Friday, October 11, 2024

Month: December 2022

A tsunami of homelessness is about to hit

Rising rents, eight interest rate hikes, surging living costs and natural disasters inflamed what was already among world’s least affordable rental markets Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has announced.

Belinda has applied for more than 100 rental homes in the past year and been rejected every time.

The 39-year-old Australian single mother of four now lives in a temporary shelter in Campbelltown, southwest of Sydney, and has six months to find a home that costs under 500 Australian dollars a week, or risk ending up sleeping rough.

“I don’t know where I’m supposed to go after that. I have got a house full of furniture that I don’t really want to get rid of. I don’t really want to get rid of my cat or my puppy,” says Belinda. “It is a bit scary to tell you the truth.”

Relentlessly rising rents, eight consecutive interest rate hikes, surging living costs and devastating natural disasters in the past few years have inflamed what was already among the world’s least affordable rental markets.

How Covid turned home ownership into the Great Australian Fever Dream

When Covid hit the Australian property market, house prices skyrocketed, people were priced out of the market, supply chain issues hit construction sites, bankruptcies and insolvencies plagued the building sector, and rather aptly, Australians’ aspirations to own a home became the Great Australian Fever Dream.

As the residential sales market raged red-hot rental vacancy rates plunged to record lows and won’t be letting up soon, and industrial real estate also never shook the superlative “record” – sounding rather like a broken record.

Australia’s rental affordability crisis reaches record low

Rental affordability has reached a record low across the country, with low-income earners the hardest hit when trying to find somewhere to live.

Australians are being hit with unsustainable rent increases, with every capital city nationwide experiencing a decline in rental affordability, according to new data insight.

The annual Rental Affordability Index* released this week revealed the low-income renters such as single parents, pensioners, and job seekers are most vulnerable and require more active and immediate support.

But it seems the rental crisis is impacting almost everyone applying for home.

* The annual rental affordability index (RAI) report is an easy to understand indicator of rental affordability relative to household incomes. It is a crucial tool for policy makers to track rental affordability trends and inform evidence-based policy responses — highlighting nuances between places and the experiences of disadvantaged households.

Download the latest report at the SGS Economics & Planning website: https://www.sgsep.com.au/projects/rental-affordability-index

Should Australia create ‘settlement cities’ for refugees? Here’s why some say yes

‘Settlement cities’ in Sydney and Melbourne are welcoming places for newly arrived refugees, according to a report, with many settling into their new communities quickly.

A report by the Edmund Rice Centre and migrant settlement agency AMES Australia found ‘settlement cities’ – referring to Local Government Areas (LGAs) which settle a large share of refugees during their first years in Australia – made them feel at home quickly.

The report describes the settlement city ‘model’ not as a formal one, but instead the qualities these LGAs have come to share that facilitate refugee resettlement.

While the model for refugee arrivals was unintended by policy makers, it was having a positive effect.

“Refugees who have this community support find it helps them settle quickly and relatively easily in their new home,” the report said.

AMES Australia chief executive Cath Scarth said the success of settlement cities reinforced the need for an expansion of them to other areas.

“Securing employment and housing, like any other Australians, are priorities for newly arrived refugees. And we can see from the research that having welcoming cities and communities can help deliver these aspirations,” she said.

Read the original article at www.sbs.com.au

The eye of the storm: House prices still have a long way to fall

It’s a nail-biting period for homeowners. The rate of decline in house prices eased again in September suggesting a softer landing for the market but if the consensus of economists is to be believed, it’s not over yet.

We could be in the eye of the storm. And if house prices experience a peak to trough fall of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent, as many economists expect, we are less than half way there given the national market is off only circa 6 per cent.

Even if the Reserve Bank of Australia, which places a more conservative 11 per cent estimate on house price devaluation, is closer to the mark, there is still a long way to go before the market cools down. […]

Read the original article at SMH