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Economic pressures, demographic changes and digital technologies are reshaping housing pathways as rented, shared and digitalized. In Australia, a growing proportion of adults are renting in the private market, often in shared accommodation. We know little about shared housing because the shared rental sector remains largely "hidden". Online shared housing platforms offer insights into how people seek homes in a market where personal attributes are marketed alongside properties and rent. We use over 9000 Flatmates.com.au listings to identify the demographic features of shared households and potential tenants, with a smaller subset used to illuminate the characteristics that are sought after and marketed by people searching for a shared home. Our analysis reveals that the "ideal flatmate" is one who contributes to social relations in the home while rarely being at home. These insights highlight the limits of shared housing markets for long-term tenure because ofconstraints on home-making practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared rental housing has long been one of the few affordable options available to low-income urban singles. Gaining access to a share rental dwelling has historically relied on 'low tech' communications such as noticeboards and classifieds, in relatively localised spatial areas. With the global proliferation of digitally mediated peer-to-peer platforms, the geographical reach of shared renting, including the opportunity for living with strangers, has expanded. Amidst declining affordability and growing precarity, the enhanced spatial flows and connectivity of peer-to-peer platforms provide a direct yet informal route into rental housing. In these informal spaces, singles rely on networks of 'distributed' rather than 'institutional' trust associated with formal rental arrangements. Drawing on interviews with urban singles in Australia, this paper explores the everyday informal practices of forming networks for shared access, negotiating the living agreement, creating a home and becoming an expert in the digitally mediated spaces of the shared rental household. The everyday informal practices of 'distributed trust' sheds new light on the spatially contingent 'trust cultures' emerging in shared renting. Despite narratives of a movement towards the more collaborative consumption of a sharing economy, enduring informal practices of opportunists and entrepreneurs that erode trust and a sense of home persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia faces a chronic shortage of affordable rental housing, as do many other nations in the Global North. Unable to access the formal rental sector, lower-income earners are increasingly resorting to share housing and other informal arrangements, sometimes occupying makeshift accommodation or illegal dwellings. This article examines informality in Sydney's housing market, an important case because of the explicit policy efforts geared towards supporting diverse and higher density housing supply. It draws on analysis of the regulatory planning framework and primary data derived from interviews and focus groups with housing advocates, support workers and building compliance officers from across the metropolitan region. It seeks to understand the drivers of supply and demand within the informal housing market and constructs a typology of informal tenures and dwelling provision. The article contributes new empirical data on the outcomes of planning policies designed to enable flexible housing responses which legitimise some informal practices, and the wider dimensions of informal housing provision within formal urban systems of the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Share housing is changing. Once considered a form of short-term housing and a lifestyle choice for young adults fresh out of the family home, share housing is increasingly playing a broader role into advanced adulthood. Recent work has claimed the emergence of Generation Rent; however, the reconfiguration of housing experiences is illustrated not only by renting but also by an increase in house sharing and the emergence of 'Generation Share' within the renting cohort. We know surprisingly little about share housing and its increasingly important role in housing. This paper draws upon exploratory research conducted on share housing in Sydney, Australia, and argues that share housing as traditionally understood is changing. Share housing has a widening demographic and it is driven primarily by economic factors. Despite this, the social affordances offered by share housing are highly valued. Share housing therefore offers us a unique lens into changing housing pathways and values and provokes us to think of ways to produce more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older Australians face housing challenges including supply, accessibility, affordability, security of tenure and isolation. This article examines the potential for cohousing to address these challenges. In interviews, professionals indicated that cohousing promises benefits for older people, but identified financial and planning barriers. In contrast, focus groups with older people found significant resistance to the concept of shared living; many participants did not see value in cohousing. Resistance stemmed from negative associations with cohousing and cultural lack of familiarity with shared living arrangements. Cohousing has an image problem in Australia that needs to be overcome if it is to thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings:The online accommodation platform Airbnb has expanded globally, raising substantial planning and regulatory concerns. We ask whether Airbnb rentals generate significant neighborhood impacts like noise, congestion, and competition for parking; reduce the permanent rental housing supply and increase rental prices; or provide income opportunities that help “hosts” afford their own housing. We focus on Sydney, the largest region in Australia with 4.4 million people in 28 individual municipalities, which has experienced both rapidly rising housing costs and exponential growth in Airbnb listings since 2011. Airbnb’s growth has raised concerns serious enough to result in a formal Parliamentary Inquiry by the state of New South Wales. We analyze stakeholder submissions to this inquiry and review local planning regulations, Airbnb listings data, and housing market and census statistics. We find that online homesharing platforms for visitor accommodations blur traditional boundaries between residential and tourist areas so Airbnb listings may fall outside of existing land use regulations or evade detection until neighbors complain. Our findings are constrained by the difficulties of monitoring online operations and the rapid changes in the industry. Takeaway for practice:Planners and policymakers in cities with increasing numbers of Airbnb rentals need to review how well local planning controls manage the neighborhood nuisances, traffic, and parking problems that may be associated with them while acting to protect the permanent rental housing supply. Local planners need to ensure that zoning and residential development controls distinguish between different forms of short-term Airbnb accommodation listings and their potential impacts on neighborhoods and housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on extensive research work on the application of energy trading models, energy sharing strategies are applied to smart homes. This paper addresses an energy sharing platform as an energy storage solution for renewable distributed generation (RDG) integration in microgrids. An energy-sharing service platform for renewable distributed generation smart home applications is proposed. This platform aims to suit various kinds of energy users, energy generation and energy storage devices. It is based on a decentralized approach, which means a central operator is not required. In the proposed energy management model, the up-reserve (UR) is defined as the maximum state of charge (SOC) value in every participant. The conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) method is used to undertake risk analysis and UR calculation. In a shared strategy, the Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) method is used for risk analysis and energy operations. Moreover, this energy sharing platform refers to a trading mechanism called the call-auction method, which is similar to the opening auction trading in the stock market. The objective of the trading principle is to achieve the maximum trading volume; thus the platform facilitates an increase in the utilization of RDG. This paper details the rigorous proof of the energy sharing strategy used by the algorithm in the energy trading model. A rigorous proof of the algorithm is also given. Furthermore, the proposed energy sharing strategy has been compared with existing offerings of the frequency control ancillary services (FCAS). The historical data in Australia's electricity market is used to verify the proposed approach. Moreover, the proposed energy sharing platform compares with the FCAS provision. Simulation results show that the surplus energy can be shared among participants who hold different quantities of demand and generation/storage. Therefore, the proposed approach is a cost-effective energy storage solution, especially when energy storage capital cost is high. • An energy sharing platform is presented for renewable distributed generation. • An independent energy management strategy can be customized for each participant. • The call auction model of stock exchange is cited in the energy sharing platform. • The maximum transaction volume is applied in the call auction model. • The award of energy sharing can be self-ruled by participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]