Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

Marius34

PropQueries wrote: »

Then explain this from the Irish Times in February 2020 (pre-covid) with the tagline: 'Luxury schemes switch to rental units as Brexit blamed for sluggish sales market':

"Two Dublin 4 apartment blocks where apartments went for sale last year are now being offered exclusively as rentals. Deerfield on Sandymount Avenue, Ballsbridge, with nine units, and 19 Pembroke Road, with a mix of six period units and six new-build units, both looked set to sell well, with booking deposits quickly paid on about half the units at 19 Pembroke Road, and a smaller number reserved at Deerfield. But sales failed to materialise in line with expectations and developer Agricula has withdrawn the properties from the market and returned booking deposits to intending buyers. As of mid-January they have been advertised for rent through agent Bergins."

Link to article in Irish Times here: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/plan-b-for-d4-boutique-apartments-as-buyers-become-renters-instead-1.4161644

If I understand those properties has been completed recently of the written article. 6 months staying empty of high-end properties is nothing of surprise at all. The overall percentage still low, as most gets occupied with a time.

Graham

FromADistance wrote: »

Toddle on pal.

Mod Note

knock it off.

Do not reply to this post.

Marius34

Ozark707 wrote: »

It depends on how big the market is for high end. There doesn't seem to be much of a market for the +2800pm for a 2 bed yet there seems to be no shortage of places in this bracket. As you go further out the 2.2k for a 2 bed seems to be propped up by HAP payments. Maybe the government will increase the amount of places they take up through HAP so that should keep the funds happy enough (though maybe not the others living in those complexes).

Regardless what's the market, it's a myth that REIT's hold large percentage of properties empty, outside Covid lockdown times.

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

Regarding what's the market, it's a myth that REIT's hold large percentage of properties empty, outside Covid lockdown times.

I think it depends on the price bracket they are seeking to rent out at. It appears that their apartments priced within the HAP limits appear to rent out fairly quickly. Anything outside the HAP limits appears to be taking a very long time to rent out.

To me it looks like HAP/long-term leases are the only thing keeping the rental market afloat at current rents at the moment and I don't see how Pascal can justify the current system much longer.

It would be very interesting to see what market rents would be without HAP, long-term lease agreements etc. My view would be that rents would be at least 50% below what the current asking rents are advertised for.

Underground

What was Leo talking about when he mentioned the availability of quality housing as a strength of Ireland's? He was hardly talking about Dublin was he? Is he aware of the housing situation at all? Does anyone know if he had a straight face while saying this?

Absolutely bizarre take to come out with.

yagan

Marius34 wrote: »

If I understand those properties has been completed recently of the written article. 6 months staying empty of high-end properties is nothing of surprise at all. The overall percentage still low, as most gets occupied with a time.

Aside from a census which last happened in 2016 how do we measure the number of empty units?

Hubertj

yagan wrote: »

Aside from a census which last happened in 2016 how do we measure the number of empty units?

Just make up numbers as others do

Ozark707

Hubertj wrote: »

Just make up numbers as others do

It shouldn’t be too hard you would think for the local authorities to determine the extent of empties.

Ozark707

Underground wrote: »

What was Leo talking about when he mentioned the availability of quality housing as a strength of Ireland's? He was hardly talking about Dublin was he? Is he aware of the housing situation at all? Does anyone know if he had a straight face while saying this?

Absolutely bizarre take to come out with.

Where did he say that? I think the last election highlighted how in touch Leo is with the reality of the housing situation.

Cal4567

PropQueries wrote: »

I don't think that's very likely to happen. The more likely scenario will be that they will drop their prices significantly to offload them or attempt to sell/long-term lease them to the state.

Recent examples include Cairn Homes agreeing to sell c. 60 of the c. 600 high-end apartments they plan to build at the RTE site to DCC. There's also their possible plans to build build-to-rent apartments on the remainder of their "exclusive" Marianella apartment development.

Potential buyers with the type of money these luxury apartment developments would be seeking to sell at wouldn't be much interested in most of the 'luxury' apartment developments in Dublin IMO

Which probably explains why so many were reported as empty pre-covid.

