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
Perth homelessness up almost 60 per cent in six months
Peter de Kruijff The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The number of people experiencing homelessness in Perth has increased by 58 per cent over the past six months as vulnerable West Australians struggle to find accommodation in the tightest rental market in 40 years.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-homeless…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness.Sydney office worker Professor Peter Phibbs commutes from Hobart – and says it’s quicker
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)The pandemic has pushed many people into working from home, but urban planner Professor Peter Phibbs has gone one step further – he now commutes to his Sydney office from his new home in … Hobart.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-office-worker-professor-pe…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Personal stories.Landlord who crammed 8 tenants into a 6-bed home fined £18,500
Rafi Mauro-Benady (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... A rogue landlord has been fined almost £20,000 after a tribunal found he had been renting out an unsafe home with 6 bedrooms to 8 tenants,running an unlicensed House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO), following a Lambeth Council investigation. (MyLondon)
https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/landlord-who-cr…
# International, Rent, Landlords and agents, Minimum habitability standards.Turning shut-down shops into homes? It’ll be the developers who enjoy the bargains
Rowan Moore The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... By relaxing rules on planning permission, the Tories are doing nothing for tenants or our high streets.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/23/turning-sh…
# International, Housing market, Planning and development.‘Expect to see mortgage rates moving up’: Bank funding costs to rise as $200b scheme ends
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The end of a $200 billion emergency Reserve Bank funding scheme put in place to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus crisis is expected to lift fixed mortgage rates from ultra low levels and dampen soaring demand for housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/expect-to-se…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Super scheme little value if you want to buy property now
Noel Whittaker The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Last week’s federal budget revealed an increase to the maximum contributions to the First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSSS) from $30,000 to $50,000. It was widely reported that the government has changed the amount a first-home buyer could withdraw from their superannuation for a home deposit to $50,000. That is incorrect. {Read on]
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/super-scheme-little-value…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.The $28,000 home that could have been our goldmine
Monica Dux The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As a child, I loved to hear my family’s foundation stories. And happily, Mum and Dad were eager to oblige. ... Then there was the belter about my parents shopping for our family home. It was the early 1970s, and they’d looked at dozens of places, but seen only two that took their fancy. The first was a three-bedroom apartment, with stunning views of Sydney Harbour. But it was expensive: $28,000! The second was a modest brick veneer, part of a new housing estate, built over an old tip, deep in the suburbs, but carrying an affordable $18,000 price tag. Inevitably, they settled on the cheaper, more sensible option. My parents’ story is a common one among people of their generation. A relic of a time when buying a house was a real possibility, even for people of modest means, and the returns proved astronomical. How much that story has changed. A friend recently told me that she’s started turning off the radio whenever the real estate market is discussed. ... The flipside of this is higher rents, rising rates of homelessness, and lifelong housing insecurity for anyone who hasn’t been lucky or privileged enough to buy: people who face the reality that home ownership is a major determinate of whether they will end their life in poverty.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/the-28-000-home-that-coul…
# NSW, Rent, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing market.Domain real estate cyber-attack sees rental applicants asked to pay fake deposits by third party
Summer Woolley (No paywall)Australian rental applicants have been targeted in an elaborate phishing scam after real estate listing portal, Domain, was hit by a cyber attack ... According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s ScamWatch, $227,872 had been lost in just over 4,460 scams in the month of April alone. (7News.com.au)
https://7news.com.au/business/domain-real-estate-cyber-attack-se…
# Australia, Rent, Landlords and agents.