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
Average monthly rent outside London now more than £1,000, says agency
Rupert Jones The Guardian (No paywall)The average new monthly rent outside London has passed £1,000 for the first time, figures show, with tenants in Great Britain now typically paying 25% more than they were at the start of the Covid pandemic.
The estate agent Hamptons, which issued the data, warned that the rate of rent rises was “unlikely to slow considerably due to the number of landlords looking to pass on their rising costs” and this may force some tenants to downsize or relocate to a cheaper area.
Many landlords with buy-to-let mortgages have seen their costs rise sharply after 12 consecutive interest rate rises and the chaos of last autumn’s Truss government mini-budget.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/may/15/rent-outside-londo…
# Hot topic International, Housing affordability, Housing market, International.How to tackle affordable housing? This Hawaii nonprofit wants to start a movement
Emily Cristobal Hawaii News Now (No paywall)It’s a turn of phrase that has almost become synonymous with living in Hawaii.
The cost of living — from housing, groceries, gas and more — is causing droves of locals and Native Hawaiians to leave the place they grew up and where their ancestors are from.
While there are lots of advocates who have been working on creating affordable housing for decades, there’s a group that believes the key to solving this crisis lies in Hawaii’s next generation.
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/05/11/amid-housing-exodus-loc…
# Hot topic International, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability, International.Anarchist squatters in Spain post video in masks demanding to ‘hand over the keys to all properties’
Imran Khan EuroWeekly (No paywall)The Bonanova squatters have demanded SAREB to stop the eviction while describing themselves as ‘the anarchist resistance of the bourgeois heart of Barcelona’.
La Ruina in Barcelona, which is a social centre that has been taken over by squatters in Plaça Bonanova, has published a video on Twitter, with two of its members making several demands.
https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/05/11/anarchist-squatters-in-spa…
# Hot topic International, Housing affordability, International, Squatting.‘Pouring fuel on the fire’: fear NSW’s move to ban secret rental bidding will drive prices up
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)Already struggling renters could be subjected to “rental auctions” that would push soaring prices even higher if the New South Wales government’s reform package is passed, experts say.
While moves towards a portable bonds scheme have been welcomed, the plan to end “secret” rent bidding has caused alarm among tenants advocates who say the measure designed to protect the state’s 2 million renters would cause problems.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/pouring-f…
# Must read, Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability, State Government.'Exhausted' low-income earners finding fewer ways to cut back look to budget for cost-of-living relief
Norman Hermant and Mary Lloyd ABC (No paywall)Martin Bongiorno has been a careful budgeter for many years.
He knows how to hunt a bargain and only buys the groceries he absolutely needs.
The single dad sets aside $15 a day for food and $20 a week for his energy bill.
That doesn't leave him with much once he pays rent.
So when his rent increased by $40 a fortnight, he cut back on the only other things he could: food and power.
"It's ... a constant trade-off," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-07/cost-of-living-low-income…
# Hot topic NSW, Families, Personal stories, Welfare.'I’m taking my landlord to tribunal for upping our rent by $350 a week.'
Chantelle Schmidt Mama Mia (No paywall)It’s not the best time to be a tenant — if you haven’t received a rent increase already, you’re probably nervous that you will.
Earlier this year, my nerves turned into reality when I received an email from my property manager (on a Friday afternoon at 5.07pm, no less). We’d reported a smell in the house just four days earlier.
“Notice of rental increase” was the subject line. I cracked my neck to each side and took a deep breath in preparation, opening it with the hopes it wouldn’t be anything too wild.
Investor beats young couple for $1.4m fixer-upper in Sydney’s most advantaged suburb
Carmen Forward Domain (No paywall)A dilapidated three-bedder in Sydney’s most advantaged postcode sold for $1,416,000 at auction on Saturday.
The narrow house at 43 Prospect Street had been in the same family for three generations, with little to no building works completed during the past 105 years, and included an eggshell blue bedroom, courtyard with plenty of potential and kitchen ready for a revamp.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/investor-beats-young-couple…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Young couple drop $5.75 million on Coogee fixer-upper
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)A young couple dropped $5.75 million on a four-bedroom, fixer-upper in Coogee, just a short walk from Coogee Beach.
They were one of four buyers – all young home owners – registered to bid on the tightly held home at 8 Arcadia Street, which was initially guided at $4.6 million but revised up to $5 million after a pre-auction offer of the same amount.
The run-down home, with much of the original features intact, was on the market for the first time in 43 years. It last sold in 1980 for $160,000.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/young-couple-drops-5-75-mil…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market, Sydney.