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
Australian rental crisis deepens as prices climb despite highest vacancy rate in years
Lydia Kellner realestate.com.au (No paywall)Australia’s rental market has offered a glimmer of hope for beleaguered tenants, with the number of vacant properties nationally reaching its highest level since February 2022. However, any celebrations may be premature, as the latest data reveals that despite easing conditions, rental prices continue their relentless climb, pushing affordability to breaking point for many. The latest realestate.com.au Market Insight Report shows the national rental vacancy rate nudged up by 0.19 percentage points over January to 1.48 per cent.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/australian-rental-crisis-deep…
# Australia, Rent.Homes Tasmania, social housing body, axed after failing to deliver on homes target
Josh Duggan ABC (No paywall)Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has admitted the state housing and homelessness authority Homes Tasmania "hasn't achieved what we'd like to have achieved", following news it will be restructured. In his State of the State address to Parliament yesterday, the premier announced that responsibility for building public housing will be brought back under state control, just over three and a half years after Homes Tasmania was created.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-04/homes-tasmania-axed-after…
# Australia, Public and community housing.Woman exposes common rental scam after refusing to pay deposit without lease
Belinda Palmada news.com.au (No paywall)A US renter has sparked an online debate after revealing the bizarre reason she refused to hand over a deposit for a new home. The woman claimed her future landlord refused to confirm she was, in fact, the owner of the property. The potential tenant explained in a Reddit post that she was introduced to a real estate agent during a house inspection. She claims the agent repeatedly referred to the landlord in the third person throughout the tour. The renter claims the agent, along with a second person sharing the same surname, was listed on the paperwork as the landlord.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/woman-exposes-common…
# Must read Australia, Starting a tenancy.‘Psychological torture’: Spanish tenants fight back against housing ‘harassment'
Ashifa Kassam The Guardian (No paywall)When the Madrid building where Jaime Oteyza had lived since 2012 was sold to an investment fund two years ago, a local tenants’ union swiftly warned him what to expect. First the tenants would be told that none of their rental contracts – regardless of their expiry date – would be renewed, the union said. Then, as the 50 or so families in the building grappled with what to do next, a series of construction projects would probably be launched in the building to ramp up pressure on them to leave.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/21/spanish-tenants-fi…
# Hot topic International, .The Research All Points in the Same Direction: Adding More Homes Curbs Rents for Low-Income Tenants
Eduardo Mendoza Metro Abundance (No paywall)The Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown Law made a surprising and contrarian argument in a new paper: adding more homes does not benefit low-income tenants. Three recent separate analyses of exactly this issue – by real estate economist , real estate economist , and also – all reached the opposite conclusion. They found that housing scarcity pushes up rents most for low-income tenants, but areas adding the most housing have seen rents drop, and those areas have seen rents drop most for low-income tenants.
https://www.metroabundance.org/adding-more-homes-curbs-rent/
# International, .Build Up Not Trickle Down: The Case for Need-Led Housing Policy
Sam Bloomer, Dr. Charlie Berry, Charlie Trew Shelter UK (No paywall)This paper sets out why a ‘trickle down’ approach to housing policy – prioritising private supply at the expense of social housing – cannot fix the affordability crisis and will fail to end the housing emergency. That’s why the government must adopt a need-led development model that delivers genuinely affordable social homes so that everyone has a safe, affordable and secure place to call home.
https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/policy_and…
# Hot topic, Research alert International, .The billionaire philanthropist making hundreds of Londoners homeless
Polly Smythe and Jim Waterson London Centric (No paywall)Thousands of people cheered this week as Sadiq Khan joined the family of billionaire landlord Asif Aziz to switch on the capital’s Ramadan lights in the heart of the West End. Aziz’s charitable foundation, which received widespread plaudits for funding the display, said it held the event to celebrate the “coexistence and community spirit that make this city so incredible”. What those attending the ceremony didn’t know was that the Aziz family were, at the same time they were publicly praising London’s community values, secretly embarking on “one of the worst mass evictions in our capital’s recent history”.
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-mass-eviction-billio…
# International, Eviction.Minnesota tenants union urges renters not to pay rent amid ICE surge
CBS News (No paywall)Despite the White House saying Operation Metro Surge is over, the impact is still hitting home, with the University of Minnesota estimating people owe tens of millions of dollars in rent.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/video/minnesota-tenants-union-…
# Hot topic, Video International, .