Is this how bad things have gotten?

Froshtbit

Rent a house in Longford and spend 3 hours plus on a train everyday going to work while paying a fortune for the privilage. I commute from Portlaoise to Dublin Heuston and I wouldnt wish it on anyone. Im tired and broke all the time despite having a full time job. My only free time is on the weekend and I cant afford to move close to alleviate it because of the price of the shoeboxes nearer.

Your suggestion that the dole scroungers,the obvious culprits in this mess, move out there is asinine too since there are tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and in reality there shouldnt be a crisis.

But as was pointed out, 1 in 5 TDs is a landlord and turkeys dont vote for xmas.

FalconGirl

We don't do forward planning well at all in Ireland. Housing, transport and health are all reaching their tipping point or way past it. Unfortunately can't see that changing with the calibre of Govts we have had which lets face it, is quite poor and has been for a while. Really think a state of the nation march is required on the Dail.

All economic indicators point to a strong economy but what good is that if the people who work their arses off have a poor quality of life.

In my opinion on property we should go high rise and do it quick.

newacc2015

12Phase wrote: »

Investment groups are only the villain where they've been vulture capital funds that have come in to clean up (in more ways than one). Very, very little here was built on the basis of a developer managing and renting property long term.

Also since when is it "political bias" to strongly object to the housing policies of two centre right political parties ?!?!

Yes I'm politically biased in so far as FF and FG have made an absolute dog's dinner of Irish housing policy for at least 60 years.
This isn't a short term policy issue that's just recently come about. Ireland seems to lurch from one housing crisis to another. It has planning that is probably amongst the worst in the developed world and one of the lowest levels of urbanisation in the OECD.

So, yes I'm very biased, if by bias you mean having an objective opinion!!

Well SF run DDC has been the worst in decades for providing new social housing. Whether you like FF or FG, they have some ideas for social housing versus SF who dont have an opinion on anything.

Have you been to America? That is the worst planning in the developed world. Houses in the suburbs with no footpaths, commerical office blocks beside housing, no public transport etc.

What other housing crisis have we had since the tenements of the 1950s? When we were losing tens of thousands of people to emigration from the 1840s to the 1980s, we never had a shortage of housing as more and more of it was always being freed up

We were in the worst recession experienced by a developed nation in decades. We could have built housing like no tomorrow and ended up like Greece. But we cut all spending and thankfully we have an economy. We could have kept building housing to please people like you, but we would have went bankrupt. We can now start building social housing, since we have an economy

yqtwqxqm

newacc2015 wrote: »

Well SF run DDC has been the worst in decades for providing new social housing. Whether you like FF or FG, they have some ideas for social housing versus SF who dont have an opinion on anything.

Have you been to America? That is the worst planning in the developed world. Houses in the suburbs with no footpaths, commerical office blocks beside housing, no public transport etc.

What other housing crisis have we had since the tenements of the 1950s? When we were losing tens of thousands of people to emigration from the 1840s to the 1980s, we never had a shortage of housing as more and more of it was always being freed up

We were in the worst recession experienced by a developed nation in decades. We could have built housing like no tomorrow and ended up like Greece. But we cut all spending and thankfully we have an economy. We could have kept building housing to please people like you, but we would have went bankrupt. We can now start building social housing, since we have an economy

A big part of the worst recession in decades as you describe it was that people demanded we build, build, build, rents are too high, more supply in the early 2000's.
So we did. Next thing we know we have too many properties.
Also the government interfered in the property market (to try and make property prices and rents lower) with disastrous consequences,making them both higher, in turn making shouts for more building even louder.


Oh, that sounds familiar
Same thing is happening now. In a few years we will be swimming in vacant houses and apartments again.

syklops

According to Newstalk, there are 16,000 empty apartments in Dublin, and a total of 230,000 empty properties across the state,

If true, it wouldnt surprise me. That could solve the rental crisis practically over night.

Will anything be done? Probably not.

Michael D Not Higgins

syklops wrote: »

According to Newstalk, there are 16,000 empty apartments in Dublin, and a total of 230,000 empty properties across the state,

If true, it wouldnt surprise me. That could solve the rental crisis practically over night.

Will anything be done? Probably not.

