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Chronic lack of affordable homes has led to increases in overcrowding and homelessness; Neither major party is taking Australia's shortage of affordable housing seriously
Topic Started: 30 Apr 2013, 09:43 AM (3,455 Views)
Trojan
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sylvester
4 May 2013, 08:05 PM
And another thing, there seems to be plenty of accommodation for the boat people. I guess they have priority over Australians, as do the immigrants flooding in and foreign investors also making housing unaffordable.
So true.
Everyday I browse the classifieds for houses for sale and rent and they all say for boat people only!
The following line always says "Australians are a lower priority and need not apply"
I put trolls and time wasters on my ignore list so if I don't respond to you, you are probably on it ....
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themoops
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sylvester
4 May 2013, 08:05 PM
And another thing, there seems to be plenty of accommodation for the boat people. I guess they have priority over Australians, as do the immigrants flooding in and foreign investors also making housing unaffordable. But that's the aim, isn't it, to keep housing unaffordable. Not to mention negative gearing, which also pushes up prices out of reach of ordinary have-nots. So it's clear that the political agenda is to keep housing unaffordable, and it will probably remain their agenda unless something happens, but I'm not quite sure what.
It's on the agenda forever. The rich can't do real work. They're idiots. But to be fair there's not much real work left. For instance the drug industry had to create the depression industry. What's there to do? Invent the teleportation machine?

They're inbred, stupid and they're spent, and they need to go, and get used to real capitalism instead of crony capitalism, or just rest on their laurels and only buy a new euro 4WD every 5 years instead of every 2 years. :re:

We need to rest on our laurels, any hair brained attempt at growth, which is clearly mostly for the sake of ego, is going to end in tragedy. The rich need to listen to the likes of Dick Smith.
Trojan
4 May 2013, 08:09 PM
So true.
Everyday I browse the classifieds for houses for sale and rent and they all say for boat people only!
The following line always says "Australians are a lower priority and need not apply"
We're spending shit loads on refos. Then they bring their family over and collect benefits. We need to crack down on family reunion privileges, that's what the SPP wants to do.
stinkbug
4 May 2013, 08:08 PM
Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.
Incorrect. You think the media is going to celebrate people buying for fair prices in this climate? No.
Edited by themoops, 4 May 2013, 08:18 PM.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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Blondie girl
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I am brain drained now

Ta ta
Newjerk? can you try harder than dig up another person's blog. My first promo was with Billabong and my name in English is modified with a T, am Perth born but also lived in Sydney to make my $$
It's Absolutely Fabulous if it includes brilliant locations, & high calibre tenants..what more does one want? Understand the power of the two "P"" or be financially challenged
Even better when there is family who are property mad and one is born in some entitlements.....Understand that beautiful women are the exhibitionists we crave attention, whilst hot blooded men are the voyeurs ... A stunning woman can command and takes pleasure in being noticed. Seems not too many understand what it means to hold and own props and get threatened by those who do.
Banks are considered to be law abiding and & rather boring places yeah not true . A bank balance sheet will show capital is dwarfed by their liabilities this means when a portions of loans is falling its problems for the bank.
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PiratePete1911
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"Some of our recent research has shown us that even child carers, tradespeople, people working in hospitality, cannot afford rents. And that's not just inner-city areas, that's across Melbourne."

I assume if those people have those titles they have jobs, you wouldn't say someone was working in hospitality if they were jobless.

Are you guys suggesting they should get a second job until they are up to the median wage so they can afford the cheapest house?
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Ex BP Golly
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PiratePete1911
5 May 2013, 12:53 AM
"Some of our recent research has shown us that even child carers, tradespeople, people working in hospitality, cannot afford rents. And that's not just inner-city areas, that's across Melbourne."

I assume if those people have those titles they have jobs, you wouldn't say someone was working in hospitality if they were jobless.

