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
Landlord with $28 million property portfolio fumes over new rental rule: 'This is my house'
Tamika Seeto Yahoo News (No paywall)An Aussie landlord has been left "absolutely fuming" over new rental rules, but his criticism hasn't gone down well with everyone. As part of the ban on no-grounds evictions, the NSW government has introduced re-letting exclusion periods designed to stop landlords from gaming the system. Drew Evans owns more than 10 investment properties but said he only found out about the re-letting rules when he recently went to sell. Under the new laws, if a tenant is evicted because a landlord wants to sell the property, the landlord cannot then re-let their property for six months.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/landlord-with-28-million-prope…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, .Barely half of Victoria’s rentals are meeting minimum standards
Caroline Zielinski The Age (No paywall)Barely half of Victorian rental properties meet minimum standards, new research shows, despite a Victorian government push to improve conditions for renters. More than 11,000 rental housing audits – about 2 per cent of Victoria’s rental stock – were conducted by a private, third-party auditing and consulting business, Property Compliance Victoria, to help rental providers understand their obligations, before being analysed by a La Trobe University report, the first of its kind. The audits took place between March 2021 and May 2024.
https://www.theage.com.au/property/news/barely-half-of-victoria-…
# Australia, .NYC mayor puts landlords on notice with ‘aggressive’ crackdown
Ben Graham news.com.au (No paywall)New York’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani put bad landlords on notice, pledging to help “transfer ownership” of chronically neglected buildings to tenants as part of his sprawling, new housing plan.
The 34-year-old social media sensation became New York City’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor after a landslide victory last year, on a platform of making the city more liveable and affordable. Just like Australia, a cost of living and a housing crisis have emerged as potent political issues in the Big Apple. Apartment rentals in Manhattan topped US$5000 ($7000) a month for the first time in April as vacancy rates tumbled to six-year lows, according to US real estate firm Corcoran.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/nyc-mayor-puts-landl…
# International, .‘Everyone was in tears’: the tenants given eviction notices just before ban in England
Jessica Murray and Nicola Slawson The Guardian (No paywall)It was 2pm on 30 April when Carl Kansinde Middleton received a “no fault” eviction from his landlord in Brighton – just 10 hours before section 21 notices were officially banned under the Renters’ Right Act. “As we were getting closer, I really thought I was safe,” he said. “It just never occurred to me that it would just come right on the last day – I truly felt blindsided. “I lost my job in November and it’s been a struggle for me financially as I have no support system. I was just about treading water but this has swept me under. I haven’t found a place yet. Honestly I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/10/tenants-no-fault…
# International, Eviction, Rent.Almost half of private renters faced rule-breaking letting agents
Albert Toth The Independent (No paywall)Millions of private renters across the UK are regularly subjected to unfair or unlawful behaviour by letting agents, a new report from Citizens Advice has warned. A new report from the national charity finds that there is a “rock-bottom” culture amongst these agents – which manage private tenancies on behalf of landlords – with non-compliance threatening to undermine Labour’s landmark rental reforms.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/letting-agent-ru…
# International, .'A ban on no-fault evictions began on 1 May - we were told to leave two days before it came in'
Olivia Richwald BBC (No paywall)A mother of four children has said she fears her family could end up homeless after their landlords served them a "no-fault" eviction notice just two days before a government ban on the practice came into force. Lindsey Reeves, 42, is a tenant of the Holy Trinity Properties Trust, which funds the religious work of a church in their home city of Ripon, North Yorkshire. Section 21 evictions - when a landlord does not have to provide a reason for their actions - were outlawed under the new Renters' Rights Act from 1 May.
# International, Eviction.Renting has its downsides, but I’ve decided to stop waiting and start living – plants, garden furniture and all
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett The Guardian (No paywall)
Renting has its downsides, but I’ve decided to stop waiting and start living – plants, garden furniture and all
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Yes, I could worry about all the money I’ve ‘thrown away’ but, like my fellow renter the Princess of Wales, I’m digging in
Sun 24 May 2026 19.00 AEST
Share
222
It was cheering to read that William and Kate’s new lease for Forest Lodge in Windsor stipulates that they must keep the grounds “clean and tidy” and “free from weeds”. Solidarity, comrades! How relatable. For I too am a renter, and know how it feels to live under the landlord’s cosh. My own tenancy agreement says something similar. Not that the landlords have ever enforced it. They take what I might euphemistically call a “hands-off” approach, which I acknowledge is preferable to the alternative.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/24/renting-st…
# International, .Americans are moving less, staying closer to home amid high housing costs: BofA report
Cory Smith ABC 45 (No paywall)Americans aren't moving as much these days, and they're more likely to stick to their current cities if they do change addresses, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. The number of people who moved continued to decline in the first quarter, Bank of America aggregated account data showed. But local moves haven’t dropped as much as moves between cities or states. Over the past couple of years, moves within the same city declined by just 4%, compared to an 11% drop in moves to a different city or state.
https://abc45.com/news/nation-world/americans-are-moving-less-st…
# International, .