Ireland should stop selling houses to non residents

I was thinking of how expensive it is to buy a house/apt in Dublin. When you factor in that a morgage can be only 3.5 times a persons salary and the average salary is 45000. Then for example a 3 bed house should cost about 200000 including the deposit. But I dont understand how the house prices are like double that price, I mean who could aford it?!

Then I read stories of foreign investment companies buying up the housing stock and apartment blocks here, which is very discouraging and inflates the prices. Wouldnt it be best for the goverment to pass legislation to ban sales to non Irish residents? As what was done in recently in New Zealand, at least until the housing crisis has past and until they are enough houses been built to keep the prices in check.

amcalester

All that’ll happen is the foreign investment funds will set up an Irish company, which will borrow the money from the foreign investment company and then buy the properties as an Irish registered company.

4ensic15

It would be contrary to EU law to stop EU companies from investing in Ireland. We left the era of protectionism behind nearly 50 years ago.

rosmoke

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

myshirt

Ireland is not in a position to do this either. This whole country is built on other people's money. We need that money.

blindside88

Everyone does not need to live in Dublin, there are a huge number of houses for sale around the country within commutable distance of Dublin for less than 200k.

It’s like comparing the average wage in the US to property prices in Manhattan or the average wage in the UK to property prices in London.

Even if you stopped non residents buying property the price would not drop, land costs x, the cost of building is y, the deleveloper also needs to make a profit, that determines what a house will be sold for in a market like Dublin

oceanman

4ensic15 wrote: »

It would be contrary to EU law to stop EU companies from investing in Ireland. We left the era of protectionism behind nearly 50 years ago.

more is the pity..

pablo128

blindside88 wrote: »

Everyone does not need to live in Dublin, there are a huge number of houses for sale around the country within commutable distance of Dublin for less than 200k.

It’s like comparing the average wage in the US to property prices in Manhattan or the average wage in the UK to property prices in London.

Even if you stopped non residents buying property the price would not drop, land costs x, the cost of building is y, the deleveloper also needs to make a profit, that determines what a house will be sold for in a market like Dublin

These commuter towns you speak of cost around 400 euro extra in fuel per month to get to and from Dublin.

noodler

rosmoke wrote: »

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

Could you explain why you can't do that?

Or at least why you think the EU stops you?

Find the post quite bizarre.

CollyFlower

The foreign investment companies are not the only ones buying up the property's, council's are doing it as well and giving them away for 'free' .

Eric Cartman

noodler wrote: »

Could you explain why you can't do that?

Or at least why you think the EU stops you?

Find the post quite bizarre.

the EU hasnt stopped them, the local councils and government policy has. Local needs planning is the biggest sham we have in this country, trying to stop people who don't want to live in a cramped housing estate from daring to build a house.

voluntary

chuchuchu wrote: »

I was thinking of how expensive it is to buy a house/apt in Dublin. When you factor in that a morgage can be only 3.5 times a persons salary and the average salary is 45000. Then for example a 3 bed house should cost about 200000 including the deposit. But I dont understand how the house prices are like double that price, I mean who could aford it?!

Dublin is specific. Look outside the two islands and you find that regular workers can hardly ever buy houses in big cities. Most people live in apartment blocks in cities.

4ensic15

Eric Cartman wrote: »

the EU hasnt stopped them, the local councils and government policy has. Local needs planning is the biggest sham we have in this country, trying to stop people who don't want to live in a cramped housing estate from daring to build a house.

You mean trying to stop bungalow blight and ribbon development. Remote houses add to overall costs as services have to be provided to small numbers of individuals at enormous cost.

Wheeliebin30

If you want to live in your dream house in the location you want to go and work hard or study hard or win the lotto.

Stop expecting the government funded by the tax payers to fulfill your dream.

Irish people need a smack of the real world.

Watching American sitcoms where each family lives in a suburb mansion with 5 cars.

L1011

This isn't the Politics forum, some posts here already are not appropriate for the content of the forum

looksee

rosmoke wrote: »

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

This can be interpreted as 'I saw a nice field for sale at an agricultural land price and wanted to buy it and put a house on it, but the planners would not let me'.