Are you guys suggesting they should get a second job until they are up to the median wage so they can afford the cheapest house?
to get close to the noose, you have to climb the ladder.
WHAT WOULD EDDIE DO? MAAAATE!
Share a cot with Milton?
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audas
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Ex BP Golly
5 May 2013, 01:52 AM
to get close to the noose, you have to climb the ladder.
Or be the type of scum who makes a living picking the pockets of the dead by living with the rats under the gallows - hey champ ?!

Fact is - in real terms Melbourne is one of the most over supplied markets in Australia - the most oversupplied in units and houses, second largest falls in nominal prices at around 8% off peak and almost 20% in real terms - yes - that's right - 20% DOWN.


Melbourne is Australias largest development / building market and second largest overall - and is looking worse than Ireland or Spain as they entered the first phases of their collapse.

Bulls are off their fucking rocker if they can't admit to how fucked things are in Australia's most important housing market - fucking retarded.
Edited by audas, 5 May 2013, 02:30 AM.
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Pig Iron
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Bogan scum

audas
5 May 2013, 02:29 AM
second largest falls in nominal prices at around 8% off peak and almost 20% in real terms - yes - that's right - 20% DOWN
you just can't stop making crap up can you? i guess when the real world hurts too much you must turn to fantasy.

Melbourne is down 6% from a peak in 2010 inflation are run at about 2.5% for the 2.5 years since then - that means prices are down 12.25% in "real" terms.
I am the love child of Tony Abbott and Pauline Hanson
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Australia's hidden homelessness presents a growing problem

Broadcast: 23/09/2013
Reporter: Rebecca Baillie

People sleeping rough on the street are a small proportion of Australia's homeless, so what is the story behind Australia's growing 'hidden homelessness'?

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: In 2008, the former Federal Government promised to halve homelessness by 2020 and put more than a billion dollars towards it.

Yet the 2011 Census shows that every night in Australia 105,000 people are still without a place to call home.

Rough sleepers represent only a small proportion of Australia's homeless; thousands more people, including many families waiting for social housing, don't know where they'll stay from one night to the next.

Rebecca Baillie reports.

REBECCA BAILLIE, REPORTER: It's Missionbeat's daily round, searching out Sydney's homeless as they begin the task of finding somewhere to sleep.

DANIEL STRICKLAND, MISSIONBEAT: I'd describe their lives often as chaotic. They don't know where they're gonna sleep that night, they don't know where they're gonna be safe. ... It is a big city problem in places like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but it's also an issue across Australia.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Daniel Strickland helps about 40 people every day, providing transport, blankets and clothing. Or just a sympathetic ear.

DANIEL STRICKLAND: So it might be linking them in with a community service organisation that can assist them to get their life back on track and get them into crisis accommodation, get them into medical assistance.

HOMELESS MAN: A good bunch of mates and we're right. That's what you need on the streets. If you don't have any mates on the street, you're alone. So, you don't want to be alone, so.

REBECCA BAILLIE: About 10 rough sleepers bed down in this Woolloomooloo park every night. Spiderman is a regular.

'SPIDERMAN': I've been living in men's shelters since I was 18. So I've been homeless since then.

REBECCA BAILLIE: And how old are you now?

'SPIDERMAN': 30.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Really? So have you had any jobs, any work in that time?

'SPIDERMAN': Yeah, yeah, I've worked, yeah.

KEVIN RUDD, THEN PRIME MINISTER (2008): One of the hallmarks of a fair and decent society is that everyone should be able to call somewhere home.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Despite government promises, homelessness in Australia has increased by 17 per cent in five years. Every night, 105,000 people are homeless.

DANIEL STRICKLAND: It's not the stereotype of the older homeless man that's sitting in the park with a brown paper bag. We're seeing a lot of younger people. Sadly, we've got people that are third-generation homeless.

REBECCA BAILLIE: People like 'Spiderman' are the most visible face of homelessness. But they make up just six per cent of the homeless population.

