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
At different ends of the country, these aged care homes in the Northern Territory and Tasmania share a common trait: they're small
Annah Fromberg, Laetitia Lemke and Ros Lehman ABC (No paywall)"Holiday home" is not often how aged care facilities are described.But that's how 95-year-old Hannah Kirk views her nursing home in northern Tasmania. "That's what I call it … it's like a holiday home I'm living in and honestly it is, I have never seen as good a place," she said. ... Resident numbers at the privately run facility are capped at 33 — about half the size of most others — and Mrs Kirk enjoys the close connections she says come from the smaller setting. ... Thousands of kilometres away in the Northern Territory, family and cultural connections are paramount. On the shores of a bay more than 500 kilometres from Darwin, a 10-bed facility is catering for a community of about 2,300 people. ... Run by the Mala'la Health Service Aboriginal Corporation, the Maningrida centre also supports dozens of others in the community on home care packages. It's a model staff and residents believe could benefit other remote communities.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-26/northern-territory-tasman…
# Australia, Housing market, Older people, Race and ethnicity.City of Sydney: Councillors unanimously support a new Women’s Refuge in the inner-city
Daniel Lo Surdo (No paywall)City of Sydney Councillors have unanimously supported a motion that will increase services to communities affected by Family Violence. The motion, which sets to establish a publicly-funded Women’s Refuge in the City of Sydney Local Government Area (LGA), was moved by Councillor Kerryn Phelps in direct response to the rising Domestic Violence rates in the past three months. (City Hub)
https://cityhubsydney.com.au/2021/09/city-of-sydney-unanimously-…
# NSW, Domestic violence, Families, Housing market, Women.Evergrande collapse exposes lost world a lightning-fast economy left behind
Eryk Bagshaw The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When the villagers left the Shengsi Islands in the early 1990s, China’s property market was at the start of a boom that would last until this year. The old villages were giving way to the towering blocks of concrete that would become synonymous with the country’s rapid economic rise. ... The migration away from Shengsi left the abandoned town of Houtouwan in its wake. It once had a population of 3000 but now ivy grows up through the streets and into the rooms of the houses that remain. ... Millions of families piled their life savings into apartment towers stacked 12 blocks wide and 20 storeys high as the country opened up and investment flowed in during the 1990s and 2000s. ... The runaway growth was not sustainable. The bubble burst when the Chinese government stepped in last year, tightening regulations on lending. Now, dozens more abandoned towns lie on the Chinese mainland. Few are as scenic as Houtouwan.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/evergrande-collapse-exposes-lo…
# International, Housing market.Castles for sale – in pictures
Anna White The Guardian (No paywall)From a 40-room baronial-style fortress in Scotland to a castellated gatehouse in Gloucestershire
https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2021/sep/24/homes-for-…
# International, Housing market.‘Better ugly than boring’: book celebrates bizarre Belgian houses
Jennifer Rankin The Guardian (No paywall)Ever since he was a child, Hannes Coudenys had been annoyed by the “visual chaos” around him. On the road from home to his school in Bruges, he found a mishmash of architectural styles – haciendas, villas, farm-style houses, all mixed up with boxy malls and carpet shops. One day, as an adult, still exasperated, he took a photo of a house that was split into two jarringly different styles: a grey urban semi whose other half was a jaunty brick cottage. He put the photo online with the title “ugly Belgian houses” and an internet trend was born. Ugly Belgian Houses became a blog, then a book. Last month, a decade since posting that first photo, a second edition came out: More Ugly Belgian Houses.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/ugly-belgian-house…
# History International, Housing market.That howl of despair is the sound of housing dreams being dashed
Greg Jericho The Guardian (No paywall)Australian government policies are designed to ensure property owners’ wealth. Affordability be damned ... Oh yes, hear the cry of anguish made from those born after 1980 when they read the headline of the Australian Bureau of Statistics media release announcing the latest household wealth figures: “Record house prices continue to drive household wealth.” ... Well, isn’t that nice.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/sep/26/t…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.CBA boss ‘increasingly concerned’ with rising property prices
Charlotte Grieve The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s chief executive Matt Comyn says he is increasingly concerned with rising house prices and household debt levels and has called for action to be taken sooner rather than later to stop the property market from overheating.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/cba-boss-inc…
# Australia, Housing market.Are new borrowing rules on the horizon? / "Factually inaccurate" mortgage applications
Emma Koehn and Colin Kruger The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Report at 1.42pm .... Jarden chief economist Carlos Cacho believes Australia could see macroprudential tightening next year in the face of our hot housing market - but new limits on home borrowers may not hit until mid to late next year, after the federal election.
Another report at 1.42pm ... As mortgage deferrals rocket in the wake of the latest lockdowns in NSW and Victoria it might be time to look at the quality of the loans the big banks have been signing up in what has been boom conditions for them. The latest UBS evidence lab on Australian mortgages reports that “factually inaccurate” mortgage applications have hit a record high.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-to-rise-on-clear-out…
# Australia, Housing market.