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 auctions are forcing potential tenants to outbid competitors to secure properties. And they’re on the rise
Matthew Quagliotto (No paywall)One of the sad side effects of Australia’s ongoing rental crisis is being played out at home inspections and the subsequent desperate phone calls and messages to landlords and real estate agencies in cities such as Sydney and Perth every weekend. In those calls, prospective renters are increasingly offering to pay above the advertised rental rate in the frenzied competition to secure a property. And in many cases they will lose out to fellow home-hunters employing exactly the same strategy but digging deeper into their pockets. ... It’s called rent-bidding and it’s continuing to increase in an environment where, in certain states, the regulatory bodies are unable to keep up with the anxiety of prospective tenants and property investors’ eagerness to make the most of a red-hot market. “There is a generally accepted principle of fair market value being the price that willing but not anxious participants in a deal would make,” Tenants Union of NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross says. “Faced with homelessness, many tenants are extremely anxious about their ability to find a home.” (7 News)
https://7news.com.au/business/housing-market/rental-auctions-are…
# TUNSW in the media, Video Australia, Rent, Housing market.Minns vows to scrap Perrottet’s stamp duty reforms if elected
Tom Rabe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)NSW opposition leader Chris Minns has vowed to abolish the Perrottet government’s stamp duty reforms if he wins the next election, though first homebuyers who opt in to the new land tax before it’s scrapped won’t be forced back into the old system. The government’s reforms will be debated in the upper house in November, but Minns said even if it passed parliament, the laws wouldn’t live long if Labor won the 2023 election.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/minns-vows-to-scrap-perrotte…
# NSW, Home ownership, Tax.London mayor calls for government-funded rebate to freeze rent for social tenants and shared owners
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)The mayor of London has called on the government to introduce a rebate to freeze rents for the capital’s 292,000 social housing tenants and shared owners. Sadiq Khan said the rebate – a partial refund that would equate to a rent freeze for tenants – could be fully funded by housing benefit savings ministers are already planning to make from limiting rent increases in the social sector.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-mayor-calls-for…
# International, Public and community housing.The rise in rough sleeping and the refugee crisis underline the need for investment in new social housing
David Bogle Inside Housing (Paywall)What is the sense, David Bogle asks, in spending huge amounts of taxpayers’ money apparently indefinitely on disused airports, expensive hotel rooms and poor temporary private sector housing when the money could be invested in building and acquiring permanent, secure and well-managed social housing?
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/the-rise-in-roug…
# International, Public and community housing, Homelessness.Interest rates have gone up again, pushing some Australian mortgage borrowers beyond their 'stress test' limits
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)When the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 2.85 per cent this month, it pushed some mortgage borrowers to their "stress test" limits. What does this mean?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-02/mortgage-borrowers-pushed…
# Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market.Why the inflation that is causing rate rises matters for Aussie renters
Emily Power Domain (No paywall)Although mortgage holders are feeling lashed, tenants are also suffering the consequences of growing inflation, which sits at its highest point in 30 years and is expected to increase before the year's end, a Finder industry survey revealed. ... Tenants' Union of NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross said it was crucial that housing was seen as an essential service. He said it was not the union's view that interest rate rises - and subsequent mortgage costs - are to blame for expensive rents, because of incentives including negative gearing, and historic patterns of high rental charges when interest rates have fallen. He said supply and demand is the nub of the issue.
https://www.nine.com.au/property/news/why-the-inflation-that-is-…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, Housing market.First home buyer Brianna Lewis moved state, stopped her studies, all so she could buy a house
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)Just to get into the housing market in a regional Australian city, 30-year-old Brianna Lewis faced a series of life-changing decisions. First, she moved away from her hometown of Newcastle to take on a job at an architectural firm in Launceston in northern Tasmania. "I had basically given up on the idea of ever owning a home in Newcastle. I'm a single woman on a part-time wage and still studying, so I realised it wasn't going to happen in the next 10 years," Ms Lewis said. After working in Launceston for 12 months, she became eligible for the Tasmanian government's MyHome 30-year shared equity program, providing 30 per cent of the purchase price and a stake in any property price increase. She was desperate to get her foot in the door, but even with this program, it was almost impossible.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-02/interest-rates-reducing-b…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Women, Work, employment.Queensland lost 20,000 rentals. It’s still unclear where many went
Matt Dennien The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)“Cannot be explained by available data.” This was the early answer to why about 20,000 rental homes that should have been available across Queensland were not.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/queensland-lost-20-00…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.