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
Apartment complex in Sydney’s north latest to fall foul of watchdog
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An apartment building on Sydney’s northern beaches is the latest project to be issued orders to fix serious defects as the state’s building watchdog cracks down on shoddy construction work. ... Inspectors from the state’s building watchdog visited the site on July 1 and found that serious defects could arise from waterproofing of balconies and the installation of a system that stacks cars. They determined that a lack of safety measures for the stacker could result in serious injuries.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/apartment-complex-in-sydney-…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Plumbers fail drainage inspections at hundreds of new properties
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hundreds of plumbers failed drainage inspections at new properties in Victoria last year, with one tradies fined 27 times, under a new infringement aimed at catching shoddy workmanship before it causes structural damage to homes. The Victorian Building Authority handed out 257 fines totalling $127,472 in the past 12 months following 1100 inspections of new, below-ground sanitary pipes. But the number of inspections represents less than 2 per cent of all the drains that could be audited, prompting the plumbing industry’s peak body to call for a regulator with more teeth.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/plumbers-fail-drainage-…
# Australia, Utilities water energy internet, Housing market.Australians are facing the highest growth in rent prices since GFC
Soofia Tariq The Guardian (No paywall)Rent has climbed at its fastest rate in more than a decade, with some weekly payments up 10%, new data shows. Although the CoreLogic national rent index, released on Monday, points to some relief in the previous quarter – 3.41% in the June quarter, down from 3.55% over the March quarter and 3.73% a year earlier – nationally rental rates rose by 6.6% in the past 12 months, the highest annual growth since the global financial crisis in 2009. The median rent of houses and units jumped to $476 a week in June, a 6.6% increase compared with the same time last year. Regional rents reported the largest annual increase on record, with the median figure up 11.3% to $441, due largely to sea changers moving during the pandemic.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/jul/19/australians-are-f…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Regional NSW.Angle Vale residents call for urgent infrastructure upgrades as housing boom hits
Isabel Dayman ABC (No paywall)A former rural township north of Adelaide is becoming a bustling hub, and residents say the infrastructure is failing to keep up. In Angle Vale, 40 kilometres north of Adelaide, 14 developers are working on new housing projects, and a brand-new superschool with capacity for 1,500 students is due to open at the start of next year. But locals say the most basic infrastructure is not keeping up — and with so many more people expected to move into the area, some fear the situation will only get worse.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-19/angle-vale-residents-want…
# Australia, Housing market, Planning and development.The Perth suburbs where landlords make hay while tenants cop 16 per cent rent rise
Daile Cross The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Perth landlords are doing well out of their property investments compared to owners across other capital cities, with an average gross house yield at 4.2 per cent compared to an average of 3.12 per cent. Unit owners are doing even better, with their gross yields at 5.34 per cent against a national average of 3.62 per cent.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/armadale-landl…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.House with no toilet sells for $2m as New Zealand property market soars
Eva Corbett The Guardian (No paywall)From New Zealand ... A decaying three-bedroom house with no toilet or bathroom, missing walls and an overgrown garden has sold in New Zealand for more than $2m (£1m), in the latest example of runaway property markets around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/15/house-with-no-toil…
# International, Housing market.Perth developer denies trying to ‘bypass’ planning process in bid to expand prime beach project
Peter de Kruijff The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Perth developer Adrian Fini has defended his company after accusations he is trying to “bypass” local government planning laws to build a new beachside development on a stunning piece of West Australian coastline near Yallingup.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-develope…
# Australia, Planning and development, Short-term holiday letting.Evicted without warning, again: As lockouts resume, tenants are left scrambling for homes
(No paywall)The Philadelphia Municipal Court resumed evictions this July, and some tenants could be locked out after not hearing from the court in months. Since March 2020, only a handful of tenants have been locked out of their homes in Philadelphia due to moratoriums spurred by the pandemic. That changed on July 1, when the Philadelphia Municipal Court gave a green light to the landlord-tenant officers, the private company that handles the final steps of the eviction process, to execute evictions. (The Inquirer)
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/eviction-philadelphi…
# International, Eviction, Coronavirus COVID-19.