Vacant Properties in Ireland

Timing belt

PropQueries wrote: »

I believe I normally post both when discussing it and ask people to pick whichever figure they wish.

Yes, they are 4 years apart. But, still, 90,000 is, in my opinion, a big deal. To put the figure into perspective, England with 10 times our population had only 216,000 vacant homes in 2018.

And yes, I would be interested in large numbers. It matters given how small our country and our economy is. Same with our public debt. Pre-covid, it was the third highest in the world on a per capita basis. Only the USA and Japan were ahead of us. And, remember, the USA and Japanese debt is in their own currency so they can literally print their debt away.

Technically we can too, with ECB approval. Our debt is in euro, which, given the amount of control we have over it, our debt might as well be in dollars, sterling or yen.

Is there any breakdown by location/county for vacant properties?

Marius34

PropQueries wrote: »

I believe I normally post both when discussing it and ask people to pick whichever figure they wish.

Yes, they are 4 years apart. But, still, 90,000 is, in my opinion, a big deal. To put the figure into perspective, England with 10 times our population had only 216,000 vacant homes in 2018.

And yes, I would be interested in large numbers. It matters given how small our country and our economy is. Same with our public debt. Pre-covid, it was the third highest in the world on a per capita basis. Only the USA and Japan were ahead of us. And, remember, the USA and Japanese debt is in their own currency so they can literally print their debt away.

Technically we can too, with ECB approval. Our debt is in euro, which, given the amount of control we have over it, our debt might as well be in dollars, sterling or yen.

Doesn't seem to be a case for your discussion, as they are over 90.000 of vacant properties apart.
93.000 (or even 160.000 including all census vacancies) additional vacant properties... acceptable?

PropQueries

Timing belt wrote: »

Is there any breakdown by location/county for vacant properties?

Yes, It's in their report here: https://www.geodirectory.ie/getattachment/Knowledge-Centre/Reports-Blogs/GeoView-Residential-Buildings-Report-Q2-2020/GeoDirectory-GeoView-Residential-Issue-13-2.pdf?lang=en-IE

The majority are outside Dublin which is why I don't believe WFH will result in price rises in rural areas. I'm of the opinion WFH will result in lower rural prices as many of these homes can be refurbished and re-entered into the market fairly quickly e.g. no planning permission or groundworks needed.

Before WFH, many may not have been refurbished or marketed as the potential seller would have believed there would be limited demand. Now, many may begin minor refurbishments to bring them up to standard which may result in a significant increase in housing supply in a very short period of time.

Marius34

Timing belt wrote: »

Is there any breakdown by location/county for vacant properties?

For GeoDirectory:

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

Is there any breakdown by location/county for vacant properties?

This provides localized figures for the census http://airo.maynoothuniversity.ie/news/breakdown-housing-vacancy-figures-ireland

After Fingal Co Co rubbished the Census, the cso did supplementary analysis on the vacancies and released all the data as part of their effort to stand over their methodology and findings.

They did not, as is sometimes claimed, issue a mea culpa statement and say they’d look at how they could do better in the future.

cnocbui

PropQueries wrote: »

Yes, It's in their report here: https://www.geodirectory.ie/getattachment/Knowledge-Centre/Reports-Blogs/GeoView-Residential-Buildings-Report-Q2-2020/GeoDirectory-GeoView-Residential-Issue-13-2.pdf?lang=en-IE

The majority are outside Dublin which is why I don't believe WFH will result in price rises in rural areas. I'm of the opinion WFH will result in lower rural prices as many of these homes can be refurbished and re-entered into the market fairly quickly e.g. no planning permission or groundworks needed.

Before WFH, many may not have been refurbished or marketed as the potential seller would have believed there would be limited demand. Now, many may begin minor refurbishments to bring them up to standard which may result in a significant increase in housing supply in a very short period of time.

I happen to live 100m from such a property that has been undergoing this minor and rapid refurbishment you speak of. Must be pushing 3 years and counting.

I also own a property that would be counted amongst the vacants if it was known about. It would take a lot of money and time to get it on to the market as habitable, but it's a bit of a special case.

Timing belt

Marius34 wrote: »

For GeoDirectory:

WFH may not an option for most of these properties due to very poor WIFI connections.

PropQueries

cnocbui wrote: »

I happen to live 100m from such a property that has been undergoing this minor and rapid refurbishment you speak of. Must be pushing 3 years and counting.

I also own a property that would be counted amongst the vacants if it was known about. It would take a lot of money and time to get it on to the market as habitable, but it's a bit of a special case.