I'd like to see a breakdown of where these properties are, what condition they're in, etc. before jumping to say this is the solution. I also wonder how many of those apartments are Nama owned, ready to sell to the REITs.

Clearly an increase in housing supply is the solution and this is one avenue they should go down but I can imagine there being an issue with a sizeable number of them.

bleary

This is based on 2011 census figures, I imagine while the vacants will be constant or increasing in rural areas, I expect a substantial reduction in urban areas.
At the same time they made some interesting points such as delays in processing probate mean property lying vacant.

Similarly to reduce costs in building new houses there is a recommendation to reduce the planning delays and increase building inspections similar to the UK system.

ongarite

Figures are 5 years out of date.
The majority of those emtpy units are idle former council flats that are no longer fit for purpose.
To meet current rental standards they would have to renovated at huge cost.
Better to knock them and re-build to required building regulation standards & densities.

newacc2015

yqtwqxqm wrote: »

A big part of the worst recession in decades as you describe it was that people demanded we build, build, build, rents are too high, more supply in the early 2000's.
So we did. Next thing we know we have too many properties.
Also the government interfered in the property market (to try and make property prices and rents lower) with disastrous consequences,making them both higher, in turn making shouts for more building even louder.


Oh, that sounds familiar
Same thing is happening now. In a few years we will be swimming in vacant houses and apartments again.

We had to "build,build, build" as we had one of the fastest growing population in Europe. You failed mention the supply of houses was mainly followed by an increasing demand for them. What was the alternative? Should we have handed all the people coming over to work in Google and Facebook a sleeping bag and told them to find a park, as we didnt want to build housing? That would have destroyed the economy, like it currently is

Your knowledge of why we are having a housing shortage is extremely limited to say the least. We had a banking crisis, which was due to banks not being properly regulated. That has nothing to do with the Government, it was incompetence from the Central Bank, which is now resolved.

Since you have such a strong opinion on what went wrong ( I say opinion as I dont believe it is based on hard facts). What do you think the Government should do with the housing shortage?

sReq | uTeK

Sorry state of affairs, but its simple macroeconomics that could be curbed if this government had any policy.

Demand is high, supply is low, create a fiscal stimulus and pump money into housing curbing the demand and increasing supply, prices come down and everyone is happy.

All this <snip> is doing is increasing the income and savings of thus with property and taking disposable income off the average Joe soap which ends up hurting the economy anyway.

<snip>

Barely Hedged

pablo128 wrote: »

I'm presuming here you are referring to people dependent on welfare. Different county councils have different rent allowances. Longford county council would not give enough to rent the house you linked.
https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiPucmIle7MAhUiJcAKHXFNCzsQFggmMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.welfare.ie%2Fen%2FPages%2FMaximum-Rent-Limits-by-County.aspx&usg=AFQjCNEq8Oh5oPQcxNDSwV1jPhf0c0tF2Q&sig2=prqAUUmYY-dVvX8XKZS5zg

No, I'm referring to people who are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

The government have been asked to resolve this issue. Longford is under the governments jurisdiction

Barely Hedged

Mr.S wrote: »

So ship them off to Longford where they have even less chance of picking up employment

Less chance does not mean no chance.

You agree with the alternative of families being raised in one bed hotel rooms in Dublin, because there is no other short term option. I'm all ears if you have one

Barely Hedged

Froshtbit wrote: »

Rent a house in Longford and spend 3 hours plus on a train everyday going to work while paying a fortune for the privilage. I commute from Portlaoise to Dublin Heuston and I wouldnt wish it on anyone. Im tired and broke all the time despite having a full time job. My only free time is on the weekend and I cant afford to move close to alleviate it because of the price of the shoeboxes nearer.

Your suggestion that the dole scroungers,the obvious culprits in this mess, move out there is asinine too since there are tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and in reality there shouldnt be a crisis.

But as was pointed out, 1 in 5 TDs is a landlord and turkeys dont vote for xmas.

Read my posts. I said nothing about commuting daily. I merely pointed out that Longford is not the other side of the world from Dublin and a life could be built in Longord for a family that are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

I never said they were culprits I just suggested a practical solution to a practical problem.

Where are these tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and what condition are they in?