Dublin isn't really a major city in the way most regular people think of one. We're primarily a back-office location on an island off an island off continental europe.

And with the acceleration of remote working from any country and the global tax reforms, Dublin mightn't even have the benefit of that back-office status for much longer IMO

Surely that's the Part V 10% requirement, is it not?

yagan

Ozark707 wrote: »

It shouldn’t be too hard you would think for the local authorities to determine the extent of empties.

If every authority went door to door then collectively we'd have a national picture of property utilisation, or in other words an annual census.

Alternatively a basic annual council charge attached to an address would constantly show which units are unused.

Marius34

yagan wrote: »

Aside from a census which last happened in 2016 how do we measure the number of empty units?

Many REIT's provide financial reports with number of properties, and vacancies, and profits, etc.
Regarding Census, vacancy has a different meaning, from what many call property as an empty. Property could have been rented out, an in use only Monday to Friday, but vacant according to the Census.

rob316

yagan wrote: »

I'd be interested to see how the timber frames thrown up between 2002 and 2008 are getting on now. There were loads of issues regarding soundproofing and dampness in the initial years. I suppose those issues can be remedied as snags are identified.

Timber can twist and rot. Light steel is where it is at now. People still building stud walls with timber frames, a child could build the metal stud walls it's so simple and quick.

Modular homes can be made in weeks, a crane can lift the pieces into place, windows and doors fitted, solar roof comes pre-built.

Guaranteed to last 60 years. Ya it won't be much use to your children but who cares you were able to buy a house for cash or a very modest mortgage.

If someone wants to build this at scale I'll put my money down tomorrow morning for one.

javaboy

PropQueries wrote: »

In relation to all those points, I think they're probably explained by Michael Martin's statement a few weeks ago: "The big player in the housing market at the moment is the State".

How does that explain the queues of people for rental properties? The council are sending multiple people to stand in one queue? There’s another thread here where someone who is not on HAP can’t get a viewing or even a call back for any rental properties.

As usual you’re cherry picking information and selectively interpreting things to suit your world view.

yagan

javaboy wrote: »

How does that explain the queues of people for rental properties? The council are sending multiple people to stand in one queue? There’s another thread here where someone who is not on HAP can’t get a viewing or even a call back for any rental properties.

As usual you’re cherry picking information and selectively interpreting things to suit your world view.

There's also the matter of how the pandemic pausing rental turnover too. We could see the initial activity after reopening quieten down after a quarter.

I'm sure there's lot of couples who split up and some even came together because of the pandemic.

cnocbui

Cal4567 wrote: »

Your comments about ‘rust’ brings up an entrenched view here about modular, which I have seen and heard also from within the construction industry.

Purpose built is increasing in scale across the rest of Europe, in fact some of the UK’s largest developers ae now estimating that their outputs will increase year on year in favour of more system built properties.

The industry here still favours wet trade construction, but I can see that changing. Really good modules now coming out of Scandinavia and other European countries as well.

Building to scale will be one of the advantages in terms of combatting costs.

No one could be more in favour of modular or factory built houses. I have had a long hard look at these for my future accommodation needs: https://www.coodo.com/

But the cost went from; grit your teeth, that might be doable, to; are you kidding me?

I ignored the prevailing wisdom and believing modern wood treatments must be good enough, built a Finnish kit garden office as a shed. The wood treatments - Sikens - turned out to be pants and it's rotting from the base up, largely due to the activity of slaters, I believe.

At my previous house, there was a large shed with an almost flat, shallow sloping steel sheeting roof. In winter, you could go inside and it was if it was raining inside, such was the rate of water dripping from the roof due to condensation. Cardboard boxes became soaking wet and collapsed.

My 'holiday home' is old. Every piece of steel or iron has rusted to a huge extent. The merest knick in galvanising and the thing will rust through fast.

So given the perpetually high humidity in this country and my experience of the practical side of steel and iron, I'm dubious about steel being a good building material for houses, unless all the steel can be kept relatively warm and dry.

