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
Landlord group opposes translating renter information for minority tenants
Eric S Peterson and others (No paywall)From the United States ... This story is part of a continuing series on Utah evictions and the state’s leading landlord law firm. It is supported by a grant from The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was written and researched by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Read on.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/02/15/landlord-group-opposes/
# International, Discrimination, Rent.Renters and the Right to Make a House a Home
Dzenana Vucic (No paywall)Even with recent changes, Australian law still privileges landlords’ profits over tenants’ rights to modify and live comfortably in their home. But renting on the other side of the world showed me things don’t have to be this way. (Kill Your Darlings)
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/renters-and-the-righ…
# Australia, Rent, Home, International.Rising prices, plummeting rents
Peter Mares (No paywall)Australia’s housing market goes crazy — again. ... The agent’s indicative guide had the apartment selling for between $630,000 and $680,000. My friend, who didn’t come down in the last shower, had come prepared to pay about $100,000 more. But I didn’t even get to raise my finger on her behalf, because a clutch of other determined buyers quickly pushed the price up to $845,000. ... Meanwhile, just seventy-five minutes’ drive away in Torquay, on Victoria’s surf coast, you can’t find a place to rent for love or money. The vacancy rate there is officially zero.
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing market.In Darwin's booming property market, rents are rising while vacancy rates tumble
Jesse Thompson ABC (No paywall)Talitha Porter wasn't looking for anything special: a pet-friendly, two or three-bedroom house near the Palmerston suburb of Moulden where she'd been a tenant for three years. But when she set out in the Top End rental market to find a new home before her lease ends — and the home-owner can sell — on March 11, the 23-year-old soon began to question her chances. Dozens of people were crowding into inspections for ordinary homes. Asking prices exceeded her upper budget of $400 per week, in some cases by as much as one third.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-15/darwin-rental-market-covi…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Housing market.Sydney exodus drives regional property prices up and locals out of the market
Joanne Woodburn and others ABC (No paywall)An influx of former Sydney residents combined with a lack of housing stock is propelling regional New South Wales property prices to record highs, while pushing locals out of the market.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-15/sydney-exodus-creates-hou…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Regional NSW, Short-term holiday letting.‘On the cusp of a boom’: Double-digit house price rise tipped as banks continue rate cuts
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Economists for the nation’s biggest mortgage lender believe a new housing boom will push home prices in Sydney and Melbourne up by at least 12 per cent over the next two years as banks drive lending rates below 2 per cent.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/on-the-cusp-of-a-boom-do…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.The Australian property market is booming but the gains are based on 'massive' debts
Royce Kurmelovs The Guardian (No paywall)The Australian housing market is going gangbusters and all the signs are the boom is here to stay. ... Prof Hal Pawson from the University of New South Wales said ... “cheap money” has been a big driver in the recent price spike – and one that may prove disadvantageous to renters and those living in regional areas. ... “It’s the ability to take out $150,000 more on a mortgage than you could have had a year ago on the same salary. The concern about this is that, for lower income earners in regional locations, they’re going to be put under pressure as the result of these changes and it doesn’t flow through [to renters] immediately.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/16/the-austr…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market.Will Restrictions Be Enough to Cool NZ Housing Market?
Dinah Lewis Boucher (No paywall)New Zealand’s central bank will reinstate mortgage lending restrictions next month, with further restrictions to come for property investors, in a bid to curb the nation's surging house prices. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will tighten loan-to-value restrictions on mortgage lending, with the tightest restrictions to be imposed on property investors, who won't be able to borrow more than 60 per cent of a property's value as of 1 May. (The Urban Developer)
https://theurbandeveloper.com/articles/lending-restrictions-nz-h…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents.