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 squeeze means hundreds of teenagers need housing support on Gold Coast
Dominic Cansdale ABC (No paywall)Hundreds of teenagers on the Gold Coast need housing support due to surging rental prices and only seven crisis beds being available, a welfare group has warned. Mission Australia says the situation could worsen without increases to federal rental assistance programs and the expansion of social housing. "They're couch surfing or they're just not in a stable, safe living environment and that's really because of affordability," Gold Coast program manager Darren Stockman said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-24/hundreds-of-gold-coast-te…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness, Young people.Rent prices continue to rise in NSW regional towns, pushing out locals
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Rapidly rising rents across regional NSW are pricing tenants out of their communities, with the cost of renting a home jumping by more than 20 per cent in some regions as locals struggle to compete against tree-changers moving in on Sydney wages.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/regional-rental-crisis-1096796/?u…
# NSW, Rent, Housing market, Regional NSW, Young people.‘We are very distressed’: Waverley aged care residents fear redevelopment plans
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Aged care residents in Sydney’s eastern suburbs are “full of fear” they will be left homeless by a redevelopment that opponents say will also block views of a historic mansion and lead to the bulldozing of century-old trees. ... Waverley councillor Elaine Keenan, from the Greens, has criticised the project, saying dozens of frail and elderly long-term residents had been asked to relocate. ... “We are very distressed and frightened about our precarious situation and the future,” the resident said in an email. “We feel unsafe, and full of fear at the prospect of homelessness.” The Uniting spokesman said residents were placed in nearby Uniting services or another provider following the closure of residential aged care at the site. Residents would not be relocated from independent living units for “some time”, he said. “We have not engaged residents under the [Retirement Villages] Act since announcing the redevelopment in 2017 and clearly advised residents who subsequently entered the village on rental agreements of our intention to redevelop the site.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/we-are-very-distressed-waver…
# NSW, Eviction, Rent, Health, Heritage listings, Homelessness, Housing market, Local Government, Older people, Planning and development.‘Everything on the table’: Premier says scare campaigns won’t stop housing reforms
Tim Barlass The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Premier Dominic Perrottet said authorities should “put everything on the table” to tackle housing affordability and booming prices, following a Herald report that revealed tougher borrowing limits would put ownership out of reach for many Australians.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/everything-on-the-table-prem…
# NSW, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Planning and development, Tax, Young people.Exploding the myth that increasing supply will fix Sydney’s soaring house prices
Nicole Gurrin The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Booming house prices and plummeting affordability are fuelling anxiety among Sydneysiders and bringing out the supply side “splainers”, who blame urban planning rules for high house prices because they prevent new housing supply. The idea has been around a long time. It’s stuck because it makes intuitive sense – simple supply and demand. We’re all familiar with the basics of supply and demand; when the supply of a product – such as bananas – goes down, prices go up, and vice versa. Of course, the housing market is different — in my household, when bananas are expensive, we switch to pears or mandarins, but we can’t as easily substitute our housing needs. Nor is there money to be made by hoarding fruit, unlike houses which have become financialised assets valued for their potential to grow wealth rather than places to live. Industry groups, politicians, and others ignore these differences and refuse to consider structural solutions to Australia’s housing problems. It’s easier to blame planning regulation and a lack of new supply.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/it-s-a-myth-that-increasing-supp…
# Hot topic NSW, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Housing policy is a failure for young and old
Don Edgar and Patricia Edgar Pearls and Irritations (No paywall)Blaming Baby Boomers for the housing crisis is a diversion. What we need is a complete rethink of our housing supply.
https://johnmenadue.com/housing-policy-is-a-failure-for-young-an…
# Australia, Families, Housing market, Older people, Young people.Airbnb registry in play but fire safety on back burner
Jimmy Thomson (No paywall)It has almost been forgotten during the great Covid exodus of foreign tourists, and the intermittent border closures in Australia, but NSW is about to impose its long-awaited compulsory registry of holiday rental homes.
# NSW, Short-term holiday letting.Homebuyers to need $200,000 a year in many suburbs if debt limits come in
Jennifer Duke and Elizabeth Redman The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Homebuyers will need to earn more than $200,000 a year to buy a mid-range house in more than 270 Sydney suburbs if tougher borrowing limits are introduced. ... More than 500 suburbs in Sydney would require a $100,000-a-year income to service an average mortgage, and in Melbourne the same applies to more than 300 suburbs. Check out the table entitled: 'Sydney house prices and income needed to purchase'.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/homebuyers-to-need-200-0…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.