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
Rental bidding: proposed reforms won’t keep a roof over renters’ heads
Cat Woods Law Society Journal (No paywall)Rental bidding occurs when prospective renters engaging in bidding offer an agent or a private landlord a higher amount than the advertised price for a rental property in an attempt to convince the landlord to approve their application. If other potential tenants realise what is happening – or they are invited by the agent or landlord to make higher offers – the agent or landlord may exploit this bidding process to extract the maximum rent for the landlord.
Also labelled a “rental auction”, rental bidding is not illegal in NSW, and difficult to regulate. It is a practice that lacks transparency, so that if it is occurring, rental applicants won’t necessarily be aware they have been in competition with their fellow tenants to bid for a particular property. They may simply be turned down without being given a reason. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to ascertain how prevalent the practice is in the real estate market.
https://lsj.com.au/articles/rental-bidding-proposed-reforms-wont…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media, Research alert NSW, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market.Lack of affordable housing is harming regional Australia, Anglicare chief says
Calla Wahlquist The Guardian (No paywall)The $40-a-fortnight boost to the jobseeker payment increases the number of affordable rentals across all of Australia from just four rooms in share houses to five.
That’s according to the Anglicare rental affordability snapshot, the Anglicare chief executive, Kasy Chambers, told the National Press Club on Tuesday. The 2023 snapshot, released before the federal budget last month, analysed 46,000 rental properties across Australia, based on whether rent would cost more than 30% of the household budget for various low-income households.
Chambers was speaking as part of a panel on housing affordability in regional Australia. She said when Anglicare began its rental affordability snapshot 10 years ago, there was a belief that regional areas were more affordable.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/16/lack-of-a…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, Affordable housing, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability.Why rental properties are more likely to be mouldy and what's needed to stop people getting sick
Rebecca Bentley, Nicola Willand and Tim Law ABC (No paywall)Rental properties are more likely to be mouldy than other homes. This is a concern as excessive mould growth is known to harm human health.
Once buildings are infested with mould, the difficult and costly issue of remediation arises. Landlords and tenants are caught in the middle of a tussle over who is responsible for fixing the problem. As one Melbourne renter and research participant told our colleague Maria Gatto, during a study validating mould reporting.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-16/why-rental-properties-are…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, Health, Housing affordability, Mould.So many young Australians like me will rent forever – it needs to be made livable and affordable
Ada Lester The Guardian (No paywall)Ihad more ambition to own property as a teenager than I do now. I am 24 years old and house prices in my home town, Hobart, have more than doubled in the past 10 years. Now I just dream about nice landlords.
In the 2023 budget, the government announced it would increase the maximum rate for those on the commonwealth rent assistance program by 15% (or up to $31 a fortnight), which is for people receiving government benefits such as full-time students, those on jobseeker, and pensioners. This is somewhat helpful for the thousands of people supported through these programs. But many renters are not.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/12/so-many-yo…
# Hot topic Australia, Housing affordability, Personal stories, Young people.Going halves: are shared equity schemes the answer in Australia’s pricey property market?
Jordyn Beazley The Guardian (No paywall)Sean and Beth McElhenny’s family of four recently bought a three-bedroom home in Sydney’s north – something they didn’t think they would be able to afford for more than a decade.
And instead of paying $6,800 a month in mortgage repayments the couple, who work as teachers, only pay half that amount.
The catch is, technically they only own half the house – the other half is owned by a nonprofit that they can buy out at any time.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/14/going-hal…
# Hot topic Australia, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.Four ways to bring down rent and build homes faster than Labor's $10 billion housing fund
Peter Martin ABC (No paywall)Treasurer Jim Chalmers is the first in decades to declare war on what he calls the "pain of rising rents".
His first budget, in October, and his second, this month, contained a suite of measures designed to stop rents going "through the roof". By far the biggest of those — the blockbuster — was a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund to finance social and affordable housing.
If you think the idea of building a fund rather than building houses sounds odd, you probably think the same way about the Medical Research Future Fund, the Future Drought Fund, the Disaster Ready Fund or the $250 billion Future Fund itself, which was set up to pay public service and defence pensions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-17/four-ways-reduce-rent-bui…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, Campaigns and law reform, Federal Government, Planning and development.Apartment blocks reserved for renters. Will build-to-rent help solve the housing crisis?
Edwina Storie SBS (No paywall)Imagine renting a flat where you have a three-year lease and aren't charged through the roof.
In the midst of a rental crisis, the idea of an apartment block designed entirely for renters, and that offers long(ish) leases, almost sounds utopian. But that's what build-to-rent ideally offers.
And it may be coming to a neighbourhood near you over the next few years. So why?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/will-build-to-rent-…
# Hot topic Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Queensland government to reform residential parks as peak body says they are taking advantage of pensioners with rent increases
Rachel Riga ABC (No paywall)The state government is considering implementing a rent cap in residential parks as the Queensland peak body for residents says people are experiencing housing stress due to unfair business practices.
The parks are usually marketed as living communities for people over 50 and as an affordable alternative to retirement villages where residents can buy their own home but rent the land from a park owner.
There are more than 200 residential parks across the state which contain more than 23,000 homes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-15/queensland-residential-pa…
# Hot topic Australia, Land lease communities, Housing affordability, Older people.