Category Archives: Housing

Report warns 1.6m Australian households struggling to insure their homes

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Actuaries Institute report says rising insurance premiums will increase further because of natural disasters associated with climate crisis

Fast-rising home insurance premiums have plunged 1.6m households into affordability stress, an Actuaries Institute report has warned, with those in cyclone and flood-prone areas facing significant spikes in cost.

The figure is a 30% increase over the past year, and the institute has forecast it will only worsen as the frequency and intensity of natural disasters grows.

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NSW Liberal Andrew Bragg claims some party colleagues may be ‘playing footsies with nimbys’

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Moderate senator says the idea of new developments in established suburbs does not sit well with some Liberals

New South Wales Liberal frontbench senator Andrew Bragg has accused some of his party colleagues of “playing footsies with nimbys” for blocking real estate developments in Sydney’s suburbs that he says would help ease the housing crisis.”

The shadow assistant minister for home ownership told Guardian Australia that some Liberals were encouraging a not-in-my-back yard attitude to expanding housing stock in some metropolitan areas and obstructing measures that could help increase supply.

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Social housing rents to rise as part of UK push to build affordable homes

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Rachel Reeves works on plan for 10-year formula to give councils and housing associations certainty

Social housing rents will rise by more than inflation over the next decade as part of UK government plans to boost affordable housebuilding and shore up the finances of struggling landlords.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is working on plans to introduce a 10-year formula to calculate social rent on homes that will result in rents increasing every year by the rate of the consumer prices index – which is now 2.2% – plus 1%, removing an existing cap on rises.

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Housing construction and renovations to continue decline for ‘at least 12 months’, Australian building supplier says

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Reece forecasts further ‘softness’ in the building and renovation markets over the coming year

Australians’ love affair with their home has been unshakeable, with property owners usually willing to upgrade, detonate and renovate even during financial downturns.

But according to major plumbing and bathroom products supplier Reece, that is now being tested.

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Australians in most common jobs can’t afford to save for deposit without housing stress, report finds

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Childcare workers, aged carers, teachers and retail assistants are among those priced out of the market, analysis suggests

Australians working in the country’s most common jobs cannot comfortably own their own home, new analysis shows, as the Greens double down on stalling the Albanese government’s housing bills.

Childcare workers, aged carers and teachers are among those priced out of the market, a parliamentary library analysis requested by the Greens shows.

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Male UK university students are ‘less macho’ when sharing flats with women

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Researchers have found the competitiveness of men living in mixed flats on UK campuses significantly decreased

Living with female flatmates at university makes male students less “macho”, new research from Essex University and Australia’s University of Technology Sydney has found.

The study, which followed a cohort of students at a UK university living in campus halls of residence over a one-year period, revealed that men living in mixed flats with female flatmates exhibited a significant decrease in competitiveness. There was no effect on women.

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Former Sunak adviser urges Labour to introduce wealth tax on housing

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The economist behind the Covid furlough scheme has called for ‘unfair’ council tax and stamp duty to be axed

Council tax and stamp duty are “unfair and unpopular” taxes that should be abolished, says the economist who devised the Covid furlough scheme.

Tim Leunig, who has advised a series of cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak during his prime ministership, said it was time for a new and radical approach that would axe the two taxes and replace them with proportional levies.

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Edinburgh councillors say new tourist tax will help build council housing

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Daily 5% visitor beds surcharge that will cover hotels, bed and breakfasts and AirBnB could raise up to £50m a year

Councillors in Edinburgh are hoping to build new council houses and improve public parks thanks to a new tourist tax that could raise up to £50m a year.

The city council is expected to become the first in the UK to introduce a comprehensive visitor levy using new government powers, with tourists and visitors paying a daily 5% surcharge on their beds from July 2026.

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Australians’ mortgage payments hit high not seen since before GFC, data shows

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The average mortgage holder is parting with more than a fifth of their pre-tax income, double what they were spending in the 90s

Mortgage holders are spending well over 20% of their pre-tax income on their loans, representing one of the highest levels on record, data compiled by Commonwealth Bank shows.

It has rocketed in recent years amid rising interest rates and high living costs to a level last seen two decades ago when frothy property prices took hold before the 2008 global financial crisis.

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UK’s biggest housing association fined over four-year failure to fix window

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Clarion case among several ‘severe maladministration’ examples highlighted by housing ombudsman

The UK’s biggest housing association has been fined after a watchdog found that its failure to carry out repairs to a child’s bedroom window for four years left the home mouldy and caused serious illness in the family that lived there.

Clarion housing association showed “no urgency” to fix the window, instead leaving it boarded up, despite repeated complaints from the tenant who said the mould caused his asthma to flare up and affected his son’s mental health.

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English councils to gain new powers to buy cheap green belt land

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Landowners unwilling to sell would face compulsory purchase orders if site could host ‘quality housing scheme’

Councils and public bodies in England are to be handed powers to compulsorily buy cheap green belt land as part of the new Labour government’s drive to build 1.5m homes by 2030.

