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
‘That’s a crazy amount of floor area’: Top architect on boom in big homes
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Australians have been urged to build smaller homes, opting for what they need instead of what they can get, by the incoming president of the Australian Institute of Architects Shannon Battisson. Australian and American homes are now the biggest on earth: the average floor space of the average new freestanding single family home in both countries now averages 229 square metres.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/that-s-a-crazy…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Digital mortgage battle to erupt as fintechs eye home loans
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As more of Generation Y enters prime home-buying age, it is sparking a new wave of fintech competition in the most lucrative business in Australian banking: mortgages.
For years, banking giants have warned of the threat from technology-based rivals, and much of this has initially focused on payments and consumer credit, such as Afterpay, or Apple’s digital wallet. Now, banks are gearing up for a digital battle in the $1.9 trillion home loan market, as new players eye off tech-savvy younger customers seeking to buy a home.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/digital-mort…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Why do the super-rich treat affordable housing in the Bronx as a lucrative asset class?
Annia Ciezadlo The Guardian (No paywall)In New York, some things never change. If you die in a fire, it’s always your fault. When a fire started in a heater and ripped down the hallway of an apartment building in December 1998, killing four people in a blast of heat and smoke, city officials framed the fire as a tragedy that could have been avoided if people had only remembered to close their doors. “People should close the door behind them when leaving a [burning] apartment,” said then-fire chief Daniel Nigro – now the city’s fire commissioner. ... When a space heater torched a Bronx apartment building on 9 January and killed 17 people, making it the city’s deadliest fire in decades, New York’s brand-new mayor Eric Adams knew exactly what to say: “Close the door, close the door,” said Adams on Monday, the day after the fire. ... Landlords run this town. They always have, and perhaps they always will. So it should come as no surprise that one of Twin Parks’ investors, Rick Gropper, is on the new mayor’s transition team – for housing, no less. [Read on]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/14/the-bronx-…
# International, Affordable housing.Zoned out: how land use restrictions divide the nation
Peter Tulip Pearls and Irritations (No paywall)Housing policies ensure continual wealth gains for current home owners while leaving renters and potential buyers locked out of the market. Housing policy is a battle between the haves and the have-nots. The haves are the current generation of wealthy home owners. They have enjoyed large capital gains over the past few decades and are sitting on property worth hundreds of thousands – often millions – of dollars. They support the policies that have delivered these windfalls. The have-nots are renters and future generations of potential home owners. These groups are disproportionately young and on lower incomes. ... there are large positive externalities from urban density – it boosts wages, promotes technological progress and reduces carbon emissions. For both equity and efficiency reasons, we should be encouraging higher density housing instead of stopping it.
https://johnmenadue.com/zoned-out-how-land-use-restrictions-divi…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Planning and development.The Real Story Of Mortgage Stress
Martin North (No paywall)This is material drawn from several recent shows on this and other channels, explaining mortgage and household stress and what is happening in the current environment – with data to December 2021 and beyond. (Digital Finance Analytics Blog)
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/the-real-story-of-mortg…
# Video Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.More than 7000 COVID-19 cases in aged care as hundreds of homes locked down
Lucy Carroll The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)More than 1100 aged care homes across Australia are battling COVID-19 outbreaks, with 7014 active cases in residents and aged care workers. Federal health department data released on Friday night shows the number of facilities with coronavirus outbreaks has more than doubled in a week, an increase from 495 reported on January 8. The spike in infections comes as aged care advocates this week called for mandated visitor policies to be introduced, with thousands of residents plunged into ongoing lockdowns and the sector facing severe staffing shortages.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/more-than-7000-covid-19-cases-in…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people, Welfare.A Portland land value tax would improve equity for homeowners, incentivize development
Katy Swordfisk (No paywall)From the United States ... Shifting Oregon’s property tax structure to a land-value tax base could improve equity among homeowners of various income levels, according to a study conducted by Portland State University's Northwest Economic Research Center (NERC).
https://www.pdx.edu/news/psu-study-portland-land-value-tax-would…
# Research alert International, Housing market, Tax.Landlords, Tenant Lawyers Clash Over Underfunded Rent Relief
Suzannah Cavanaugh (Paywall)From the United States, landlord group accuses Legal Aid Society of “encouraging fraud” by advising tenants to shield themselves from eviction by applying for rent relief. (The Real Deal New York)
https://therealdeal.com/2022/01/14/landlords-tenant-lawyers-clas…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Landlords and agents.