This is because people have in the past bought nice fields and stuck great big mansions on them to the detriment of the countryside.

In fact there are plenty of run down and semi derelict houses for sale on decent bits of land - an acre would be loads to grow a few veg on if you are also working - which you could buy and restore and grow your veg.

Sultan of Bling

How about making councils build homes for social housing instead of continually out bidding buyers for existing builds.

voluntary

Yeah, build remotely, then have kids in few years time, then demand public transport to take them to school, internet access, mobile coverage and stuff. Allowing people build houses in remote locations is expensive to the society in general.

Anteayer

4ensic15 wrote: »

It would be contrary to EU law to stop EU companies from investing in Ireland. We left the era of protectionism behind nearly 50 years ago.

Only if they're treating EU nationals differently to Irish nationals. You can ban non EU all you like, or you can restrict speculative purchase entirely through other measures - for example you could ban funds from buying existing property. Only allow them to invest in new build (expanding the stock).

This blaming EU regulations thing is straight out of the nonsense "blame someone else" "it's impossible" "Computa Says No" type mentality that brought the UK to think that the EU was responsible for Tory driven domestic policies and caused Brexit.

A bit of delving into what the EU actually says would be useful.

All the EU asks is that you don't discriminate against EU citizens and that you don't cause market distortion.

Also our Constitution specifically allows the government to intervene in the markets in circumstances where there's a need to rebalance things towards the greater good. Housing market regulations may be completely constitutional - how about we test it rather than just fall over before we even try!?

There's similar debate going on in Berlin and quite a few other cities around the EU.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180827/berlins-mayor-considering-banning-foreign-apartment-buyers-to-counter-spiralling-prices-but-are-they-really-to-blame

Diceicle

rosmoke wrote: »

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

Is that the case Country-wide? I can understand it in high demand counties straddling Dublin, cork and Galway,

4ensic15

Anteayer wrote: »

Only if they're treating EU nationals differently to Irish nationals. You can ban non EU all you like, or you can restrict speculative purchase entirely through other measures - for example you could ban funds from buying existing property. Only allow them to invest in new build (expanding the stock).

This blaming EU regulations thing is straight out of the nonsense "blame someone else" "it's impossible" "Computa Says No" type mentality that brought the UK to think that the EU was responsible for Tory driven domestic policies and caused Brexit.

A bit of delving into what the EU actually says would be useful.

All the EU asks is that you don't discriminate against EU citizens and that you don't cause market distortion.

Also our Constitution specifically allows the government to intervene in the markets in circumstances where there's a need to rebalance things towards the greater good. Housing market regulations may be completely constitutional - how about we test it rather than just fall over before we even try!?

There's similar debate going on in Berlin and quite a few other cities around the EU.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180827/berlins-mayor-considering-banning-foreign-apartment-buyers-to-counter-spiralling-prices-but-are-they-really-to-blame

Drivel. Free movement of capital is one of the four basic freedoms of the EU. Anyone with any kind of corporate presence in the EU can move capital in. Trying to prevent non EU coming in is finger in the dyke stuff, straight out of the nonsense "blame someone else" "it's impossible" "Computa Says No" type mentality that brought the UK to think that the EU was responsible for Tory driven domestic policies and caused Brexit.

The constitution is subject to EU law in situations where the EU has competence. Furthermore our Constitution does not specifically allow the government to intervene in the markets in circumstances where there's a need to rebalance things towards the greater good.

If you read the constitution, which would be a good idea before offering opinions based on it, you will notice that the word "market" is not mentioned in the constitution at all.

As for restricting investors to new build, what kind of distortion would that cause. They wouldn't invest because their second hand value would be nil. The whole object of investing is to turn a profit.


If people want to buy houses they just have to save up and pay market price.

OleRodrigo

Whats needed is good quality apartments in urban areas to rent from a reputable landlord with decent rights that accumulate the longer you're there - security in other words. More high density living with better public transport, less cars and scattered housing estates.

rosmoke

Diceicle wrote: »

Is that the case Country-wide? I can understand it in high demand counties straddling Dublin, cork and Galway,

Personally I think so and I don't mean let's all build houses in the middle of nowhere, I'm talking about a small percentage of people, people with remote jobs for example.
How many people do you have in your workplace who commute from Athlone/Carlow/Naas or Navan to Dublin? Hell, we're even talking about commutes of the likes of Kerry to Dublin on Boards. It's clear that this is not working, there is plenty of rural land that can be used inbetween Navan and Dublin for building but instead we have grass on it.


