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
We’re back to record property price growth, so what’s being done about it?
David Taylor ABC (No paywall)Australian homeowners are hocked up to the eyeballs, the federal Treasury says. "The house-price-to-income ratio has indeed risen, Treasury's director of the domestic demand, Crystal Ossolinski, told a parliamentary economics committee. "Back in the early 1990s, you were looking at 2.5 times, and now you're looking at just over six [times]." What that means simply is that Australians are borrowing amounts of money many more times their annual income, which is fuelling property price rises.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-15/house-prices-grow-what-is…
# Australia, Homelessness, Housing market.Planning alone will not fix Sydney’s housing affordability crisis
Rob Stokes The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Federal Parliament’s inquiry into housing affordability and supply may well find some new insights, and I hope it does. But I’m sceptical it will find solutions not already found in the Henry Tax Review of 2010, the Productivity Commission’s inquiry of 2004, or the Prime Minister’s Home Ownership Taskforce of 2003, among other much-vaunted inquiries. All of these included recommendations – never taken up by the government of the day – which recognised the Commonwealth policy settings could have a substantial effect on affordable home ownership.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/planning-alone-will-not-fix-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, State Government, Tax.The great shed revival: why thousands are finding solace in the backyard shack
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Every day, marketing company boss Kate Toon used to commute for four hours from the Central Coast to her office in Sydney’s CBD. Today, she strolls in her pyjamas for five seconds to a shed she’s set up in her backyard as her HQ. ... “There’s a real boom in backyard sheds going on,” says Daniel Rutland, the head of digital purchasing at EasyShed, Australia’s largest shed producer. “We seeing the biggest demand coming from the cities where space at home is at a premium, and house prices are high, so it’s much more affordable to have a shed than to move to a bigger house."
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-great-shed-revival-1084237/?u…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.The Rules For Real Estate Agents During Lockdown Prove Just How Fkd It Is To Be A Renter
Melissa Mason (No paywall)I moved house this week. Moving out during a COVID outbreak is scary enough – dealing with removalists, buying stuff on Facebook Marketplace, all those touchpoints where you come into contact with people at a time where contact is like, the devil. What I didn’t anticipate was the particular hell we would be put through as our home was prepared to be rented again – and the worst part was, it was all legal. (Pedestrian)
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/real-estate-agent-rules-for-rente…
# NSW, Privacy and access, Housing market, Landlords and agents.I was excited when the eviction notice arrived. Not any more
Simmone Howell The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)We are moving house again. When the notice to vacate arrives in my inbox, I feel a jolt of excitement. Something unexpected is happening, something of consequence. I jump online to look at the listings. I have forgotten that it’s always fun to look until you actually have to look. I have forgotten, too, how the language of real estate is a poetry all its own. It is a masterclass in subtext. ... [But] Today, we have two weeks until our move-by date and nothing is fixed. We have packed our lives into a mobile storage box. COVID-19 numbers are still going up, school is still not happening, life is still not happening. I feel tired and a little desperate. ... People keep telling me that the pandemic has made it a renter’s market but it still seems a fraught and unrewarding process. I fear we’re going to have to take something noir, something with a history of sadness, traces of doom. As I click through the listings, the words from an old rambler’s ballad turn in my mind: If I was where I would be/Then I would be where I am not/Here I am where I must be/Where I would, I can not. Hopefully we will find somewhere soon.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/i-was-excited-when-the-evi…
# Australia, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home, Housing market.Australia climbs the home price index
Carolyn Cummins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Go to 3.41pm at this link: The rate of house price growth was on average16.4 per cent across the country - the highest rate since 2003 - according to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index for the second quarter of 2021. That growth rate has catapulted Australia from 19th position on the grid with a growth rate of 6.1 per cent a year ago to now 7th.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/as-is-happened-asx-down-…
# Australia, Housing market, International.Construction giant Lendlease registers as for-profit social landlord
Tim Clark Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... LTYD Homes Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lendlease’s European business, was added to the register of social landlords on 18 August, according to an updated list the Regulator of Social Housing published yesterday. ... A spokesperson for Lendlease, which is ultimately headquartered in Australia, said: “With a pipeline of over 25,000 homes to deliver in the UK over the next 25 years and with many of these being affordable homes, we have decided to register as a provider of social housing.”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/construction-giant-len…
# International, Affordable housing, International.'All of us are struggling’: regional Australia’s aged care homes strain to stay viable
MadeleineMiller The Guardian (No paywall)Wayne Prosser remembers the day the closure of his father’s nursing home was announced in the small town of Harden on the south-west slopes of New South Wales. “It was horrendous,” he says. “They called a meeting…and said we’re closing within six weeks.” Prosser, a lifetime farmer like his father, Rusty, says the distress around the room at the St Lawrence Residential Aged Care nursing home quickly spilled into the community. ... [The chief executive of Southern Cross Care (NSW & ACT), Helen Emmerson said] “Inadequate funding, staff shortages, occupancy challenges, limited allied health services and a lack of after-hours support services, including pharmacy and GP access, made it challenging to maintain the quality of care, safety and support necessary at St Lawrence. “This was not sustainable in the long term and did not meet stringent standards of care.” The closure of St Lawrence highlights a crisis in country nursing homes ..
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/16/all-of-us…
# Australia, Housing market, Older people.