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. […]
A new documentary tells the stories of the fastest growing demographic of homelessness in Australia.
Australians are well aware of the affordable housing crisis their nation is facing, an experience exacerbated by the ongoing impact of the pandemic and current economic climate, but what may come as a shock is the demographic most at risk of homelessness.
A new documentary aims to shed light on this alarming issue and make visible the stories of ageing women facing housing stress. Filmed over two and a half years, “Under Cover” features ten Australian women over 50 years old, who through no fault of their own, cannot pay their rent or mortgage.
Narrated by Margot Robbie, the documentary lays bare the intersection of sexism, ageism and poverty.
Young Australians live with their parents to save for a house deposit
The rising cost of living, including a lack of affordable housing, has changed the financial landscape for Australia’s youth.
According to the Young People’s Financial Strategies: Insights from the Australian Youth Barometer report from Monash University, young Australians often defined financial security as being able to afford material needs without worrying about money.
Saving and investing were listed as their main strategies for financial security, but many factors could influence that in a negative way, including paying for housing.
Interviewees said the prospect of living independently, especially paying rent, was a potential threat to their ability to save.
A recent news article in Fairfax newspapers discussed a nationwide shortage of domestic cleaners due to the coronavirus pandemic. The labour shortage is indirectly impacting busy families who employ cleaners to help with domestic chores; and, more significantly, is causing genuine hardship for “vulnerable people who have funding for NDIS cleaning services, aged care or workers compensation packages.”
The article contains interviews with house cleaning business owners who have struggled to find staff. The recruitment problem is partly due to low wages, but also due to labour shortages caused by border closures — a lot of cleaning staff have traditionally been international students or backpackers on working holiday visas, however those people have not been allowed to enter Australia during the pandemic.
A reader’s comment on the article also suggests that outdoor home services like mowing and gardening have had trouble with staff shortages. However, a quick search online finds that there are other businesses providing services such as NDIS gutter cleaning services and residential window cleaning that do not appear to be impacted.
A government spokesperson from the Department of Home Affairs who was interviewed in the article said that the department is “clearing the backlog in applications” from international students and backpackers to enter the country. But that statement sounds like hot air for the businesses experiencing staff shortages, and for the NDIS participants who are suffering because they cannot access important cleaning services. Does anyone seriously think that international students and backpackers who have been locked out of Australia for 2 years are going to take up low-paid cleaning jobs as soon as they are allowed to enter the country? Or are they more likely to do what they are entering the country to do, i.e. start studying or go backpacking?
Let’s hope that all NDIS participants across Australia are able to access affordable and reliable cleaning services again soon.
Labour shortages are impacting NDIS participants in need of house cleaning services
Housing policies ensure continual wealth gains for current home owners while leaving renters and potential buyers locked out of the market.
Housing policy is a battle between the haves and the have-nots. The haves are the current generation of wealthy home owners. They have enjoyed large capital gains over the past few decades and are sitting on property worth hundreds of thousands – often millions – of dollars. They support the policies that have delivered these windfalls.
The have-nots are renters and future generations of potential home owners. These groups are disproportionately young and on lower incomes.
Australia’s rental market is heating up in a big way, with new data showing rental houses across the nation’s capital cities have witnessed a 3.4 per cent price increase over the final quarter of 2021.
According to Domain’s latest Quarterly Rent Report, this stark rise equates to a new set of record high prices in Australia.
It also means that 2021’s rental housing market witnessed an annual price growth of 7.4 per cent – the biggest yearly increase since 2009.
Thousands of people will be denied choice in where they live as half of Australia’s states choose to opt out of a building code which would impose minimum standards of accessibility on all new house builds.
The silver standard design guidelines from Liveable Housing Australia (LHA) were incorporated into the National Construction Code (NCC) earlier this year to come into effect in September 2022.
The guidelines require a step-free path from the street to the door, wider doorways, hobless showers, reinforced walls in bathrooms to support future installation of rails, and a toilet at entry level.
However, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia have all opted out of the new requirements, meaning the standards will not be enforced in those States.
‘List of enemies’: Affordable housing advocates say Labor abandoned them
The nation’s peak organisation on affordability and secure housing for Australians on low incomes has accused federal Labor of rejoining a “list of enemies” against increasing home-ownership in favour of benefiting wealthy landlords.
National Shelter, which campaigns to improve housing access for low-income earners, has joined with several social groups to savage the federal opposition’s decision for scrapping key tax policies as it seeks to slimline its policy platform ahead of the next election.
The opposition went to both the 2016 and 2019 elections promising to halve the 50 per cent capital gains tax deduction and limit negative gearing to new properties only, attracting fierce resistance from the government and the property and construction industries.
The Morrison government’s incentives to help people become homeowners may come to nothing without an increase in housing supply
With many Australians locked out of the housing market or staring down the barrel of a 40-year, million-dollar-plus mortgage, the federal government has proposed a raft of policies aimed at addressing housing affordability in Tuesday’s federal budget.
But whether they will help bring ownership within reach of more people is unclear, especially since housing supply and zoning powers lie with the state governments.
Housing stress is at an all-time high in Tasmania, shutting out first-home buyers, squeezing the rental market and increasing homelessness
Before Sue Hickey entered state politics as a Liberal MP in 2018, she was Hobart’s lord mayor. Pledging to clean up public toilets and local politics, she also took a keen interest in the plight of people experiencing homelessness.
“You’d see these faces come out of nowhere,” Hickey says, recalling night tours of the city with food van staff and volunteers.
“You’d arrive, you wouldn’t see them, and then all these people just desperate for a sandwich and a Milo with five sugars would appear.”
Those outings were an eye-opener for Hickey, but for most Tasmanians homelessness and housing insecurity were out of sight, out of mind.
