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
John will be evicted from his ‘forever home’. He has nowhere to go
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Retired postie John Patmore looks sadly around his cluttered single room in a Paddington boarding house and sighs. “This was meant to be my forever home,” said Patmore, 70, gazing at the table covered in his worldly possessions, the rickety screens hiding his bed in the corner and the tiny kitchen alcove he has to inch into sideways to get past the fridge. “I thought I’d be able to live here ’til the day I die after my super started to run out. But now … This place is going to close on January 31, and we’re all being kicked out. I’ve got nowhere to go. It’s just so overwhelming.” Patmore is one of 32 battlers living in two old boarding houses on Selwyn Street which have been bought by a developer who plans to turn them into four luxury houses and has notified all residents the power will be cut off and the locks changed on February 1.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/john-will-be-evicted-from-h…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers.Rental pressures in the Northern Rivers
Monica Adair NBN News (No paywall)Real estate agents in the Northern Rivers say even more locals are getting into share house arrangements to cope with the cost of rentals. It comes as prices jumped again – in the last three months of the year.
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2025/01/14/rental-pressures-in-the-no…
# Video NSW, Rent, Share houses.I’ve had four housemates in three years. And I’m not the problem
Meg Kanofski The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)I’ve had four housemates in three years. And I’m not the problem. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is doing away with the company’s fact-checkers at the very time we need them most – to verify applications for the role of roommate. Gen Z likes to claim Facebook is their parents’ domain, but there’s one thing they do use it for: tracking down a place to live. Penry Buckley reported this week that the popular “Inner East & West housemates” group, where Sydneysiders can find or fill a spare room, boasts more than 55,000 members.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-ve-had-four-housemates-in-…
# Must read NSW, Rent, Security and safety, Share houses.‘You’re competing with so many others’: Inside the weird world of rental speed-dating
Penry Buckley The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)“We are seeking someone mature (25+), tidy, and looking to make a long-term home,” reads a recent post in a Sydney housing Facebook group with more than 88,000 members. The post, which has dozens of likes and comments, continues: “We are pro-Palestinian liberation, and queer, SW [sex worker], and neuro-spicy [neurodivergent] friendly, so maybe don’t apply if you’re not okay with those things.” Long lines outside inspections have become a fixture of Sydney’s rental market, but for those looking to find or fill a room on an existing lease, a stranger phenomenon has emerged.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/you-re-competing-with-so-man…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Share houses.Jackie was sick of the Sydney rental market, so she moved to London
Daniel Lo Surdo The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Jackie Olling swapped Darlinghurst for London’s East End last year, realising the ambition she dreamt about in the years of pandemic lockdowns. Olling, 31, was paying $400 per week for her two-bedroom Darlinghurst terrace, just behind Oxford Street. She now lives a few kilometres from the London namesake, with the $65 in additional rent easily offset by the 50 per cent pay rise she secured landing a marketing job in the UK.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/jackie-was-sick-of-the-sydne…
# NSW, .Sydney remains priciest capital city for renting property
Richard Wood 9 News (No paywall)Sydney remains Australia's costliest rental city despite the national market cooling significantly. The NSW capital remains the country's most expensive for renters across all property types, according to CoreLogic's quarterly rental review released today. The typical rent for houses sits at $811 per week and the typical unit pulls in $710 p/w. The most expensive suburb to rent in Sydney for a house was Vaucluse in the city's eastern suburbs ($2199p/w) and the cheapest suburb was Tregear ($536p/w) in the city's west. Looking at the national picture, rent values rose by 0.4 per cent last December, the smallest fourth-quarter change since 2018. Stronger rent rises saw Perth become the second most expensive city to rent, with a median weekly rental value of $695 p/w.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-remains-priciest-austra…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.‘A city with no future’: The real cost of Sydney’s housing crisis
Nick Newling, Cindy Yin, Penry Buckley, Daniel Lo Surdo, Kayla Olaya and Frances Howe The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)When Zachary Moore decided to study urban planning, he knew he had to move from Newcastle to Sydney to seek opportunity. Then he felt the bite of the housing crisis. With his degree coming to its end, and the reality dawning of finding work and accommodation outside student housing at Western Sydney University, Moore is beginning to look further afield. “For the same price that you can buy a fairly crap apartment in Parramatta you can buy a pretty nice CBD apartment in Melbourne, and you’re being paid the same wage ... in fact, depending on the industry you might get paid more in Melbourne,” the 23-year-old said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/slipping-away-how-sydney-s-f…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.‘Stupid and unfair’: Albanese government urged to adopt nationwide portable bond scheme
Alexandra Feiam news.com.au (No paywall)The Albanese government is being urged to consider a national portable bond scheme as a lifeline to Australian renters struggling through the cost-of-living crisis. The “bold” new proposal from the McKell Institute recommends the federal government enact a national scheme allowing renters to transfer their bond between leases, rather than paying for a second deposit while waiting for the previous one to be refunded. The NSW government last year announced a $6.6m investment in the nation’s first portable bond scheme, which is expected to be enacted in 2025.
https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/stupid-and-unf…
# Must read Australia, Bond.