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
How to get your bond back for a rental property
Jim Malo and Tawar Razaghi The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)A bond can be one of the biggest costs when moving into a new rental. It’s usually a month’s or four weeks’ rent paid by the tenant and held as security in case a tenant breaks the rental agreement. Returning the bond at the end of the tenancy isn’t always a smooth process – but there are steps renters can take to help make it so.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/how-to-get-your-bond-back-f…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media Australia, Bond.Population change and rents
Tenants' Union of NSW Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)This new dashboard examines the connections between population change, vacancy rates and real rent change. There are three sheets on the dashboard - Rent Vacancy and Migration, Linear Regression, and Greater Sydney and Regional NSW.
https://www.tenants.org.au/reports/population-change-and-rents
# Hot topic, Research alert NSW, Discrimination, Rent.Rent regulations are no silver bullet, but they would help make renting fairer
Dr Alistair Sisson The Conversation (No paywall)Virtually every week brings news of rising rents or a story of still more renters forced out of their homes by unmanageable rent increases. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says rents climbed 6.6% in the year to October. If you’re signing a new rent agreement the situation is worse, with landlords charging on average 8.6% more than they did a year ago, and far more – about 15% more than a year ago – in the hotpots of Sydney and Melbourne.
https://theconversation.com/rent-regulations-are-no-silver-bulle…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.As rents reach record highs, here's a capital city breakdown of the most affordable suburbs
Hanan Dervisevic ABC (No paywall)Australia's rental prices have reached a new record high, breaking through the median $600 a week barrier for the first time. The average household now needs to spend 31 per cent of its income to pay the median rent, up from 26.7 per cent in March 2020. With many households struggling to pay the rent, here's the latest data from CoreLogic that looks into the cheapest rental suburbs in each capital city.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-24/cheapest-rental-suburbs-e…
# Must read, Research alert Australia, Rent.Renters know they are the losers in Australia’s housing system, and as their anger rises, so will their protest vote
Emma Dawson The Guardian (No paywall)If you thought the fight over housing policy got ugly in 2023, hold on to your hats. Parliament isn’t back until next month but the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has already declared “until Labor backs the Greens’ push to freeze and cap rent rises and stop giving billions of dollars to wealthy property moguls, the housing crisis will just get worse”. Make no mistake, them’s fightin’ words.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/16/the-greens…
# Must read, Legal significance Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.‘A pretty grim picture’: Biggest expense for many households blows out
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Asking rents have risen at least twice as fast as wages in most capital cities since the pandemic hit, putting pressure on tenants facing a cost of living crisis. Wages have grown 10.6 per cent from the December quarter of 2019 to the September quarter of 2023, the most recent figures available from the ABS show.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/a-pretty-grim-picture-bigge…
# Hot topic Australia, Bond, Public and community housing, Rent.'It's a crisis' : Indigenous housing advocates argue for government intervention to alleviate Aboriginal homelessness
Dechlan Brennan National Indigenous Times (No paywall)Indigenous homelessness and a lack of adequate housing supply have been pushed to the forefront by Aboriginal Housing Victoria (AHV), with legislative changes, as well as more empty land being freed up for First Peoples some of the suggestions put forward in a recent submission to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
https://nit.com.au/19-01-2024/9373/its-a-crisis-indigenous-housi…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Rent.Landlord wins thousands in compensation after tenants 'abandoned' property over cockroaches
By Emily Power Domain (No paywall)A pair of Sydney tenants have been forced to pay their landlords $3000 for “abandoning” a rental property they found to have cockroaches. They were required to pay the sum for breaking the lease after only four days and ended up in the Civil and Administrative Tribunal of New South Wales. The renters were seeking the return of their $3000 bond and a holding deposit of $1000 they paid to secure the property, and the two landlords were after compensation.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/landlord-wins-thousands-in-compen…
# NSW, Bond, Repairs, Security and safety, Starting a tenancy, Tribunal NCAT, You want to leave.