Small example:
I can build my own house with no mortgage: 2 containers, solar panels and a few other things I can add in time. Would cost me max 40k for a lovely home, with most things done be me. For this I wouldn't need my misses to work and I wouldn't need to earn a high salary.

But if I can't build my dream house, I'm gonna have to rent or outbid others, subsequently driving up prices.
And if you're asking why? It's because wife needs a job too so that we can afford to emigrate later to fulfil our dream.
Buying a derelict so that we can build it's essentially a hack/workaround and doesn't solve the problem.

And maybe not everyone can or want kids, so I wouldn't put all in the same basket, as in let's all stay in Dublin because you might have kids.

ted1

It costs about 250k in labour and parts to build a 3 bed.

That’s with out land. If land was cheap I’d have a massive garden.

It’s not the foreigners fault.

Anteayer

4ensic15 wrote: »

Drivel. Free movement of capital is one of the four basic freedoms of the EU. Anyone with any kind of corporate presence in the EU can move capital in. Trying to prevent non EU coming in is finger in the dyke stuff, straight out of the nonsense "blame someone else" "it's impossible" "Computa Says No" type mentality that brought the UK to think that the EU was responsible for Tory driven domestic policies and caused Brexit.

The constitution is subject to EU law in situations where the EU has competence. Furthermore our Constitution does not specifically allow the government to intervene in the markets in circumstances where there's a need to rebalance things towards the greater good.

If you read the constitution, which would be a good idea before offering opinions based on it, you will notice that the word "market" is not mentioned in the constitution at all.

As for restricting investors to new build, what kind of distortion would that cause. They wouldn't invest because their second hand value would be nil. The whole object of investing is to turn a profit.


If people want to buy houses they just have to save up and pay market price.

Have a read of Article 43 before you go around accusing me of writing "drivel"

2 1° The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.

2° The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.

Article 45

2 The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing:–

i That the citizens (all of whom, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood) may through their occupations find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs.

ii That the ownership and control of the material resources of the community may be so distributed amongst private individuals and the various classes as best to subserve the common good.

iii That, especially, the operation of free competition shall not be allowed so to develop as to result in the concentration of the ownership or control of essential commodities in a few individuals to the common detriment.

iv That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole.

v That there may be established on the land in economic security as many families as in the circumstances shall be practicable.

3 1° The State shall favour and, where necessary, supplement private initiative in industry and commerce.

2° The State shall endeavour to secure that private enterprise shall be so conducted as to ensure reasonable efficien

The property rights in the constitution are heavily circumscribed by very strong social balance ideology.

rosmoke

rosmoke wrote: »

It costs about 250k in labour and parts to build a 3 bed.

That’s with out land. If land was cheap I’d have a massive garden.

It’s not the foreigners fault.

You can order a passive house and it will have a BER A or B for 25-35k. It's a lego, there's even a timelapse with a man that has done it himself on Youtube in county Wicklow. Not saying it's easy or for everyone, just saying it's for some and it can be had cheaper than 250k.

Eric Cartman

rosmoke wrote: »

You can order a passive house and it will have a BER A or B for 25-35k. It's a lego, there's even a timelapse with a man that has done it himself on Youtube in county Wicklow. Not saying it's easy or for everyone, just saying it's for some and it can be had cheaper than 250k.

please tell me where you can order a 3 bedroom passive house for 35k done to atleast second fix.

rosmoke

It takes you 10 seconds to google and find a couple of websites that deliver mostly to EU mainland countries for 2.000e, delivery I'm sure it can arranged to IE for a bit extra. Even it you're 100k or 200k all in, it's still cheaper than 250k. There are options out there.

Eric Cartman

rosmoke wrote: »

It takes you 10 seconds to google and find a couple of websites that deliver mostly to EU mainland countries for 2.000e, delivery I'm sure it can arranged to IE for a bit extra. Even it you're 100k or 200k all in, it's still cheaper than 250k. There are options out there.

