Historic US company also offering ‘12-month lease’ – an annual supply – of pre-ground coffee for under $40
Housing in the US has become so unaffordable that a coffee company has based a viral marketing campaign on the idea that almost nobody can afford to buy a house.
Maxwell House coffee, a 133-year-old brand, recently launched a marketing campaign rebranding themselves as “Maxwell Apartment Coffee”.
Continue reading...Advocates say it should be easier to dispute bond claims, as tenants in Australia’s toughest rental markets are increasingly losing their deposits
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Ziggy Tow and his housemates thought they had had enough trouble after their property manager evicted them without grounds and listed their inner-Sydney home for an extra $300 a week.
Then the property manager claimed back all of the $3,400 they paid in bond to cover cleaning and repair fees.
Continue reading...NSW government to rezone Paramatta Road corridor and make room for 8,000 new homes – but plan omits mooted light rail
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Sydney’s ugliest road is again being touted as the next development hotspot, with plans by the Minns government to rezone and develop about 8,000 new homes along Parramatta Road in Leichhardt and Camperdown, in the city’s inner west.
The state government and inner west councillors have agreed to partner on rezoning along the Parramatta Road corridor to deliver a major boost to housing close to the CBD.
Continue reading...Under the plan, the state government will seize planning controls for the designated areas – near train and tram stops – from local councils
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Affluent Melbourne suburbs such as Hampton, Hawthorn and Kew could be rezoned to allow apartment towers of up to 16 storeys, according to new draft maps released by the Victorian government.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, and the planning minister, Sonya Kilkenny, will on Wednesday release the maps showing proposed heights and boundaries for 25 of the government’s 50 activity centres, which were first announced in October 2024.
Continue reading...Pausing changes to Construction Code, establishment of ‘strike team’ within environment department and use of AI in planning among reforms
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The Albanese government has promised to cut red tape and fast track environmental approvals for new homes in an effort to address Australia’s housing crisis.
On Saturday, the government announced plans to pause further residential changes to the National Construction Code and to streamline the assessment of more than 26,000 homes under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Continue reading...Pressure on first home buyers heightens as investors target lower-priced homes and more affordable regions
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Property investors borrowed a record sum, nearly $130bn, to buy homes over the year to June, supported by interest rate cuts but squeezing out first-time buyers.
Banks made almost 200,000 new loans to landlords over the year, the most since 2022, while the number of new first-home mortgages slipped to 116,000.
Continue reading...Record number of homes for sale has created ‘buyer’s market’ and kept price rises in check, Zoopla report says
The typical summer lull in Britain’s housing market has been avoided amid the availability of bigger home loans fuelling a “buyer’s market”, according to a property website.
Despite the signs of a bustling market, Zoopla said it had halved its house price forecast for 2025 as buyers were taking into account increased stamp duty costs in their offers in England and Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Premier says plans have affordability and fast approval in mind as expert welcomes potential to ‘democratise good design’
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What if you could buy architect-designed drawings for a new home for $1 – and have certainty your council would approve it within 10 to 20 days?
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, will release the state’s housing pattern book on Wednesday, which contains eight blueprints for architect-designed townhouses, terraces and manor houses, chosen from internationally renowned firms including Sam Crawford Architects, Carter Williamson Architects, Saha and Anthony Gill Architects.
Continue reading...Lord mayor Clover Moore says city ‘should not simply be an enclave for the rich’ and hopes case sets precedent
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A court has rejected a developer’s bid to turn a boarding house into luxury apartments in a case the lord mayor of Sydney hopes will set a precedent to stop the ongoing loss of affordable housing.
In the wake of the court’s decision the mayor, Clover Moore, has also called on the Minns government to allow significant loss of individual homes as a ground for rejecting development applications.
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Continue reading...Moreton Bay council agrees to supreme court injunction against evicting residents who had previously been evicted from another park
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Moreton Bay city council has been ordered not to clear a homeless encampment after a hearing in the Queensland supreme court on Wednesday.
Numerous homeless residents of Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton were evicted by council rangers in April, with their tents cleared by heavy machinery. Just two were granted public housing. Most have set up a new camp in a different park in Kallangur.
Continue reading...‘You can’t build new homes without roads, parks and schools to match, and the community shouldn’t have to wait for them,’ premier says
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Developers in New South Wales will be able to choose between paying a levy of $12,000 per lot, or building infrastructure such as roads and parks themselves as an “in kind payment” in a further push to speed up the construction of new housing in the state.
