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
Regional housing market booms, outpacing capital cities
Michael West Media (No paywall)With the prospect of paying at least $1 million for a home in many of Australia’s capital cities, buyers are once again looking to escape to the country. The regional property market surged in the three months to January, outpacing the capitals, according to figures from data firm Cotality released on Wednesday. Dwelling values rose 3.2 per cent for the quarter in regional areas, compared to 2.1 per cent in the combined capitals. Competitive market conditions in the cities, poor housing affordability and a boost in internal migration sent buyers packing for the country long after COVID-19 lockdowns sparked the initial migration trend.
https://michaelwest.com.au/regional-housing-market-booms-outpaci…
# Australia, .Massachusetts Weighs Return of Rent Control, Dividing Top Democrats
Jared Mitovich The Wall Street Journal (Paywall)BOSTON—A fight is heating up in Massachusetts over what could become one of the nation’s strictest rent-control measures. A group of housing advocates and labor unions want to stop landlords from raising rents by more than the states annual rte of inflation - but no higher than 5% a year.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/massachusetts-weighs-return-of-r…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Affordable housing so good that architects want to live there too
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Dan Szwaj is greeted with tears of joy. He is not a technician finally arriving to reconnect the internet, or a plumber coming to unblock the loo. He is the architect of the Boronia apartments in the Danks Street precinct in Waterloo, who took the “stigma out” of affordable housing for a new tenant, 57-year-old Carrie-Anne Huddleston. After losing a well-paid corporate job a few years ago, Huddleston’s life unravelled. She was priced out of her home when she was hit with a $600 a month hike in rent. Like many older single women without a partner with an income, she stayed with friends and couch-surfed, initially reluctant to try affordable housing because she had grown up in public housing in Woolloomooloo.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/affordable-housing-so-good-t…
# Australia, .Melbourne rent relief arrives as double bonds scrapped
Beat (No paywall)Melbourne rent bonds can be transferred between properties from 2026, removing the need to pay double. Melbourne rent pressures will ease with portable rental bonds launching next year, allowing eligible renters to transfer existing bonds directly to new properties. Victorian government’s new Portable Rental Bonds scheme passed parliament, removing the financial burden of paying a second bond before the first one is refunded.
https://beat.com.au/melbourne-rent-relief-arrives-as-double-bond…
# Australia, Bond.Legal experts slam NT government plan to strip tenants of right to be heard
Giovanni Torre National Indigenous Times (No paywall)NT Housing Minister Steve Edgington's plan to remove the right for tenants to have a say in the determination of rents is a "disingenuous" response to the High Court's December ruling, and undermines the Closing the Gap goal of shared decision-making, legal experts say. In December 2025, the High Court deemed the Remote Rent Framework unlawful, primarily on the basis of the NT Government's failure to consult communities impacted by the model. On Wednesday, Minister Edgington introduced an amendment to the Territory's Housing Act that removes the right for communities impacted by a new model to be meaningfully consulted.
https://nit.com.au/04-02-2026/22490/legal-experts-slam-nt-govern…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters.‘16 years later, I’m not unhappy’: the rise of Britain’s multigenerational flatmates
Jessica Murray The Guardian (No paywall)When Nicola Whyte first moved into a four-bedroom house share in Balham 16 years ago, she never imagined she would still be living there at 45. But with rents soaring, and ongoing challenges in saving up for a house deposit, she has ended up as a housemate far longer than she anticipated. “I didn’t think I was going to be here 16 years later, but I’m not unhappy,” she said. “My friends sometimes think I’m a bit weird, they ask me how I can still do it. But I really enjoy it. The rent is really reasonable, it’s close to work and I think it gives you a deeper understanding of people.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/08/rise-britain-mul…
# International, Rent, Share houses.AI Data Centers are Sending Power Bills Soaring
Josh Saul, Leonado Nicoletti, Demetrios Pogkas, Dina Bass and Naureen Malik Bloomberg (No paywall)Data centres are proliferating in Virginia and a. Blind man in Baltimore is suddenly contending with sharply higher power bills. The Maryland city is well over an hours drive from the northern Virginia region known as Data Center Alley. But Kevin Stanley, a 57 year old who survives on disability payments, say his energy bills are about 80% higher than they were about three years ago. “They’re going up and up,” he said. “You wonder, ‘What is your breaking point?’”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electric…
# Hot topic International, Utilities water energy internet.Rent controls are coming to the UK - but they're not a guaranteed win for tenants
Tarah Welsh BBC (No paywall)When Emily Gant moved to Berlin in 2023, she was warned how difficult it would be to secure somewhere to live. "You'll find a job in a month," a friend told Emily, who works at a marketing agency. "But it might take one or two years to find an apartment." Emily, 35, who is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, thought her friend was joking, but quickly realised "how competitive and how scarce the apartments are". After three months of searching, she eventually found a room in a shared apartment in Schöneberg-Wilmersdorf in the city's south-west for €800 (£692) a month - relatively modest compared with, say, New York or London.
# International, .