Global heating could worsen housing affordability, push up rents and quadruple homelessness in a decade without fairer housing policies and action to reduce emissions, new research has found. Home prices and rents in Australia are influenced by a complex mix of factors, from incomes and mortgage rates to insurance premiums , available land and population. University of Sydney researchers modelled the housing market system, using two decades of public data, and tested its response under different climate scenarios, publishing their results in Cities . They found climate change affected housing and rental affordability under both high and low-emission scenarios, but vulnerable households were worst-hit under a fossil-fuelled future. Homelessness could be four times higher by 2036 under a high-emissions future, as homes become more expensive and rents rise relative to incomes. The scenarios were based on five plausible social and economic pathways developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.…