The changes will be revealed on Thursday by the premier, Chris Minns, before next week’s state budget.
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Continue reading...Prime minister faces Conservative party leader as chancellor to reveal how government plans to spend almost £1.4tn in 2026-27
Green party MPs and activists staged a protest outside parliament today saying the government should use the spending review to announce a wealth tax. In a post on social media, Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, said:
We expect the Chancellor to take another axe to public spending today: decline by design from a govt that refuses to tax wealth to properly fund our overstretched public services & support the most vulnerable. We need to invest in a secure & fairer future. #TaxExtremeWealth
Senior SNP figures held a secret meeting on Monday night to discuss removing John Swinney as party leader, The Herald has learned, following last week’s defeat in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection.
One of the 25 attendees said the first minister had two weeks to come up with a new strategy on independence — or risk facing a leadership challenge at the SNP conference in October.
Continue reading...Chancellor promises biggest investment in social and affordable homes in a generation to hit 1.5m target
Rachel Reeves will raise government spending on affordable housing by nearly double on Wednesday, providing a major boost to the housebuilding sector and bringing the government’s housing targets a step closer.
The chancellor will announce nearly £40bn worth of grants to be spent over 10 years for local authorities, private developers and housing associations – a major increase on the previous programme.
Continue reading...Opposition leader dismisses numerology comment as a ‘flippant remark’ and ‘actually not the reason’ for extra ‘s’
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The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has walked back claims that an interest in numerology was the reason she added extra “s” in her name, claiming her comment she made to a journalist in 2015 was a “flippant remark” and not correct.
Ley told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday that the name change came during her “punk phase” as a teenager, shooting down a long-running story that she had added the extra letter because of a belief it would make her life more exciting.
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Continue reading...Rate of people moving to Australia’s regions increases by more than 10% in March quarter
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While the Geelong Cats are fifth on the AFL ladder, their home city is the reigning champion.
The Victorian region has become the most popular place for people escaping capital cities to settle, with its picturesque coastline and thriving industry making it an ideal sea-change destination.
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Continue reading...Premier says he is ‘disappointed’ after Rosehill decision and ‘it feels like a golden opportunity has slipped through our fingers’
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The Minns government has had a major hole punched in its strategy to boost housing in Sydney after the Australian Turf Club members voted not to sell Rosehill racecourse, earmarked for a major housing development.
The New South Wales government had offered $5bn for the site, and proposed it would accommodate 25,000 new homes and a proposed Metro stop.
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Continue reading...Campaigners say secretive ownership structures are becoming the ‘go-to vehicle for kleptocrats’
The owners of nearly a quarter of a million properties in England and Wales worth a combined £64bn are hidden behind opaque trusts, according to research that prompts concern that such structures are the “go-to vehicle for kleptocrats” stashing money in Britain.
The government introduced a register of property held through offshore vehicles in August 2022, revealing a string of unknown owners, including high-profile figures such as Lewis Hamilton and James Dyson, as well as sanctioned Russians, Gulf royals and the Chinese state.
Continue reading...Governor announces new ordinance to address ‘persistent’ camps as he intensifies crackdown on worsening crisis
Gavin Newsom has called on California cities and counties to clear and effectively ban encampments “without delay” as the governor intensifies a crackdown on homelessness in the state.
Newsom on Monday announced a new model ordinance to address “persistent” camps, in hopes of reducing the most visible signs of a worsening crisis, as well as $3.3bn in voter-approved funding to increase housing and drug treatment programs.
Continue reading...More buyers enter the market as auction clearance rates rose to 70% in the week following the election, figures show
Australia’s housing market has surged in the immediate aftermath of Labor’s emphatic election victory, preliminary data shows, while analysts say an anticipated string of rate cuts may see the trend continue.
Auction clearance rates rose to 70% in the week following the election, according to preliminary Cotality data, from 60% in the middle of last month. An auction clearance rate of 70% or above typically indicates sellers are in control of the market.
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Continue reading...More than 40% of voters say Labor’s large majority should encourage Anthony Albanese to get more ambitious with policies in key areas
Anthony Albanese’s personal approval rating has spiked off the back of his election win, as an overwhelming majority of Australians call on Labor to rapidly initiate health, housing and energy reform.
More than 40% of voters say Labor’s large parliamentary majority should encourage Albanese to set out an even more ambitious schedule of reform, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. The prime minister’s popularity has risen to its highest level for a year, the poll showed.
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