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
Hobart couple buy former student boarding house for older women at risk of homelessness
Crystal McKay ABC (No paywall)It was while offering short-term stays to women in need that retirees Richard and Jan Gould heard first-hand of the depth of Tasmania's growing housing affordability issues. Moved by the stories they were confronted with, the Goulds resolved to try to make a difference in their community by offering their own low-cost housing solution. "We haven't done this sort of thing before," Ms Gould said. "So, we are consulting widely with charities to see if we've hit the mark on what the people who come to them would want."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-23/retired-couple-buy-hobart…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.Interstate investors swarm NT homes, shutting out local buyers and raising rent prices
Roxanne Fitzgerald ABC (No paywall)Interstate investors are targeting properties across the Northern Territory and buying them up hours before they hit the market, as Darwin's rental market firms as the tightest in the country. Local doctor Nicolas Darmanthe moved to Darwin at the beginning of the year with his partner, and thinking they would be able to afford to rent a "fairly nice" three-bedroom home. But, after a few months of looking in a city where the vacancy rate is just 0.3 per cent, they realised that wouldn't be the case.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-21/interstate-investors-swar…
# Hot topic Australia, .Pet tax: Why having a pet could be costing renters $14k a year
Samantha Healy news.com.au (No paywall)Shocking research has revealed that pet owners are paying up to $270 extra a week - or over $14,000 a year - just to keep Fluffy or Fido at home. With rental vacancies remaining extremely low across Australia, many renters with pets are facing tough choices, including surrendering their furry friend in orders to keep a roof over their heads. The disheartening phenomenon sweeping Australian cities has been dubbed ‘pet-bidding’.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/perth-wa/pet-tax-why…
# Hot topic Australia, Pets, Rent.Help protect against renovictions!
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)On Friday 20th June, only five weeks after the new rental laws came into effect ending no-grounds evictions, the NSW government significantly weakened the rules surrounding evictions for renovations/repairs. This puts renters at greater risk of falling victim to a practice referred to as "renovictions" – unfair evictions hidden behind a smokescreen of renovations or repairs. The rules introduced on 19th May 2025 required landlords who wanted to evict a tenant for significant renovations/repairs to provide both a written statement and a choice of one of 5 pieces of evidence. The additional evidence could be a quote from a licensed builder or tradesperson, development consent, or receipts for purchased building materials. These evidence rules were established to ensure that claims to repossess a property for renovation or repair were genuine, not merely a tactic to unfairly evict tenants.
https://www.tenants.org.au/news/help-protect-against-renovictions
# Must read, Legal significance NSW, Eviction, Rent.Minns government accused of rental reform backflip
Elizabeth Pike Daily Telegraph (Paywall)More than 20 organisations from the legal, social and union sector have accused the Minns government of quietly walking back a key plank of its rental reforms only four weeks after the “landmark” changes came into effect. Community centres, legal services and charities, representing hundreds of thousands of people across the state, have called on the government to bring back evidence requirements for landlords who want to evict their tenants to do repairs and renovations. It comes after the government introduced the safeguard as part of its sweeping rental reforms on May 19, but quietly removed it only one month later on June 20 without consultation.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/minns-government-accu…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media NSW, Eviction, Rent.Renovictions – what can we learn from the Canadian experience?
Eloise Parrab Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)On 19th May 2025 we celebrated the end of no grounds evictions with renters across NSW. Minister Chanthivong declared “We’ve listened to renters, owners, and industry experts to shape these changes, and we’ll continue working closely with stakeholders to ensure the transition is smooth and well understood.” So it was with great shock and dismay that we discovered that the NSW Government quietly changed the evidence requirements for one of the prescribed grounds for termination – namely renovations/repairs. This change was made on 20th June – just one month after the law was changed to end no-grounds termination. The effect is to open this ground to potential exploitation.
https://www.tenants.org.au/blog/renovictions-canadian-experience
# Must read, Research alert NSW, Eviction, Rent.Funding needed to warm dangerously cold Sydney homes
Ria Pandey and Thomas Sargeant Daily Telegraph (Paywall)Sydney homes are colder in winter than Finland, Sweden and even icebound Greenland and are as much as seven degrees below the World Health Organisation’s healthy indoor standard. It might be freezing inside but social media has been on fire as visitors from countries in the Arctic Circle complain about how cold it is inside Australian homes. It has led to calls for laws to be changed to make landlords responsible for making old homes “habitable” – and even for taxpayers to help fund retrofitting existing homes to make them warmer. To make matters worse, the Australian Energy Regulator has lifted the caps on how much retailers can charge for electricity as of July 1.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/funding-needed-to-war…
# NSW, Rent.Labor faces internal housing battle in PM’s heartland
Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)With proud Marrickville resident Anthony Albanese in The Lodge, Sydney’s inner west has become the centre of Australia’s political universe. It’s also the centre of one of the more pressing political issues of our time – how to build more housing in a central part of Sydney that has historically been pathologically opposed to development. The area is full of progressive Labor-Greens voters fully supportive of high-density, affordable housing in every suburb – barring their own. It’s the kind of place where people read Ezra Klein’s Abundance book for fun. Little surprise then that there are a multitude of views around how best to build, baby, build among influential Labor figures in the PM’s own backyard.
https://www.smh.com.au/cbd/labor-faces-internal-housing-battle-i…
# NSW, .