Well, if you're an international investment fund with 10 vacant three-bed semis from the tiger years in an estate, for c. €10k each, you would have them refurbished with new heating, windows, doors, kitchens, tiling, carpets etc. and can approach the state with an offer to buy or rent them within 8 weeks.

If you're in the building trade, you would know that these non-bespoke jobs don't take as long as many refurbishment contractors make out. But, that's for another debate.

Pelezico

schmittel wrote: »

This provides localized figures for the census http://airo.maynoothuniversity.ie/news/breakdown-housing-vacancy-figures-ireland

After Fingal Co Co rubbished the Census, the cso did supplementary analysis on the vacancies and released all the data as part of their effort to stand over their methodology and findings.

They did not, as is sometimes claimed, issue a mea culpa statement and say they’d look at how they could do better in the future.

And leo did not dig what CSO had to tell them so basically issued a statement which is now fake news.

He rubbished a detailed report which put his policies on the spot.

It surprised me that a block of apartments with twenty five properties has nine vacant.

That is a peep behind the curtains of institutional property owners in Dublin at present.

awec

Pelezico wrote: »

And leo did not dig what CSO had to tell them so basically issued a statement which is now fake news.

He rubbished a detailed report which put his policies on the spot.

It surprised me that a block of apartments with twenty five properties has nine vacant.

That is a peep behind the curtains of institutional property owners in Dublin at present.

Why do you believe that insitutional property owners deliberately keep properties vacant at a time when they could have put them on Daft and had their pick of tenants within an hour all willing to pay top notch rents?

Serious question.

awec

PropQueries wrote: »

Well, if you're an international investment fund with 10 vacant three-bed semis from the tiger years in an estate, for c. €10k each, you would have them refurbished with new heating, windows, doors, kitchens, tiling, carpets etc. and can approach the state with an offer to buy or rent them within 8 weeks.

If you're in the building trade, you would know that these non-bespoke jobs don't take as long as many refurbishment contractors make out. But, that's for another debate.

If you're an international investment fund with 10 tiger-era properties that could be made habitable for 10k you'd have done it a 6/7/8 ago and enjoyed the income for pretty much no outlay.

PropQueries

awec wrote: »

If you're an international investment fund with 10 tiger-era properties that could be made habitable for 10k you'd have done it a 6/7/8 ago and enjoyed the income for pretty much no outlay.

Many have. But many were bought in 2015 and 2016 so they're probably only getting around to many of them in the past year or two. That's where I see a significant supply coming from very quickly over the next 12 months.

Timing belt

Pelezico wrote: »

And leo did not dig what CSO had to tell them so basically issued a statement which is now fake news.

He rubbished a detailed report which put his policies on the spot.

It surprised me that a block of apartments with twenty five properties has nine vacant.

That is a peep behind the curtains of institutional property owners in Dublin at present.

They publish details of there occupancy rates on the investor relations section of their internet pages. So don’t think they are sitting on to many vacant properties.

PropQueries

Timing belt wrote: »

They publish details of there occupancy rates on the investor relations section of their internet pages. So don’t think they are sitting on to many vacant properties.

IRES REIT is the primary one who is public and must inform investors of vacancy rates. But, they have mastered the art of renting to the state.

There was a documentary on RTE about one of their new built housing estates in Dublin 15 a couple of years ago if anyone can find the link to it. I think nearly all were rented to the state at c. €2,400 per month and the tenants were shocked when they learned of the rent. It was an interesting watch at the time.

Here's a link to an article on RTE from 2018:

"The company, which last week announced profits of €19 million for the first half of this year, confirmed to RTÉ's Morning Ireland that it has 303 tenants receiving a Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). It equates to 11% of I-RES's total portfolio of rental properties of 2,678. In 2017, just 4% of the company's properties were rented to State-funded tenants."

RTE link here: https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0809/983942-housing-social-tenancies/

Here's a link to a video of a part of the RTE story on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rtenews/videos/hap-tenancies/2228511307177859/

MacronvFrugals

In Sandyford IRES even sponsor the local kids GAA club

awec

PropQueries wrote: »

Many have. But many were bought in 2015 and 2016 so they're probably only getting around to many of them in the past year or two. That's where I see a significant supply coming from very quickly over the next 12 months.

This wouldn't make much sense, to buy property and put the trivial (10k, right?) renovation on the long finger (3-4 years) during a period of unprecedented demand.

