Almost half of the 3,690 town and village councils in France that have the authority to raise the rate of taxe d'habitation bills on second homes have done so, according to official figures. Taxe d'habitation bills will start dropping into the letter boxes of second home owners in the next few days - and some may well be in for an unpleasant surprise.
The ongoing rise in the number of homeless students, now more than double what it was in 2010 even as the overall student population has shrunk, is a reflection of both the city's acute housing shortage and the surge of migrant families who have filled homeless shelters in recent years. Since the influx of asylum seekers began in summer 2022, the city's public schools have absorbed an estimated 50,000 new students in temporary housing.
Two years ago, state and local governments pushed to fast-track conversions of near-empty offices into much-needed apartments to alleviate a housing crunch. The promised panacea never eventuated. Momentum to create homes out of empty offices has faded even as office vacancies rise and housing shortages intensify. Developers have not submitted a single application to turn an office into housing in central Melbourne since 2023. Just one successful application has been made in the CBD of Sydney, the country's most unaffordable city.
the majority of Americans find housing costs in the U.S. unreasonably high, according to a recent survey conducted by Tavern Research for the Searchlight Institute. While housing economists attribute the crisis to a chronic shortage of housing, the survey shows a variety of opinions on the causes, including blaming investors, building material costs, landlords, and elected officials. The survey also highlights that a majority of Americans welcome more home construction in their communities, recognizing the benefits of increased housing availability.
The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity was a good example. It was explicitly designed to add a little housing in every community, but not the same amount in every community, to avoid changing their character. It was proportional, meaning dense areas like Midtown South would get more units than low-scale neighborhoods such as College Point, Whitestone, Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck, all of which Paladino represents.
The legal process to prove rightful heirship can be complex and costly, and disproportionately affects families in underserved communities, said Byron Batres, founder and CEO of Scrivnr. Scrivnr's mission is to make legal services accessible so families can resolve title issues and fully claim what's rightfully theirs. Scrivnr's press release cited recent data from The Pew Charitable Trusts, which estimates that tangled title properties across Philadelphia are collectively worth more than $1.1 billion.
Given the unaffordable prices of a standalone house in Randwick, a vibrant suburb in the city's east, they opted to renovate a sunroom. We had to take a creative approach and create a flexible third bedroom, Henderson says. Otherwise we would need to move away from here, and we'd be moving further away from jobs, further away from work and schools. The compromise we came up with was to remain where we were, but create a third space.
A town in Brittany has passed a local decree banning the construction of second homes amid an increasing housing shortage for local people. The coastal town of Cancale in Brittany, population 5,500, has passed a decree banning the construction of new buildings to be used as second homes, amid what local authorities describe as a "crisis" in housing shortages for local people.
