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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
No child should have to go through the heartache of homelessness
Clarissa The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... On the day we were evicted from our flat and made homeless, it wasn’t until late afternoon that the council told us where we could go – a hotel in a town an hour and a half by bus away, where we didn’t know anyone, and where I’d never even been before. I would never have been able to get my eldest daughter, Bella, to school and, even though I was heartbroken, I made the decision to let her move in with my mum, who lived near our old flat. She was seven and I had never been apart from her before. We had been evicted from our rented two-bedroom flat in Birmingham, where we’d lived since Bella was a baby. It was the only home she’d ever known and I’d never missed a rent payment – our landlord simply wanted to sell the flat, and we were out in April. ... We need more affordable housing. Nobody on a low income can afford rents at the minute, and the amount you can get in housing benefit has been frozen since last year. The government’s plan to cut taxes for the richest, since reversed, annoyed me so much – there are people like us, and worse off than us, who need the extra help because life is harder with all the price rises.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/07/no-child-s…
# International, Affordable housing, Families, Homelessness.Customer wait list grows for Australia's first Islamic bank granted licence
Housnia Shams ABC (No paywall)For many Australian Muslims like Reem and Fouad Alameddine, the dream of home ownership has been beyond reach. Paying or receiving interest is prohibited in Islam, so taking out a mortgage is off the table. With no other option, the couple face the prospect of becoming lifelong renters. ... Their aspirations of owning a home could soon be realised, after the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) granted the country's first Islamic bank a restricted licence. ... Islamic Bank Australia CEO Dean Gillespie described the home financing scheme as a "joint ownership model", with customers charged rent while they are living as a tenant in the bank's share of the property, instead of interest. ... As the customer makes rental payments, their share in the property increases, until they become the full owner.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-12/australia-first-islamic-b…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market.Crossbench MPs back a short, sharp inquiry into Perrottet’s stamp duty reforms
Alexandra Smith and Tom Rabe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Key upper house crossbench MPs will back a short, sharp inquiry into Premier Dominic Perrottet’s landmark stamp duty reforms in a bid to ensure the legislation is voted on this year.
The Greens, One Nation, the Animal Justice Party and independent Justin Field are broadly supportive of the reforms, which will allow first home buyers to choose between paying stamp duty on the purchase or an annual land tax. However, the MPs are keen for it to be scrutinised by a parliamentary committee and will support it going to an inquiry on the condition it is finalised before the final sitting period next month. Also, read Michael McGowen's article entitled: 'The NSW stamp duty question: Will home buyers be better off with an annual tax?' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/12/the-nsw-stamp-duty-question-will-home-buyers-be-better-off-with-an-annual-tax]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/crossbench-mps-back-a-short-…
# NSW, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, State Government, Tax.Queensland renters seek ‘landlord register’ to help keep rogue owners honest
Joe Hinchcliffe The Guardian (No paywall)Renters’ advocates will call for the creation of a landlord register at Queensland’s upcoming housing crisis summit in an attempt to help remedy an imbalance of power between property owners and tenants. Tenants Queensland’s chief executive, Penny Carr, said a register could help keep rogue landlords honest while providing information about owners, including how many properties they own and where they live. Information about whether owners are renting out their properties on a short- or long-term basis – or had been leaving them vacant – could also be captured. The proposal has been backed as “reasonable and sensible” by some housing experts, but panned as an “unnecessary” invasion of privacy by the state’s real estate lobby.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/11/queenslan…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Scottish parliament passes emergency rent freeze legislation
Alex Turner Inside Housing (Paywall)The Scottish parliament has passed emergency legislation designed to protect tenants hit by the cost of living crisis that will freeze rents until at least the end of March 2023. ... The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) Bill was passed by the government in Scotland last week. It provides temporary powers to cap social and private rents, and introduces an eviction ban.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/scottish-parliament-pa…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Housing market.‘Stupidly expensive’: Sydney rents hit record highs
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Sydney tenants are facing record high house and unit rents as low rental vacancies drive up competition and prices for homes. House rents jumped $30 per week to a record median of $650 over the September quarter, new figures show, while unit rents increased $25 to $550 — returning to the record set in 2018, the Domain Rent Report for the September quarter, released on Thursday, shows. ... Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said renters were struggling to afford increasing rents and energy costs. Some were staying in poor quality homes, while others were pushed into homelessness and the level of renter distress was much higher than in the past. “[More] people are calling about things like “no grounds’ evictions and rent increases,” he said. “We’re getting calls ... from people facing a 20 or 30 per cent rent increase.” Patterson Ross said a lack of affordable, well-located homes was the fundamental issue, and called for all political parties to head to next year’s state election with solutions.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/stupidly-expensive-sydney-r…
# NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, Sydney.Government urged to halt ‘without cause’ evictions after Perth man’s Federal Court win
Hamish Hastie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The West Australian government is being urged to stop evictions of public housing tenants without reason, or risk a deluge of litigation following an injunction being granted in the Federal Court. After receiving a without grounds eviction notice in August, Noongar man John Abraham lodged a racial discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission. Also, rad Alice Pennycott's opinion piece entitled: 'WA Housing Authority should work to sustain tenancies, not fast-track evictions' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-housing-authority-should-work-to-sustain-tenancies-not-fast-track-evictions-20221006-p5bnsp.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/government-urged-to-halt-without…
# Legal significance Australia, Discrimination, Public and community housing, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Regional housing crisis solutions involve community partnerships, research finds
Kimberley Price and Fiona Parker ABC (No paywall)New research has identified a key to long-term affordable housing in regional Australia could be community partnerships to reflect each region's values. The University of Melbourne-supported report, An Intergenerational Visioning of Affordable Housing in a Regional Context, used the Murray River border towns of Echuca-Moama as a case study. Identifying tourism, population growth post-pandemic and increasing lease and house prices, Dr Jenny Weller-Newton completed a series of community consultations. High school students, people experiencing homelessness and older people identified possible housing solutions, including "the need for growing medium density developments and repurposing some buildings that could be developed into smaller apartments".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-11/regional-housing-crisis-s…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.