To suggest that the reason there is a rental crisis is because of TDs being landlords is laughable and deluded. It has nothing to do with the economic situation of the past 8 years.That's merely a secondary influence on it???

12Phase

Barely Hedged wrote: »

Read my posts. I said nothing about commuting daily. I merely pointed out that Longford is not the other side of the world from Dublin and a life could be built in Longord for a family that are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

I never said they were culprits I just suggested a practical solution to a practical problem.

Where are these tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and what condition are they in?

To suggest that the reason there is a rental crisis is because of TDs being landlords is laughable and deluded. It has nothing to do with the economic situation of the past 8 years.That's merely a secondary influence on it???

There was a housing crisis before the recession / credit crunch and there have been many similar situations in the past too.

Ireland's hasn't had anything approaching a sensible housing policy since probably the late 19th century when some progressive movements happened like the development of the Artisans' housing in Dublin.

We've built facility-less ghettos where people couldn't even get a bottle of milk without walking miles, social / affordable housing requirements were overridden by NIMBYism and allowing developers to just buy their way out of it with a fee to the local authority.

Meanwhile, we have scattered housing to the four winds and while all other developed countries have rapidly urbanised, we remain one of the least urbanised countries in the developed world and massively out of line with any comparable EU country.

To me that just shows screwed up political priorities, self-centred nimbyism and Irish exceptionalism that seems to idealise this notion that you can live in a bungalow in the countryside and still have running water, sewage, ultra fast broadband and a hospital next-door.

The reason we have lousy facilities is largely down to bad planning and scatterbrained scatter development. Most of Ireland (including most of the hinterland around the cities) is slow low density that it's not economically viable to built public transport or install proper services.

I'm sorry to rant here, but there are times you'd seriously wonder about this country. We are going to walk ourselves into massive issues now with CO2 emission fines and so on because we have no ability to reduce carbon output from housing/transport due to bad planning.

Meanwhile the agricultural lobby is so strong that they won't budge a mm on anything so basically we'll probably end up cutting funds to health and education to pay fines.

Of course we can blame Fianna Fail for Irish housing policy (and Fine Gael to a lesser extent). They have been in charge of every single Irish government since the foundation of the current state.

Who made up Irish governments since the foundation of the state?

For illustrative purposes:

1: FF
2: FF
3: FF
4: FF
5: FG, Labour, C n P, C n T, NL.
6: FF
7: FG/Lab/CnT
8: FF
9: FF
10: FF
11: FF
12: FF
13: FF
14: FG/Lab
15: FF
16: FF
17: FG/Lab
18: FF
19: FG/Lab
20: FF
21: FF + PD
22: FF + PD
23: FF + Lab and then FF minority.
24: FG-Lab/DL
25: FF-PD-Ind
26: FF-PD
27: FF-Green-PD-Ind
28: FF-Green-PD-INd, FF, Green-Ind, and then FF minority briefly.
29: FG-Lab
30: FG-Ind minority.

(you might notice a slight trend there...)

We can moan all we like on threads like this but, until people start demanding some kind of radical reform of housing policy, this is just going to roll on and on forever.

I can only conclude that the Irish electorate doesn't actually want any housing reform and is quite happy with these messes, homelessness, bad quality housing and so on, as they vote for it every time in what is an extremely open electoral system.

athtrasna

This is not a politics forum.

Mod

12Phase

The two subjects are absolutely intrinsically linked. You can't have housing policy without political discussion.

I'll shut up though.

It's basically impossible to discuss housing policy without discussing politics.

Thus you might as well ether close or move the thread.

Lux23

I just had a look at Daft and there are 12 one bed apartments available for €1,000 or less in the Dublin City Centre, South Dublin City and North Dublin City. You would need to be seriously lucky to nab one of them.

handlemaster

Mr.S wrote: »

So ship them off to Longford where they have even less chance of picking up employment

Lots of other cheap places to rent other than longford. Social welfare lifers who have no interest in working should be made move from the many populated cities. Any yes given a free house else where in the country

Stacksey

Lux23 wrote: »

I just had a look at Daft and there are 12 one bed apartments available for €1,000 or less in the Dublin City Centre, South Dublin City and North Dublin City. You would need to be seriously lucky to nab one of them.

