Short-term letting via digital platforms benefits some in the market at the expense of others. Closer regulation might be needed in Melbourne and Sydney, where a permissive approach prevails.
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Articles on Rental affordability
Displaying 21 - 40 of 43 articles
Renting a house shouldn’t mean it’s not home. Until we change our meaning of home by separating it from ownership, we will never be able to “fix” Australia’s housing crisis.
Cities overseas that have been able to overcome the affordable housing challenges facing cities like Melbourne have adopted a coordinated and systemic approach to scaling up solutions that work.
The standards we use today were designed to help avoid the overcrowded housing that blighted cities in the past. But severe overcrowding is again on the rise, so what needs to be done?
Housing affordability is one of Australia’s great unsolved problems. Some households can make adjustments to cover high housing costs, but the ones deprived of essentials are under real stress.
If local government is to deliver affordable housing, state and federal governments must assist. Even councils as powerful and well resourced as the City of Sydney cannot do it by themselves.
The Australian government has at last taken the lead in affordable housing policy with a package of measures that should attract institutional investors hungry for low-risk returns.
Unaffordable housing and homelessness are burning issues. Policymaking has suffered from a critical lack of data and expert input since the National Housing Supply Council was axed in 2013.
A modest rebalancing of federal tax policy toward build-to-rent housing could fill affordable housing funding gaps. Australian funds are already investing in such a scheme in the US.
Why can’t the state fund an ongoing program of upgrading, replacing and building public housing? On the evidence to date, private developers aren’t doing a better job of it.
Private renters’ security of tenure in Australia has less legal protection than in other countries with high private rental rates. A new study reveals mixed responses to this state of uncertainty.
Almost nowhere in our capital cities can low-income households – and those on average incomes in Sydney – afford the median rent. Mapping rental vulnerability finds it in regional areas too.
In a market already tilted in favour of landlords, these apps could further push up prices.
Who is entitled to the increase in value created by planning approvals, new infrastructure, population growth or urban development? For John Stuart Mill, the answer would have been the community.
Owning a home has deep cultural and economic connotations. A home owner is a member of a street, a community. They are a successful adult human. They own a piece of the pie, the dream.
Only a small proportion of housing is affordable for low-income earners, while people on Newstart or Youth Allowance don’t have any affordable options at all.
In the second part of our review of what The Conversation experts have to say about housing, we focus on affordability, social housing and what government can do about a growing crisis.
Many children are living in low-income families that struggle to pay the rent to keep a roof over their heads. Unaffordable housing is fuelling childhood poverty, so where is the policy response?
With tenancy laws under review, a ruling that landlords must maintain residential premises in good repair even if dilapidated is hailed as a ‘landmark’ decision. That tells us reform is needed.
A decent national housing policy is not just about the million or so Australians who are in housing need, marginal housing or homeless. In reality, all the housing sectors are connected.
Top contributors
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Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Research Associate, Centre for People, Organisation and Work, RMIT University
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Senior Lecturer in Urbanism, University of Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Adjunct associate, Swinburne University of Technology
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Alan Morris is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of Housing Research, University of Adelaide
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Research Coordinator, University of Toronto
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Housing Policy Researcher, Expert Advisor, Housing Assessment Resource Tools and Adjunct Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
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Adjunct Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Professor of Housing & Social Policy, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
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Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
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PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of Law, Discipline of Law, Justice and Society, University of South Australia
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Honorary Senior Fellow in Urban Geography and Planning, The University of Melbourne
