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
Finland's housing policy has shrunk homelessness rates. Could Australia do the same?
Kathleen Farmilo SBS (No paywall)On a quiet residential street in central Helsinki, Finland, sits an eight-storey apartment complex. It’s modern, well-designed and akin to the sort of block you'd find in any Australian city. The complex features a spacious courtyard with communal gardens and a small basketball court, balconies with large glass windows, plus a conveniently located cafe and bar right next door. It also boasts two unusual design features: instrument storage and practice rooms where residents can play music together. This is Jallukka, a block of affordable rental houses built to serve people who have struggled to find housing in the private market.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/finlands-affordable-housing-…
# Must read International, Public and community housing, Rent.Airbnb criticises Spain’s new rental rules: Data shows crackdowns on owners don’t stem overtourism
Joanna Bailey Euro News (No paywall)Amsterdam brought in new rules for Airbnb hosts in 2022 and the results are revealing. Short-term rental booking platform Airbnb has hit back at Spanish restrictions on rental properties, stressing that they will have severe repercussions for both income and jobs. Citing research undertaken by Oxford Economics in late 2024, Airbnb warns of 400,000 jobs being put at risk by the regulations, alongside almost €30 billion of income. The Spanish government implemented new regulations on short-term rentals on 2 January. Any property owner wishing to rent out their house is now required to be registered in a national database and obtain a permit before they can list their property on booking platforms.
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2025/01/22/airbnb-criticises-spa…
# Hot topic International, .The strange loophole that transformed Berlin from tenant’s paradise to landlord’s playground
Tim White The Guardian (No paywall)From London and other overpriced cities, we often look to Berlin as a beacon of progressive housing politics. Renting in the capital, as some 84% of households do, is associated with secure, unlimited, rent-controlled tenancies. Berliners have rallied behind moves to freeze rents and expropriate hundreds of thousands of apartments from corporate landlords. But in the last few years, Berlin’s housing crisis has escalated to unprecedented proportions, with median asking rents across the city rising by 21.2% in 2023 alone. Far from “poor but sexy”, as it was once dubbed by its own mayor, Berlin now has one of the most overheated property markets in the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/22/berlin-hou…
# Hot topic International, Rent.England’s renters are about to gain more rights, but until then landlords may exploit weak regulation even more cruelly
Nick Bano The Guardian (No paywall)Last month, I was working with a young homeless family on England’s south coast. The local council had found them a privately rented flat with an agreed rent, and provided a “landlord incentive” payment of £1,500. But, when the council emailed the landlord to confirm the arrangements, he replied to say that he was increasing the rent by £100 a month because “the market is moving in that direction”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/17/england-re…
# Hot topic International, .L.A. housing prices expected to grow after fires amid already existing crisis
CBS News (No paywall)The housing crisis has long been an issue for Los Angeles thanks to high rent prices and a limited supply of homes. Prices are only expected to grow after the devastation caused by the wildfires raging in the area. Economic justice organization "Strategic Actions for a Just Economy" executive director Cynthia Strathmann joins "The Daily Report" with more.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/la-housing-prices-expected-grow-af…
# Video International, Disasters.MPs back one-month cap on advance rent payments
Jennifer McKiernan BBC (No paywall)MPs have voted for a new, one-month cap on advance rent payments in England as the Renters' Rights Bill edges closer to becoming law. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook confirmed the addition of a clause to stop landlords making upfront charges in the Commons on Tuesday. Landlord groups have warned the move could leave property owners open to risk if tenants have no other way of proving their ability to pay rent on an ongoing basis. And Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn warned some tenants were being evicted before the package of protections in the Bill, which includes a ban on "no-fault" evictions, can come into effect as expected this summer.
# International, Rent.Spain plans 100% house tax on foreigners: Will it fix the housing crisis?
Al Jazeera (No paywall)Last week Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced several measures, including a 100 percent tax on the value of homes bought by foreigners, to tackle the country’s housing crisis. Sanchez aims to deter non-European Union residents from buying houses in the country. “Spain’s housing should be for Spanish people to live in, as well as for migrants who come here to work and build a life and contribute to the development and prosperity of our country,” Sanchez said, referring to people who use housing as an investment vehicle.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/25/spain-plans-100-house-t…
# Hot topic International, .Remote NT residents lose appeal in dispute over '200 per cent' rent increases
Jason Walls ABC (No paywall)Remote community public housing tenants have lost an appeal in a dispute with the Northern Territory government over rent rises they say led to increases of up to 200 per cent. Gunbalanya residents Asher Badari, Ricane Galaminda and Lofty Nadjamerrek along with Laramba woman Carmelena Tilmouth sued the NT government after it moved away from an income-based model for calculating rents in remote communities and town camps, affecting more than 5,000 households. The new model, adopted by the former Labor government in 2021 and rolled out in 2023, instead saw rents based on the number of bedrooms in a dwelling with a view to offsetting the cost of providing remote public housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-24/nt-remote-residents-lose-…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Rent.