The reality is that anything built during the tiger, that has lain vacant since then, is far beyond any aesthetic works. 10k is a fraction of what it would take to make them habitable to a standard where someone would buy them. You are talking of pretty much stripping right back to bare block and starting again from there. I do not know what the consequences would be for a timber framed house that has been vacant (and likely unfinished) for 10-12 years, but a re-slab and a lick of paint isn't going to do it.

hometruths

Pelezico wrote: »

And leo did not dig what CSO had to tell them so basically issued a statement which is now fake news.

He rubbished a detailed report which put his policies on the spot.

It surprised me that a block of apartments with twenty five properties has nine vacant.

That is a peep behind the curtains of institutional property owners in Dublin at present.

What’s even more worrying than just him rubbishing the census, is that the government made various comments along the lines of we will talk to the CSo to make sure they are on board with our idea of what constitutes a vacant property before the next census to make sure they don’t embarrass us again.

PropQueries

awec wrote: »

This wouldn't make much sense, to buy property and put the trivial (10k, right?) renovation on the long finger (3-4 years) during a period of unprecedented demand.

The reality is that anything built during the tiger, that has lain vacant since then, is far beyond any aesthetic works. 10k is a fraction of what it would take to make them habitable to a standard where someone would buy them. You are talking of pretty much stripping right back to bare block and starting again from there. I do not know what the consequences would be for a timber framed house that has been vacant (and likely unfinished) for 10-12 years, but a re-slab and a lick of paint isn't going to do it.

If they each bought thousands of properties from the banks (in bulk) in 2015 and 2016, it takes a couple of years to go through the paperwork and to figure out exactly what they have purchased.

They've most likely completed that stage now, so in the next 12 months, we're most likely going to see a big increase in supply re-entering the market from this source.

awec

PropQueries wrote: »

If they each bought thousands of properties from the banks (in bulk) in 2015 and 2016, it takes a couple of years to go through the paperwork and to figure out exactly what they have purchased.

They've most likely completed that stage now, so in the next 12 months, we're most likely going to see a big increase in supply re-entering the market from this source.

You do like a bit of supposition PropQueries.

If we imagine your hypothesis is true, why would they pump money into them now? They are unlikely to see a return on it if this flood of supply suddenly appears.

PropQueries

awec wrote: »

You do like a bit of supposition PropQueries.

If we imagine your hypothesis is true, why would they pump money into them now? They are unlikely to see a return on it if this flood of supply suddenly appears.

Because they bought each individual property for a fraction of what we could buy them at the time (bulk purchase discount). They can offload them for half the current market price and still walk away with a very large return.

Remember, many mortgage holders over the past few years were complaining that the funds who now own their mortgage bought them for next to nothing but are still demanding full repayment.

They’re part of the €90 billion in mortgages these funds purchased. It’s the other €200 billion in property and business loans they also bought between 2012 and 2016 which is part of the supply of current vacant properties that I believe will be re-entering the market very quickly over the next twelve months.

awec

PropQueries wrote: »

Because they bought each individual property for a fraction of what we could buy them at the time (bulk purchase discount). They can offload them for half the current market price and still walk away with a very large return.

Remember, many mortgage holders over the past few years were complaining that the funds who now own their mortgage bought them for next to nothing but are still demanding full repayment.

They’re part of the €90 billion in mortgages these funds purchased. It’s the other €200 billion in property and business loans they also bought between 2012 and 2016 which is part of the supply of current vacant properties that I believe will be re-entering the market very quickly over the next twelve months.

But they have to pump money into them to make them sale-able, at a time when builders are still not short of work.

As I said, the idea you can take a tiger property that's been vacant for 10-12 years, spend 10k and have a property you can sell to buyers is delusional stuff. As we saw with the example you shared with us last week, often these sort of things end up sold as lots to other investors, because either no private buyer will touch them or banks won't lend against them.

Personally I wouldn't go near a such a property if I had not personally overseen the renovation works.

PropQueries

awec wrote: »

But they have to pump money into them to make them sale-able, at a time when builders are still not short of work.

As I said, the idea you can take a tiger property that's been vacant for 10-12 years, spend 10k and have a property you can sell to buyers is delusional stuff. As we saw with the example you shared with us last week, often these sort of things end up sold as lots to other investors, because either no private buyer will touch them or banks won't lend against them.

Personally I wouldn't go near a such a property if I had not personally overseen the renovation works.

You would if they’ve pumped €10k into it to bring it up to 2007 standards and offered it to you for €90k. Depends on your job situation and salary, but if I was on €25k a year with little chance of job promotion or salary increases, I’d buy the three bed for €90k if it was near where I worked.

It would probably still be in a better condition than many ex-corporation houses in Dublin asking upwards of a quarter of a million.