100k, thats plausible. A lot of those prefab houses are not designed for how consistently wet our country is though. but perpetuating a myth of a 25k house when its going to be 12k just to get the foundations laid is a bit much.

voluntary

ted1 wrote: »

It costs about 250k in labour and parts to build a 3 bed.

That’s with out land. If land was cheap I’d have a massive garden.

It’s not the foreigners fault.

New 3-beds in Finglas were selling for that price This including land, construction, developer and builder margins, marketing etc. I guess the overall profit was also in range of 20-25% on the whole project. And some percentage sold for social housing with discount (as per the current rules).
100k to build a 3-bed would be fair, plus interior which can be either reasonably priced or super expensive, depending on individual's wishes.

pablo128

voluntary wrote: »

New 3-beds in Finglas were selling for that price This including land, construction, developer and builder margins, marketing etc. I guess the overall profit was also in range of 20-25% on the whole project. And some percentage sold for social housing with discount (as per the current rules).
100k to build a 3-bed would be fair, plus interior which can be either reasonably priced or super expensive, depending on individual's wishes.

Yeah, my friends sister and her partner have just moved into a brand new good sized 3 bed in Finglas and they paid 250k.

Samuel T. Cogley

Anteayer wrote: »

Have a read of Article 43 before you go around accusing me of writing "drivel"



Article 45



The property rights in the constitution are heavily circumscribed by very strong social balance ideology.

You missed the preamble to Art 45 and the double protection on private property. The Constitution is not as heavily circumscribed on social policy as you make out.

Maurice Yeltsin

pablo128 wrote: »

Yeah, my friends sister and her partner have just moved into a brand new good sized 3 bed in Finglas and they paid 250k.

Were they having trouble shifting and went down?

Only reason I ask, I can't recall seeing any recent new builds within Dublin borders where the starting price was below 300k.

250K is very reasonable, but if it was lower than asking you would be concerned the greedy phucks wouldn't build any more lest they not make maximum profit. I truly think these people would sooner make no money than not make obscene money.

ted1 wrote: »

It costs about 250k in labour and parts to build a 3 bed.

That’s with out land. If land was cheap I’d have a massive garden.

It’s not the foreigners fault.

The affordable scheme in Ballymun, where the developer was only after something like 5 percent profit and the land had been donated by the council, came out round 140k for a 3 bed terrace I think.

That's why you have to ask questions when another council says it is costing 1.5 million to build five council homes.

ted1

rosmoke wrote: »

You can order a passive house and it will have a BER A or B for 25-35k. It's a lego, there's even a timelapse with a man that has done it himself on Youtube in county Wicklow. Not saying it's easy or for everyone, just saying it's for some and it can be had cheaper than 250k.

That’s complete BS. Also unless you are from Wicklow you don’t get planning

ted1

rosmoke wrote: »

It takes you 10 seconds to google and find a couple of websites that deliver mostly to EU mainland countries for 2.000e, delivery I'm sure it can arranged to IE for a bit extra. Even it you're 100k or 200k all in, it's still cheaper than 250k. There are options out there.

So you’ve just trebled the price. Now you need to look at planning permission. Those houses won’t meet the requirements. And you are omitting council levies, Maine connection etc

Yurt2

In Denmark, a non Dane needs to have the permission of the Interior Ministry to purchase residential property. One needs to be either a permanent resident or someone with very strong (and compelling) links to Denmark.

I'm not sure when they got this derogation from EU law to do this, but they certainly have it.

Yurt2

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

You missed the preamble to Art 45 and the double protection on private property. The Constitution is not as heavily circumscribed on social policy as you make out.

The level to which the constitution balances private property rights and social good provisions is a matter of live debate among legal scholars. Anyone who speaks in absolutes about the Constitution in this respect is displaying ideological predilections.

rosmoke

ted1 wrote: »

That’s complete BS. Also unless you are from Wicklow you don’t get planning

You skipped a few posts, that was my whole point.
I thought Wicklow is the dearest regarding planning permissions?

ted1

rosmoke wrote: »

You skipped a few posts, that was my whole point.
I thought Wicklow is the dearest regarding planning permissions?