Green belt landowners who are unwilling to sell would face compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) that would force them to hand over their land if the site could host a “quality housing scheme” in the public interest.

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Five issues that threaten to derail the Albanese government’s plans before the next election

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The PM wants the focus to be on first-term achievements and cost-of-living relief but question marks remain over religious freedoms and gambling ads

After a five-week break, the spring session of the parliamentary year is about to begin. Early election rumours continue to swirl – the “break in case of emergency” date bandied around the corridors of power remains 7 December. Calmer heads will point out that voters would only hit the polls on that date if the political situation appeared irrevocably difficult for the Albanese government, given that the last months of the year will be dominated by the US election and its outcome.

Either way, there are only nine months until the very last date the next election could be held. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for the Albanese government to complete its first-term agenda, regardless of whether it returns Australians to the polls before May. Albanese wants the focus to be on cost-of-living relief and the reforms the government has already passed through parliament, but stumbling blocks threaten to derail the agenda.

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Clare O’Neil promises ‘profound and transformative’ investment to ease housing crisis

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As issue becomes major election battleground, housing minister urges Coalition and Greens to ‘be part of the solution’ amid hold-up of bills in parliament

The new housing and homelessness minister, Clare O’Neil, is “intensely concerned” about the plight of renters and has promised “profound and transformative” investment to alleviate the housing crisis.

But with implementation of Labor’s existing $32bn of commitments a priority, O’Neil is offering more continuity than change in her new portfolio, which she inherited from Julie Collins in the July reshuffle.

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Record homeless figures in England prompt calls to tackle ‘national scandal’

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Latest housing data show 151,630 children in temporary accommodation – the most since records began

More than 150,000 children in England are living in temporary accommodation, prompting calls for the government to address what it calls a “national scandal”.

Living in temporary accommodation is considered a form of homelessness and can involve people staying in hostel or bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation.

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NSW moves to outlaw asking tenants to pay for their own background checks on renter ‘blacklists’

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Minns government announces reforms to end practice of rental property platforms soliciting payments from applicants

Rental property application platforms would be prohibited from asking prospective tenants in New South Wales to pay for their own background checks under proposed new laws.

The Minns Labor government on Tuesday announced it would introduce the legislation after feedback from renters who said they were often told that paying these “optional charges” would increase their chance of securing a home.

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Australia news live: Penny Wong urges Australians to leave Lebanon; Chalmers says housing pipeline ‘not where we want it to be’

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The foreign minister says in video message there is a ‘real risk’ that conflict in the region would seriously escalate. Follow the day’s news live

Indigenous Australians ‘frustrated’ at slow progress

Indigenous Australians are “somewhere between disappointed and frustrated” at a lack of traction on socio-economic targets, after a scorecard found most aren’t being met.

You see those datasets that again reinforce what we heard even at the beginning of the year, and that is governments are not moving fast enough on this, it’s frustrating.

It’s not about finding a new pathway – certainly that’s not what the productivity commission is saying. It’s saying: share the decision-making – this is commonsense, governments talking to the people about the issues that impact them, and the solutions to solve that.

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Greens say Labour should focus more on building council homes and that new housing plan is flawed – UK politics live

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Rayner says housing target system will raise number of homes planned to 370,000 and confirmed targets will be mandatory

Balls, who, of course, is a former Labour cabinet minister, and a former shadow chancellor, questions whether Reeves is right to suggest that Jeremy Hunt is wholly to blame for the black hole. He says that other cabinet ministers and departments drew up the spending plans that she says were unfunded.

Reeves repeats the point she has been making all morning about how the public were misled. (See 8.06am.)

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Housing approvals fall to lowest level in 12 years despite Labor’s pledge of 1.2m new homes

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Approved dwellings drop 6.5% in June amid high interest rates and building costs as CoreLogic rues ‘dismal result’

New dwelling approvals in Australia have sunk to their lowest in 12 years, as developers battle high interest rates and rising labour and material costs.

For the year to June, 162,892 houses and apartments secured approval, down 8.5% on the previous year and the least since 2011-12, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday.

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Fears NSW renters could be mass-evicted ahead of proposed law change

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Advocates welcome premier Chris Minns’s move to ban no-grounds evictions but worry about renters in the meantime

Rental advocates are warning about mass no-grounds evictions in New South Wales between now and the end of the year unless the state government acts to stop dodgy landlords.

Over the weekend, the state Labor government announced it would introduce legislation to stop no-grounds evictions in September. The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said he hoped it would be passed and come into effect by the start of 2025.

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Victorian opposition leader vows to slash cultural heritage ‘red tape’ on residential projects

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In 2023 John Pesutto was booed at the Victorian Liberal state council. This year, most rose to give him a standing ovation

The Victorian Liberals have ramped up their rhetoric on housing, promising to slash planning approval delays to build homes quicker and cheaper if they return from the electoral wilderness in 2026.

The state’s opposition leader, John Pesutto, unveiled a plan to cut “red tape” connected to cultural heritage and what he referred to as Melbourne Water processes at the Victorian Liberal state council on Sunday.

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