DANIEL STRICKLAND: Rough sleepers is just the tip of the iceberg and then we've got the people that are hidden homeless or they say couch surfing or staying at a mate's place and moving from place to place. And they're people that are just on that borderline of hitting the streets.

REBECCA BAILLIE: 26-year-old Courtney Voltz is going home. She and her family are driving from the New South Wales Central Coast to Goulburn in the state's south-west.

It's late afternoon. And after more than three hours, Courtney Voltz and her family finally arrive at Courtney's temporary home, a motel in Goulburn. Courtney lives here because she's homeless and sleeps from one night to the next in motels arranged by the NSW Housing Department.

Today, though, there's a problem.

COURTNEY VOLTZ: They're saying there's no booking under Courtney and there's no booking under Housing.

VOICE ON PHONE: You're joking?

COURTNEY VOLTZ: No.

VOICE ON PHONE: Are you able to go down to Housing now?

COURTNEY VOLTZ: I guess I'm gonna have to 'cause I've got nowhere to stay otherwise.

REBECCA BAILLIE: The family rushes to the public housing office before it shuts. Otherwise they could be sleeping in their car. At the last minute, Housing NSW sorts the booking out, and the crisis is averted, at least for one night.

COURTNEY VOLTZ: I'm in a wheelchair due to spina bifida and I have been in my whole life.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Courtney Voltz gets a disability support pension of $800 a fortnight. She pays some of her accommodation costs; Housing NSW subsidises the rest. Until the department finds her permanent public housing, it's putting her up in wheelchair accessible motels.

COURTNEY VOLTZ: Being special needs makes your life a lot harder I think in a lot of ways because obviously you need the special things in a house.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Courtney Voltz split from Lachlan's father, Mitchell Hamstra, 18 months ago. Lachlan's living with his father on the Central Coast because Courtney has no permanent home. Mitchell's left his job to look after Lachlan full-time and drives him to see Courtney whenever he can.

MITCHELL HAMSTRA: It's just overwhelming, to be honest. It's not only hard on Courtney, it's hard on me and Lachie as well 'cause, like, just virtually the separation is the main factor.

CHERYL O'DONNELL, MISSION AUSTRALIA: It's a total nightmare for anybody that's involved with it.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Case workers from Mission Australia are working to get Courtney Voltz moved to the Central Coast.

CHERYL O'DONNELL: It's virtually where you can find accommodation at the time. There's a group agencies involved in the case. So as soon as we possibly can, she will actually be relocated so that she's with the family.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Non-government programs working with Australia's homeless population face an uncertain future. They're funded under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, which is guaranteed only until July next year.

CHERYL O'DONNELL: Honestly, I'd love to start jumping up and down and screaming and invite somebody out with us, come out and do a road trip with me, come and visit the areas, come and visit the families that we're working with to see the need of it.

REBECCA BAILLIE: The next day, the uncertainty for Courtney continues.

So what's happening today now? What's happened this morning?

COURTNEY VOLTZ: We just have to go down to Housing to make sure that this accommodation basically is sorted.

MITCHELL HAMSTRA: The hotel won't allows us to keep our stuff in the room while we have a meeting with Housing, so then we have to pack the car up again.

REBECCA BAILLIE: While 7.30 was filming with Courtney Voltz, Housing NSW promised to move her into temporary accommodation closer to her son and ex-partner.

CHERYL O'DONNELL: Just relieved and, yeah, a bit more happy and settled, basically, knowing that we're getting somewhere.

REBECCA BAILLIE: In the meantime, though, she must stay in Goulburn, while Lachlan and his father return to the Central Coast.

Housing NSW says Courtney Voltz's case is high priority, but she's just one of 173,000 people across the country who are waiting for permanent public housing.

COURTNEY VOLTZ: It's stressful. I'm not gonna lie. I've been completely stressed. But, yeah, I s'pose we just gotta realise that it's not gonna be forever and there will be a happy ending at the end of it.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Back in Sydney, Daniel Strickland's still on his inner-city beat. It's a warm night and the rough sleepers at Woolloomooloo are settling down.