Pelezico

awec wrote: »

Why do you believe that insitutional property owners deliberately keep properties vacant at a time when they could have put them on Daft and had their pick of tenants within an hour all willing to pay top notch rents?

Serious question.

I dont know why these properties are vacant. I assume they were vacated during covid and landlords are unwilling to reduce previous rents.

What I find interesting is that so many in one block are vacant. This is hardly an isolated instance.

There is no housing crisis. We have loads of property, loads of which is vacant.

The airbnb collapse and reduced immigration exacerbate any over supply. And we are still building 18000 this year.

Marius34

Pelezico wrote: »

I dont know why these properties are vacant. I assume they were vacated during covid and landlords are unwilling to reduce previous rents.

What I find interesting is that so many in one block are vacant. This is hardly an isolated instance.

There is no housing crisis. We have loads of property, loads of which is vacant.

The airbnb collapse and reduced immigration exacerbate any over supply. And we are still building 18000 this year.

So I assume Irish government managed todo at least something good on the housing if they avoided housing crisis?

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

So I assume Irish government managed todo at least something good on the housing if they avoided housing crisis?

There is a housing crisis. But it has very little to do with a “housing supply“ problem.

The state had to engineer a housing supply problem to encourage the international investment funds to buy €90 billion of distressed mortgages and a further €200 billion in property and business loans from the banks and NAMA between 2012 and 2016. To put those figures into perspective, our GNP in 2019 was c. €260 billion.

It was basically a backdoor bailout of the banks.

Part of this strategy was to effectively try remove 5,000 bedsits from the market by making them illegal. Many of these are currently re-entering the market after having been bought and refurbished.

The problem the government now has is what to do with all those excess vacant homes that still exist but they don’t control anymore.

If the government believes these international funds will continue to play ball and continue to keep these properties off the market, I believe they’re making a very grave error.

In addition to all those vacant properties, c. 180,000 (2016) or c. 90,000 (2020), choose whichever, now primarily owned by a few large international investment funds, we also built over 60,000 new residential units over the past 4 years and thousands of student accommodation units etc. etc.

And, to add to the problem, the population of 0-34 year olds (that’s our future housing demand) in Ireland actually fell by c. 70,000 between 2011 and 2016.

All projections for future housing demand are based on net migration staying at 2017/2018 figures indefinitely (c. 30,000 per annum). I don’t believe those projections were ever likely, Covid or no Covid.

The state doesn’t control the housing market anymore and the future direction is going to be decided by whatever decisions these few investment funds make. And, I believe, they will make them much sooner than many people believe.

Hubertj

PropQueries wrote: »

There is a housing crisis. But it has very little to do with a “housing supply“ problem.

The state had to engineer a housing supply problem to encourage the international investment funds to buy €90 billion of distressed mortgages and a further €200 billion in property and business loans from the banks and NAMA between 2012 and 2016. To put those figures into perspective, our GNP in 2019 was c. €260 billion.

It was basically a backdoor bailout of the banks.

Part of this strategy was to effectively try remove 5,000 bedsits from the market by making them illegal. Many of these are currently re-entering the market after having been bought and refurbished.

The problem the government now has is what to do with all those excess vacant homes that still exist but they don’t control anymore.

If the government believes these international funds will continue to play ball and continue to keep these properties off the market, I believe they’re making a very grave error.

In addition to all those vacant properties, c. 180,000 (2016) or c. 90,000 (2020), choose whichever, now primarily owned by a few large international investment funds, we also built over 60,000 new residential units over the past 4 years and thousands of student accommodation units etc. etc.

And, to add to the problem, the population of 0-34 year olds (that’s our future housing demand) in Ireland actually fell by c. 70,000 between 2011 and 2016.

All projections for future housing demand are based on net migration staying at 2017/2018 figures indefinitely (c. 30,000 per annum). I don’t believe those projections were ever likely, Covid or no Covid.

The state doesn’t control the housing market anymore and the future direction is going to be decided by whatever decisions these few investment funds make. And, I believe, they will make them much sooner than many people believe.

How many of the vacant properties are or ever will be habitable? What is the average age of a property purchaser in Ireland? What was the population increase in the over 34 year old age bracket?. Can you also advise on the changes made to planning laws which would enable bedsits, many of which were in Georgian listed buildings, be returned to use? As I understand it the requirements are cost prohibitive - I considered purchasing a Georgian house back in 2015. My impression is the council wants them to go derelict.

hometruths

Hubertj wrote: »

How many of the vacant properties are or ever will be habitable? What is the average age of a property purchaser in Ireland? What was the population increase in the over 34 year old age bracket?. Can you also advise on the changes made to planning laws which would enable bedsits, many of which were in Georgian listed buildings, be returned to use? As I understand it the requirements are cost prohibitive - I considered purchasing a Georgian house back in 2015. My impression is the council wants them to go derelict.

