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
Housing affordability worsens in major cities: Biggest price rises at entry-level, new data shows
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Entry-level property prices are rising faster than other markets in some of our largest cities, pushing the Great Australian Dream of home ownership further out of reach for first-home buyers. Despite government assurances that housing affordability was a priority, the market has been left to its own devices. New data shows it's the most affordable properties with the biggest price hikes in many cities.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/housing-affordability-worsens-in-…
# NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘“So 'So wrong”: The “awful” Sydney “room” being rented out for $160’
Tom Flanangan (No paywall)While the coronavirus pandemic sent rent tumbling across the country as thousands of tenants struggled to cover their bills, it seems some of Sydney’s extortionate prices have been harder to budge. (Yahoo News)
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sydney-room-rent-slammed-online-045042…
# NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing affordability, Housing market.Real estate blues: Jared Kushner's family empire is on a losing run
Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From the United States ... Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant, where Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump partied in late 2016 before heading to Washington, is gone. The office tower at 666 Fifth Ave, once the headquarters of the Kushner family's real estate empire, has been sold. So too has a stake in a project in the trendy Dumbo neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/real-estate-blues-jare…
# International, Housing market.New York luxury real estate brushes off pandemic woe
Oshrat Carmiel The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From New York ... Contracts to buy Manhattan luxury homes are faring well even in the pandemic, with more deals signed in the past three months than in the same period last year.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/new-york-real-estate…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Inheritance, not work, has become the main route to middle-class home ownership
Lisa Atkins and Martijn Konings The Guardian (No paywall)The cost of housing is rising so much faster than wages that buyers increasingly rely on family wealth.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/09/inheritanc…
# International, Home ownership, Housing affordability.The British middle class is in freefall, its young people pushed into precarity
Owen Jones The Guardian (No paywall)The children of affluent and working-class parents alike can no longer expect home ownership, job security or a decent salary.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/12/british-mi…
# International, Home ownership.Airbnb shares more than double in price in long-awaited Wall Street debut
De-Ann Durbin The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Airbnb proved its resilience in a year that has upended global travel. Now it needs to prove to investors that it sees more growth ahead.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/airbnb-shares-more-tha…
# International, Short-term holiday letting.Powerful debts on energy bills are tipping Australians “off a cliff”
Katrina Curtis The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Debts from unaffordable power bills are tipping Australians into long-term financial hardship because the system supposed to help them pay the money off instead sets many up for failure, an energy watchdog warns.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/powerful-debts-on-energy…
# Australia, Utilities water energy internet.