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
Developer quietly guts ‘affordable’ housing promise in northern suburbs
Rachael Dexter The Age (No paywall)A developer that branded itself the ethical alternative to a profit-driven industry is moving to slash affordable housing quotas at two major Melbourne projects – two years after the state government granted it controversial height concessions. The developer, Assemble Communities, has applied to the state government to water down the “affordable” components it promised at new builds in Brunswick and Coburg, just months before construction finishes. Under its proposal, the developer would ditch its signature “Build-to-Rent-to-Own” model at the projects, in Victoria Street, Brunswick and Sydney Road, Coburg. Together the projects contain 622 apartments.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/developer-quietly-gu…
# Australia, .In Defense of Public Housing
Elizabeth Korver-Glenn Substack (No paywall)In what will shock exactly zero of you who are reading this, the United States is in the middle of an alarming housing affordability crisis. Skyrocketing home values, which have been created by humans (e.g., residential appraisers), federal housing policy (especially during the COVID-19 crisis), and stagnant wages, have helped cause this situation. Staggeringly: Low-income families now pay approximately 64 percent of their incomes to landlords. Sixty. Four. Percent. Meanwhile, pundits, think-tanks, politicians, and academics (who should know better) continue to push for lower mortgage interest rates, continued deregulation of the construction industry, and more homeownership.
https://profkorverglenn.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-public-hous…
# International, Public and community housing.Why are British estate agents so weird online?
Emma Beddington The Guardian (No paywall)I’m not proud to admit that I love property as entertainment, especially smooth-brained “reality” shows in which peptide-plumped, pilates-honed NYC Amazons in towering Louboutins scrap over commission on Upper West Side condos. It’s a world where make-believe sums of money are bandied around, drama is manufactured, people say “I’m super excited” without any part of their preternaturally glossy faces moving and every surface is Carrara marble. I’m never more at peace than when I’m slumped under a crisp-strewn blanket, muttering “that’s hideous” at a $26m (£19m) penthouse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/why-are-br…
# International, .Billionaire halts mass eviction after London Centric investigation
Jim Waterson, Polly Smythe and Cormac Kehoe London Centric (No paywall)Hundreds of Londoners will be allowed to remain in their homes after London Centric uncovered a plan to carry out “one of the worst mass evictions in our capital’s recent history” by a company controlled by billionaire landlord Asif Aziz. Aziz’s Criterion Capital appears to have halted the mass eviction amid political pressure from Sadiq Khan, after we revealed the company’s intention to make vast numbers of private tenants homeless just before renters gain new rights at the start of May.
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-halts-mass-eviction-…
# International, Eviction.Landlord rented out sheds to ‘desperate people’ - tribunal ruled she was maximising rent
Stuff (No paywall)A landlord who claimed she was helping desperate people by renting them unlawful sheds and shipping containers for housing has been ordered to pay $29,216 in damages and rent refunds. The Tenancy Tribunal found Canterbury landlord Madeleine Fee deliberately breached the Residential Tenancies Act across four separate tenancies while maximising rental income from unlawful residential premises. The tribunal found Fee failed to comply with the Healthy Homes Standards, breached obligations relating to smoke alarms and building health and safety, and did not lodge her tenants’ bonds within the required timeframe.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360946085/landlord-rented-out-sh…
# International, .The infuriating reality of what happens when governments stop building non-market housing
Tim Williams The Fifth Estate (No paywall)If current international trends persist, we will shortly be planning for cities with declining populations not rising, globally. In China, Japan and Korea the norm has become one child per family which of course is less than half the replacement rate. Western societies have sunk well below the replacement rate of 2.1 and have been encouraging in-migration to compensate. Of course, such migrants themselves will in due course be coming from societies where population growth has peaked. So, we really are, soon if not now beginning on a different long term demographic trajectory across most of the world.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/the-infuriating-r…
# International, .In California, About the Only Way to Get a House Is to Inherit One
Nicole Friedman and Veronica Dagher The Wall Street Journal (Paywall)Inheritance is one of the last reliable ways for younger Californians to own their first home. About 18% of all property transfers in the state last year, representing nearly 60,000 homes, were made through inheritance, according to a recent analysis by real-estate data firm Cotality. That share is a record for California in data going back to 1995, up from 12% in 2019. It is also roughly double the national share of 8.8% last year. Cheryl Norris, a 76-year-old who works as an independent antique dealer, has owned a pair of homes in Northern California for decades.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/in-california-about-the-only…
# International, .‘I charge my adult kids £300 a month to live with me’: how families share costs
Alice Kantor The Guardian (No paywall)When her 27-year- old son and 24-year-old daughter moved back home, Tricia Carter decided to ask them to pay rent. The 63-year-old, who lives in south London, charges them £300 each a month to cover bills including electricity and groceries. She has a comfortable income, but their contributions help to keep the books balanced. The money is also a way to make her children aware of the financial burden of living somewhere, she says.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/feb/28/charge-adult-kids-…
# International, Rent.