No dearest , they just don’t allow outsiders. It’s local needs only.

Amirani

chuchuchu wrote: »

When you factor in that a morgage can be only 3.5 times a persons salary and the average salary is 45000. Then for example a 3 bed house should cost about 200000 including the deposit. But I dont understand how the house prices are like double that price, I mean who could aford it?

3 bed houses are more suited to couples with 2 salaries than a single person on 45000. If you have a couple on that average salary, then suddenly these 3 bed houses become more affordable.

We have a limited amount of land available in our city centres. If you're a single person trying to buy there, you'd be more suited to a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment.

lalababa

rosmoke wrote: »

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

Yep, some of the planning local need rules are a bit OTT. But why not buy an already built house and do some alterations if need be.

Anteayer

I just find it a bit worrying that the same "oh it's unconstitutional!" or "oh! this is illegal under EU law" gets bandied about without any evidence that this is the case.

Yes, the EU has a requirement for the freedom of movement of capital, but it also has various balancing circumscriptions around that which need to be explored. The same applies to property rights in the Irish constitution. Almost everything in our constitution is balanced by requirements to deliver social justice. The terminology it uses may be form the 1930s, but it is not a die-hard capitalist document. It was written with a fairly progressive notion of balance.

The government should go and figure out how regulation could be achieved and test those concepts legally. Throwing your hands up in the air, because it doesn't suit your politics, and saying it can't be done and then blaming the EU or the constitution without providing any test cases or thorough legal analysis is frankly the drivel that should be being challenged.

There's a major housing crisis in Ireland at present and all the stops need to be pulled out to remedy that. If it doesn't happen, you will have a serious social and political crisis on your hands : see Brexit for an illustration what happens when you blame socially divisive and poorly thought out domestic policies on a 3rd party like the EU.

The choices here are either do something about housing, or face a future where you've potentially got a populist anti-business movement rise up as a result of inaction

The state isn't helpless in this situation. Sitting on our hands and pretending that this problem will be solved by osmosis isn't going to work.

There needs to be a lot more housing supply and there needs to be regulation. Endlessly rising house prices is unsustainable. We've been here before and we can't afford to have another housing crash. We won't be bailed out twice.

4ensic15

Anteayer wrote: »

Have a read of Article 43 before you go around accusing me of writing "drivel"



Article 45



The property rights in the constitution are heavily circumscribed by very strong social balance ideology.

Article 43 says nothing about markets, neither does article 45. Look at Article 29.
"° no provision of this constitution invalidates
laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by
the state, before, on or after the entry into force of
the treaty of lisbon, that are necessitated by the
obligations of membership of the european
union referred to in subsection 5° of this section
or of the european atomic energy community, or
prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures
adopted by—
i the said european union or the european
atomic energy community, or institutions
thereof,
ii the european communities or european
union existing immediately before the entry
into force of the treaty of lisbon, or
institutions thereof, or
iii bodies competent under the treaties referred
to in this section,
from having the force of law in the state.

GGTrek

Anteayer wrote: »

I just find it a bit worrying that the same "oh it's unconstitutional!" or "oh! this is illegal under EU law" gets bandied about without any evidence that this is the case.

Yes, the EU has a requirement for the freedom of movement of capital, but it also has various balancing circumscriptions around that which need to be explored. The same applies to property rights in the Irish constitution. Almost everything in our constitution is balanced by requirements to deliver social justice. The terminology it uses may be form the 1930s, but it is not a die-hard capitalist document. It was written with a fairly progressive notion of balance.

The government should go and figure out how regulation could be achieved and test those concepts legally. Throwing your hands up in the air, because it doesn't suit your politics, and saying it can't be done and then blaming the EU or the constitution without providing any test cases or thorough legal analysis is frankly the drivel that should be being challenged.

There's a major housing crisis in Ireland at present and all the stops need to be pulled out to remedy that. If it doesn't happen, you will have a serious social and political crisis on your hands : see Brexit for an illustration what happens when you blame socially divisive and poorly thought out domestic policies on a 3rd party like the EU.