Wonder how many results would have returned if you did that search in 2009

Sheep in a field

Lux23 wrote: »

I just had a look at Daft and there are 12 one bed apartments available for €1,000 or less in the Dublin City Centre, South Dublin City and North Dublin City. You would need to be seriously lucky to nab one of them.

Are they actually apartments or just small studios or bedsits?

Stacksey

How can people live spending 50%+ on their mortgage/rent per month?

Barely Hedged

Barely Hedged wrote: »

Read my posts. I said nothing about commuting daily. I merely pointed out that Longford is not the other side of the world from Dublin and a life could be built in Longord for a family that are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

I never said they were culprits I just suggested a practical solution to a practical problem.

Where are these tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and what condition are they in?

To suggest that the reason there is a rental crisis is because of TDs being landlords is laughable and deluded. It has nothing to do with the economic situation of the past 8 years.That's merely a secondary influence on it???

It's not very practical though to send all homeless Dublin people to live in Longford .
I'd imagine Longford has more than its fair share of social welfare recipients, living off housing benefit. The levels of which would be a lot lower than Dublin.

Is your answer to create ghetto towns around the country?

handlemaster

bubblypop wrote: »

Barely Hedged wrote: »

Read my posts. I said nothing about commuting daily. I merely pointed out that Longford is not the other side of the world from Dublin and a life could be built in Longord for a family that are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

I never said they were culprits I just suggested a practical solution to a practical problem.

Where are these tonnes of vacant properties in Dublin and what condition are they in?

To suggest that the reason there is a rental crisis is because of TDs being landlords is laughable and deluded. It has nothing to do with the economic situation of the past 8 years.That's merely a secondary influence on it???

It's not very practical though to send all homeless Dublin people to live in Longford .
I'd imagine Longford has more than its fair share of social welfare recipients, living off housing benefit. The levels of which would be a lot lower than Dublin.

Is your answer to create ghetto towns around the country?

yes housing benefit would be lower as rental would be but all other welfare woukd be the same. more money for beer and fags

Stacksey

Stacksey wrote: »

How can people live spending 50%+ on their mortgage/rent per month?

There was a thread on AH recently and it have fairly surprising results in that from what I remember very few were spending over 30% on rent/mortgage and a lot were spending less than 20%.

handlemaster

handlemaster wrote: »

yes housing benefit would be lower as rental would be but all other welfare woukd be the same. more money for beer and fags

I'm sorry?
What does this mean?

Barely Hedged

bubblypop wrote: »

It's not very practical though to send all homeless Dublin people to live in Longford .
I'd imagine Longford has more than its fair share of social welfare recipients, living off housing benefit. The levels of which would be a lot lower than Dublin.

Is your answer to create ghetto towns around the country?

Replace Longford with any regional town that has good facilities. It doesn't have to be just there.

What's your answer to house those families that are currently in hotels starting tomorrow?

Barely Hedged

Barely Hedged wrote: »

Replace Longford with any regional town that has good facilities. It doesn't have to be just there.

What's your answer to house those families that are currently in hotels starting tomorrow?

Maybe get back to building social housing.
It's definitely not making ghettos out of any regional towns

Barely Hedged

bubblypop wrote: »

Maybe get back to building social housing.
It's definitely not making ghettos out of any regional towns

That's your answer as to how you will house them tomorrow - build them a house!

They would be renting dwellings in private estates and apartments off private landlords as they do in Dublin. Can you explain how this leads to ghettos?

Barely Hedged

Barely Hedged wrote: »

That's your answer as to how you will house them tomorrow - build them a house!

They would be renting dwellings in private estates and apartments off private landlords as they do in Dublin. Can you explain how this leads to ghettos?

That doesn't make sense?
If the county councils around the country built houses as they always did up till the last 6 or,7 yrs that would give some movement in the housing market.
And they wouldn't be renting from private landlords.

pablo128

Barely Hedged wrote: »

Read my posts. I said nothing about commuting daily. I merely pointed out that Longford is not the other side of the world from Dublin and a life could be built in Longord for a family that are 'homeless' in hotels in Dublin.

Then you are talking about people on welfare, contrary to your reply to me earlier. So my point stands. The house in Longford that was linked is not suitable for a homeless family to move into. Its too expensive.