-reach…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Regional NSW.Peter Khalil warns of Covid's unequal impact after Blacktown apartment lockdown
Finn McHugh (No paywall)As restrictions thaw across most of Australia, NSW is settling in for a grim winter. The state confirmed another 172 cases on Tuesday, its biggest single-day increase since the outbreak began, as the virus continued to seep through Sydney's strict lockdown. And authorities are facing a balancing act: containing the highly-infectious Delta strain, while avoiding slapping draconian measures on already marginalised groups. The task is complicated by the fact the most disadvantaged are the most likely to work multiple jobs or in frontline services, and live in high-density settings where the virus flourishes. Labor MP Peter Khalil, who grew up in Melbourne social housing, warned they had already borne the brunt of the pandemic. (The Canberra Times)
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7358761/delta-strain-has-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19.Juanita Nielsen's suspected murder brought Arthur King back to Kings Cross after his terrifying ordeal
Michael Dulaney ABC (No paywall)Arthur [King] had organised a group of about 50 neighbours to oppose a developer's plans to knock down their homes on Victoria Street in Kings Cross. The fight to save their street was costing some powerful and dangerous people a lot of money. It would ultimately be linked with the suspected murder of Arthur's neighbour, high-profile journalist Juanita Nielsen. Some of Arthur's neighbours entered his apartment and found him missing, the bedroom in disarray and a desk chair thrown on the bed. (ABC Radio National)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-31/juanita-nielsen-murder-ca…
# History NSW, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Another roaring 20s? We need to do better than that
Dan Davies The Guardian (No paywall)The relationship between house prices and interest rates is almost insultingly trivial when you get it. If the tenant in a house pays £20,000 a year in rent, and the house costs £1m, then from the landlord’s point of view, the house is like a savings bond paying 2%. While the interest rate on savings is 0.5%, the landlord is happy – in fact, he might buy more million-pound houses if he can. But if rates go up by even 2-3%, the house becomes a worse deal than the bond. As a consequence, landlords would probably sell their houses, driving the price down until some sort of stable relationship is established. Instead, house prices have soared to 30% above their peak before the 2008 financial crisis. What does this mean for politics? In my view, everything. It means that the housing wealth of the boomer generation is to a very great extent leprechaun’s gold. They can’t sell it at anywhere near the current price – there aren’t enough buyers – and even a small normalisation of the economic cycle would cause it to disappear. Their interest in the profitability of houses as an asset class makes sense when set against the spiralling cost of care in later life. But this fear cannot justify the harm it causes to generation rent.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/28/roaring-20…
# International, Housing market, Young people.