The choices here are either do something about housing, or face a future where you've potentially got a populist anti-business movement rise up as a result of inaction

The state isn't helpless in this situation. Sitting on our hands and pretending that this problem will be solved by osmosis isn't going to work.

There needs to be a lot more housing supply and there needs to be regulation. Endlessly rising house prices is unsustainable. We've been here before and we can't afford to have another housing crash. We won't be bailed out twice.

Ireland has already got way to much regulation around planning that is hampering supply, so it actually needs less regulation. The local only restrictions have already been tested at the ECJ level and FAILED:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/chance-discovery-spells-end-of-locals-only-restriction-on-one-off-housing-450596.html


You cannot have a pick and choose single market (especially one where Ireland is benefiting massively through direct investment of many multinationals), so what you are saying might be related to a Dunning Kruger effect:
https://i0.wp.com/digitalwellbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dunning-kruger-effect.png?resize=2010%2C1340&ssl=1


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect


This forum is not the Indo with its spinning populist easy solutions stories, you will get pushback on quick fix ideas like yours. Ireland has way too many quick fix regulations coming out of the a... of politicians, let's please stop the nonsense.

sydthebeat

rosmoke wrote: »

I honestly think the land it's the problem, I wanna buy land in the country side, build my own house, grow my own vegetables and work from home, my job allows me to do that.
But I can't because of stupid stupid and also deemed illegal by EU 'local needs'. So I have to stay in the city, make more money because expenses are higher and effectively drive the prices up for others who actually need to stay in the city.

Theres thousands of acres across the country where local needs doesnt apply.

You mustn't have looked very hard if you didn't know this.

Chiparus

In Australia as a non- resident you have to apply for permission to purchase a property.

https://firb.gov.au/real-estate/

We also have to be careful that apartment blocks are not used as a channel for money out of China, or we couls have situations where appartment blocks remain unoccupied as has happened in London.

Eric Cartman

Chiparus wrote: »

In Australia as a non- resident you have to apply for permission to purchase a property.

https://firb.gov.au/real-estate/

We also have to be careful that apartment blocks are not used as a channel for money out of China, or we couls have situations where appartment blocks remain unoccupied as has happened in London.

Too late, most of the finance here is chinese now, there are chinese property tours going on in dublin every week, there are development companies recruiting mandarin speakers to deal with chinese investors. This is already in here and its completely fuelled a lot of the price rises. They don't seem to be leaving them empty at the moment but theres a lot of REIT's and professional landlords who are a company wholly owned by chinese investors.

Anteayer

GGTrek wrote: »

Ireland has already got way to much regulation around planning that is hampering supply, so it actually needs less regulation. The local only restrictions have already been tested at the ECJ level and FAILED:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/chance-discovery-spells-end-of-locals-only-restriction-on-one-off-housing-450596.html


You cannot have a pick and choose single market (especially one where Ireland is benefiting massively through direct investment of many multinationals), so what you are saying might be related to a Dunning Kruger effect:
https://i0.wp.com/digitalwellbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dunning-kruger-effect.png?resize=2010%2C1340&ssl=1


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect


This forum is not the Indo with its spinning populist easy solutions stories, you will get pushback on quick fix ideas like yours. Ireland has way too many quick fix regulations coming out of the a... of politicians, let's please stop the nonsense.

No let's just do absolutely nothing at all until the country is in another economic meltdown driven by a second property bubble instead. That's a great non solution.

What exactly do you propose?

The housing market here is dysfunctional and distorted by a whole load of legacy issues that weren't resolved after 2008. It's not responding to demand because it's not capable of doing so and that's creating a serious asset bubble.

Are you suggesting just let it slide into an mess where you end up with the rise of actual populsim due to social discontent? That's not an unlikely path if housing continues to be out of reach of a large % of the working population.

We do need to increase supply and I do agree that Irish planning is focused on many of the wrong things. We seem to manage to have very tight planning laws but we still create vast amounts of unserviceable sprwal.

I don't think removing limits on what's prudent to lend is particularly safe as we will just crash the banking sector in a few years if we do that again and the ECB isn't going to allow that kind of crazy a second time around.