A.J.'s been living on the streets on and off for 17 years. He's slept here for the past 18 months.

'A.J.': I had issues with alcohol and also where I was living became unbearable, in a Housing Commission unit. Private housing's almost impossible.

REBECCA BAILLIE: 'A.J.' has noticed more and more people sleeping on the streets and in their cars. He says governments must spend more on crisis accommodation and public housing to save young people and families from entering the vicious homelessness cycle.

'A.J.': It's not so much the physical side of it when you first end up on street, it's the psychological, you know. It's that psychological impact that you've just stepped off the last rung of the ladder and you're on the street, you know.

LEIGH SALES: 7.30 contacted both the new federal Housing Minister Kevin Andrews and his junior minister Senator Marise Payne for interviews, but they didn't respond.

And Courtney Voltz is now living in a motel on the Central Coast, but still waiting for suitable housing to become available.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3854864.htm
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Overcrowded properties: Why it happens and how to stop it

By Cameron McEvoy
Wednesday, 18 December 2013

With Australia’s capital cities being home to some of the world’s most expensive rental properties, it is no surprise that overcrowding is a serious problem that many investors face. This is a serious problem in many Australian capital cities, as housing costs increase and supply of affordable property fails to meet demand levels.

Overcrowding of apartments, houses, and other property types occurs for a plethora of reasons. Some of these are profit-driven, others more situational and/or socio-economic. Whatever the reasons a tenant has for overcrowding a property they are renting; landlords suffer the ramifications of this.

Just about everyone has heard a story or has been directly involved – perhaps as a landlord – in a property overcrowding situation. I’ve heard so many horror stories here in Sydney from friends, colleagues, and readers about overcrowded apartments. One friend, a fellow investor; discovered that after six months of a 12-month lease; his three-bedroom apartment was being permanently occupied by nine adults.

Many Australians who have ever lived in inner-city areas have heard stories like ‘that apartment on the other side of my building back in my uni days that only had two bedrooms, but had eight people sleeping on mattresses in it!’.

Some investors may have a mindset of ‘So long as the rent is being paid, I don’t care what happens in the property’. However, savvy investors know why overcrowding must be stamped out, otherwise they can be personally liable. Here’s why and how overcrowding can hurt investors:

Fire safety

- Say you have say a two-bedroom apartment and you rent it out to just one or two people, whose names are on the lease. If there is a fire where injuries, or worse, fatalities occur, and the investigation reveals that several adults were occupying in the property at the time, insurances are likely not to be paid out.

- This results in oftentimes crippling losses for the investor, as they are forced to either repair and renovate the apartment at great expense; or sell the apartment at great loss in order to consolidate their losses.

Property damage

- A less severe but just as important consequence of overcrowding is property damage. This is worse for landlords of houses, however unit and townhouse investors can still suffer. I’ve heard of horror stories for house investors where tenants have ripped down walls, or added their own walls to create more bedrooms to fit more people.

- With so many people living on top of each other in cramped spaces, carpets, walls, and appliances will get warn out much faster than regular properties.

I dug a bit deeper to find out the major reasons why properties in Australia, and in particular, in inner-CBD located properties, are prone to overcrowding:

Poor housing affordability

- This is a huge issue not just for Australian-born citizens, but those who are new to the country, as well as international students.

- Share houses and apartments are becoming increasingly popular in middle to outer-ring suburbs to help curb affordability issues. This is happening not just with the ‘young student’ population that most would imagine would live in this way, but with young professionals, and even mature friends living together to keep costs down.

- However in the CBD areas, the rarity of three to four bedroom properties that can be affordably shared, means that smaller apartments can suffer overcrowding as a way to keep costs down for renters.

Proximity to centralised transport nodes

- Those who are new to the country are also less likely to drive a car, and combined with the desire to live in the heart of a CBD or close by, to allow them to be close to work, whilst still affording the expensive rent, sharing a room in an overcrowded apartment or boarding house may be the most viable option.