Supposedly 15% of all vacant properties in Dublin city were actively available for rent at the time of the census. That sounds pretty habitable.

Timing belt

PropQueries wrote: »

There is a housing crisis. But it has very little to do with a “housing supply“ problem.

The state had to engineer a housing supply problem to encourage the international investment funds to buy €90 billion of distressed mortgages and a further €200 billion in property and business loans from the banks and NAMA between 2012 and 2016. To put those figures into perspective, our GNP in 2019 was c. €260 billion.

It was basically a backdoor bailout of the banks.

Part of this strategy was to effectively try remove 5,000 bedsits from the market by making them illegal. Many of these are currently re-entering the market after having been bought and refurbished.

The problem the government now has is what to do with all those excess vacant homes that still exist but they don’t control anymore.

If the government believes these international funds will continue to play ball and continue to keep these properties off the market, I believe they’re making a very grave error.

In addition to all those vacant properties, c. 180,000 (2016) or c. 90,000 (2020), choose whichever, now primarily owned by a few large international investment funds, we also built over 60,000 new residential units over the past 4 years and thousands of student accommodation units etc. etc.

And, to add to the problem, the population of 0-34 year olds (that’s our future housing demand) in Ireland actually fell by c. 70,000 between 2011 and 2016.

All projections for future housing demand are based on net migration staying at 2017/2018 figures indefinitely (c. 30,000 per annum). I don’t believe those projections were ever likely, Covid or no Covid.

The state doesn’t control the housing market anymore and the future direction is going to be decided by whatever decisions these few investment funds make. And, I believe, they will make them much sooner than many people believe.

How does a hedge fund benefit from sitting on vacant property when the could rent them out collateralise the rent and use the proceeds to buy another asset. House prices will be static or at least modest growth for the foreseeable future as people can only borrow a multiple of there wages. So they won’t make money on the asset appreciating by holding onto it for x amount of years.

Marius34

PropQueries wrote: »

There is a housing crisis. But it has very little to do with a “housing supply“ problem.

The state had to engineer a housing supply problem to encourage the international investment funds to buy €90 billion of distressed mortgages and a further €200 billion in property and business loans from the banks and NAMA between 2012 and 2016. To put those figures into perspective, our GNP in 2019 was c. €260 billion.

It was basically a backdoor bailout of the banks.

Part of this strategy was to effectively try remove 5,000 bedsits from the market by making them illegal. Many of these are currently re-entering the market after having been bought and refurbished.

The problem the government now has is what to do with all those excess vacant homes that still exist but they don’t control anymore.

If the government believes these international funds will continue to play ball and continue to keep these properties off the market, I believe they’re making a very grave error.

In addition to all those vacant properties, c. 180,000 (2016) or c. 90,000 (2020), choose whichever, now primarily owned by a few large international investment funds, we also built over 60,000 new residential units over the past 4 years and thousands of student accommodation units etc. etc.

And, to add to the problem, the population of 0-34 year olds (that’s our future housing demand) in Ireland actually fell by c. 70,000 between 2011 and 2016.

All projections for future housing demand are based on net migration staying at 2017/2018 figures indefinitely (c. 30,000 per annum). I don’t believe those projections were ever likely, Covid or no Covid.

The state doesn’t control the housing market anymore and the future direction is going to be decided by whatever decisions these few investment funds make. And, I believe, they will make them much sooner than many people believe.

To much of conspiracy theories to begin with.

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

To much of conspiracy theories to begin with.

Which figure is wrong?

Hubertj

schmittel wrote: »

Supposedly 15% of all vacant properties in Dublin city were actively available for rent at the time of the census. That sounds pretty habitable.

Ok so if we take the CSO figure of 183k, the oversupply is 63k units based on a base vacancy rate of 6%. When you then look at local authority areas, more highly populated areas are below 6% so there is not an oversupply in those areas based on the analysis. For example south Dublin had a vacancy rate of 3.6% whereas Leitrim had a vacancy rate of 19.9%. Rent inflation - would a contributing factor be a lack of available stock in those areas?
So ther real question is how much of the 183k vacant units are usable especially is more densely populated areas? I hope it is more than 15% of the vacant properties is many of those areas as that would indicate a significant undersupply.
Having bothered my hole to do a bit of reading it is disingenuous to pipe on about 183k vacant properties without adding that there needs to be a % of vacant properties for the market to function.