We could encourage investment from home and overseas into new building projects by creating an infrastructure for property funds and alternative ways of investing and financing property.

What we don't need is investors buying into existing property competing with local buyers who are trying to house themselves.

Regulation of a dysfunctional market that's working contrary to be public good and is causing social problems is not unusual or some kind of radical measure. It's done all the time throughout the history of modern capitalism.

Eric Cartman

Anteayer wrote: »

No let's just do absolutely nothing at all until the country is in another economic meltdown driven by a second property bubble instead. That's a great non solution.

What exactly do you propose?

The housing market here is dysfunction and distorted by a whole load of legacy issues that weren't resolved after 2008.

Are you suggesting just let it slide into an mess where you end up with the rise of actual populsim due to social discontent? That's not an unlikely path if housing continues to be out of reach of a large % of the working population.

to be fair, the poster wasnt talking about credit deregulation. Those central bank rules are working and should be kept rigid, even the amount of exemptions are a bit high in my book,

the poster is talking about planning restrictions, which are far too much. It restricts innovation, the diverse type of housing other countries have , new or cheaper building techniques etc.. now im not saying 'sure let anyone make a deathtrap that will kill kids' but you can't do anything like tiny homes, container houses, log cabins (on a site, not in a back garden) , converted industrial units, prefabricated structures etc.. here.

the problem with planning laws here is that they are predicated on the idea that a building should last forever, everyone is going to have kids , all houses should suit people cradle to grave, everyones entitled to a lovely view all the time, nobody should be allowed cast shadows on another property and that nobody is allowed to make their own bad decisions or cheap out on something.

If I buy a site surrounded by mature trees in the middle of kildare , I should realistically be able to put almost anything on it , and its my responsibility to ensure access and transport to it. I shouldnt be allowed to beg a td for a bus stop to bring the kids to school, im happy to make my bed and lie in it.

Anteayer

I agree the planning laws here are a mess. They're like regulations for rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and completely miss the point when it comes to creating viable housing.

I mean I was nearly falling over laughing at the stuff that went up in some rural towns in Leitrim where someone imposed urban notions of mixed development, resulting in abandoned apartments in what are essentially villages.

Then look at the cities - sprawl built in the 90s and early 00s without any notion of transportation or services being built along side it. Densities that are far, far too low and were appropriate 50 years ago in an entirely different Ireland.

It's almost like we don't understand what planning is. It seems like it's just a whole bunch of arbitrary regulation of visual stuff most do the time here without any real sense of strategy.

Then you get things like bits of policies plucked from continental Europe or elsewhere giving you unconnected cycle lanes or trying to limit cars in cities that have literally no viable alternatives, using only a bit of plans that were designed for cities with excellent mass transit because we don't plan or invest strategically, but just try to do all the superficial things to make it look progressive.

It's just one soft, path of least resistance decision after the next and the result is a mess that doesn't work.

Eric Cartman

Anteayer wrote: »

I agree the planning laws here are a mess. They're like regulations for rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and completely miss the point when it comes to creating viable housing.

I mean I was nearly falling over laughing at the stuff that went up in some rural towns in Leitrim where someone imposed urban notions of mixed development, resulting in abandoned apartments in what are essentially villages.

Then look at the cities - sprawl built in the 90s and early 00s without any notion of transportation or services being built along side it. Densities that are far, far too low and were appropriate 50 years ago in an entirely different Ireland.

It's almost like we don't understand what planning is. It seems like it's just a whole bunch of arbitrary regulation of visual stuff most do the time here without any real sense of strategy.

Then you get things like bits of policies plucked from continental Europe or elsewhere giving you unconnected cycle lanes or trying to limit cars in cities that have literally no viable alternatives, using only a bit of plans that were designed for cities with excellent mass transit because we don't plan or invest strategically, but just try to do all the superficial things to make it look progressive.

and i mean sometimes the people are just as bad, like the apartments in leitrim, or the family building rurally and then asking 'wheres the bus for my kid to get to school' , instead of just letting people know that its a terrible idea or they made a bad choice, we regulate the hell out of it until it actually hurts people who need or want to live in a non standard development and are willing to accept responsibility for their situation.