- This is also related to time efficiency. Those new to the country or international students are sometimes working two or more jobs, and this means they don’t have the time to waste on commuting from cheaper, outer-ring suburbs. Instead, it is more ‘efficient’ for them to live within minutes’ walk to the best-paying job prospects; and these are usually located close to CBD areas.

Illegal profiteering

- Unlike the abovementioned reasons, this one is more sinister, and highly illegal. Some profiteers ‘prey’ on those who either cannot get a lease of their own, or are new to the country and there are language or other barriers that prevent them sourcing a property legitimately. This unfortunately includes illegal arrivals to the country.

- These people will rent out large apartments and houses in prime locations from real estate agents, and then then illegally sub-let the property for profit, overcrowding the rooms as much as possible.

- For example; a ‘tenant’ may pay $800 per week to rent a four-bedroom, well-located apartment, but may fill each room with two or more beds, and charge $150 per bed, per week, turning a profit weekly from the revenue

So what can you do to prevent overcrowding, and how can you tell from the outside if a property has too many occupants?

Get the best managing agent money can buy

- A highly competent agent will never allow overcrowding to occur. This happens because they are conducting regular routine inspections of your property.

- However, the best agents are almost like detectives for that. An overcrowded property; with enough notice period prior to a routine inspection, can be made to ‘appear’ it is not overcrowded, however savvy managing agents will be on the lookout for any evidence that the property is being occupied than more adults than those listed on the lease.

Be aware of strata by-laws in your state or territory

- How many people is too many, in a property? You need to investigate what the strata by-laws are for units and apartments in strata-managed properties; as well as what the law states for houses that are not part of any strata management.

- There are mild variances from state to state. For instance, in NSW, where overcrowding is a severe problem due to weak affordability for renters, strata-managed building now stipulate no more than two adults per-bedroom, per-apartment. This means in a one bedroom apartment, only two adults are allowed.

Tenant screening in the beginning

- Ensure that the applicant(s) you choose to allow to rent your property have been properly screened by your managing agent.

- If you have any doubts, it is appropriate to ask to see references and/or a tenant ledger history from your agent. Red flags to look out for include a history where the tenant(s) have not stayed in one property longer than a year (over a long period of time), or of course any black marks against their name in their rental history (such as reports of damage, tribunal hearings, and so on)

Local council and student council awareness programs

- To help prevent international students being taken advantage of, by illegal profiteers, most CBD campuses of universities around Australia give information about overcrowding as part of student orientation and on boarding processes. This helps to prevent students being taken advantage of.

- Local councils in densely populated local government areas also investigate reports of overcrowding. If you suspect neighbouring properties near where you live, or where friends live, are overcrowding the rooms, it is best to report them.

- This in turn helps to combat the issue head-on. The knock on effect is then a more spread out human population throughout capital cities, and this is good for the health of all residents in big cities, because city resources and services are more evenly and fairly distributed for use to all occupants.

Have your agent ask the neighbours

- As an investor, it is hard to keep an eye on your place when you are not actually living there yourself. This one comes back to having a good agent on board. If there is suspicion that a property is overcrowded, ask your agent to check things such as:

Neighbour observations. If neighbours notice lots of people regularly coming and going from the property, this could be an indicator.

Rubbish share. If the property is a unit and is producing ridiculously high volumes of rubbish contribution to the shared bin areas, this is another indicator. With houses, asking neighbours on rubbish volumes is also a possibility.

As an investor it is vital to protect the financial prosperity of your property, and overcrowding is one of the nasties to be conscious of. Knowing how to detect if it is happening in your property; what to do if it occurs, and the potential legal consequences of not doing anything about it is an important piece of the investor success puzzle.

Cameron McEvoy is a NSW-based property investor and maintains a blog, Property Correspondent.

Read more: http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/landlords/overcorwded-properties-why-it-happens-and-how-to-stop-it/2013121766759
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