I wouldn't have thought steel frame was as big a thing as structured wood - plywood. Someone near me has had a one-off 3 storey built in a very short space of time and I assume it was from an imported kit. It went up very fast and is made from structured wood with abundant vapour barriers topped with cladding. That method might work in this climate, but that would only be with a construction crew and labour that were not sloppy and paid attention to sealing every inadvertent tear and hole didn't take any short cuts. Getting German, Austrian Swiss building quality in this country is a tough ask, I think.

yagan

Years ago I went through researching wood options and the conclusion I came to was our climate is simply too damp to be taking a chance. I lived in England for a while where I observed a lot a wooden buildings that were hundreds of years old but it just wasn't as damp as Ireland.

Amadan Dubh

Peak bubble stuff! €550k bargain buddy!

https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/property/dublin-budget-buddy-properties-can-20786805

It's peculiar that a rag like the Dublin Live media publication has a bargain buddy section where the "bargains" are €550k. I wouldn't have thought that was a bargain for its reader base...

Bass Reeves

yagan wrote: »

Years ago I went through researching wood options and the conclusion I came to was our climate is simply too damp to be taking a chance. I lived in England for a while where I observed a lot a wooden buildings that were hundreds of years old but it just wasn't as damp as Ireland.

It's down to water droplet size in Ireland it makes presertive ineffective in wood. Where the outer leaf is block and good damp course management is in place then internal timber frame should be ok.

However there is not huge saving to using timber or modular frame housing. Most cost associated with housing is at second fix and fitting out a house.

Underground

Ozark707 wrote: »

Where did he say that? I think the last election highlighted how in touch Leo is with the reality of the housing situation.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/state-s-tax-rates-a-major-disincentive-for-remote-workers-says-varakdar-1.4591155

Said Ireland has to be attractive in non-financial ways in order to compete in the new remote working landscape, which is a pretty funny (albeit indirect) way of acknowledging that your country rips off its population.

He mentioned liveable cities as one advantage we have and availability of quality housing as another one. I'm at a loss as to what the hell he is talking about with these two points.

cnocbui

cnocbui wrote: »

No one could be more in favour of modular or factory built houses. I have had a long hard look at these for my future accommodation needs: https://www.coodo.com/

But the cost went from; grit your teeth, that might be doable, to; are you kidding me?

I ignored the prevailing wisdom and believing modern wood treatments must be good enough, built a Finnish kit garden office as a shed. The wood treatments - Sikens - turned out to be pants and it's rotting from the base up, largely due to the activity of slaters, I believe.

At my previous house, there was a large shed with an almost flat, shallow sloping steel sheeting roof. In winter, you could go inside and it was if it was raining inside, such was the rate of water dripping from the roof due to condensation. Cardboard boxes became soaking wet and collapsed.

My 'holiday home' is old. Every piece of steel or iron has rusted to a huge extent. The merest knick in galvanising and the thing will rust through fast.

So given the perpetually high humidity in this country and my experience of the practical side of steel and iron, I'm dubious about steel being a good building material for houses, unless all the steel can be kept relatively warm and dry.

I wouldn't have thought steel frame was as big a thing as structured wood - plywood. Someone near me has had a one-off 3 storey built in a very short space of time and I assume it was from an imported kit. It went up very fast and is made from structured wood with abundant vapour barriers topped with cladding. That method might work in this climate, but that would only be with a construction crew and labour that were not sloppy and paid attention to sealing every inadvertent tear and hole didn't take any short cuts. Getting German, Austrian Swiss building quality in this country is a tough ask, I think.

I wonder why exactly the Finnish kit didn't work..... My ex was Finnish and I spent a lot of time there, everyone had timber houses.
It is winter, pretty much, for 7 months of the year! When the ice and snow go, around end of April, they have 'summer ' for 5 month-ish! The whole country is full of lakes, there are mosquitoes everywhere, not to mention lakes, absolutely everywhere! It's damp/humid.
How can their houses not work here?
Their weather is not that different, apart from being frozen more.
I would love a Finland house here, I loved their houses.

Balluba

Amadan Dubh wrote: »

Peak bubble stuff! €550k bargain buddy!

https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/property/dublin-budget-buddy-properties-can-20786805

It's peculiar that a rag like the Dublin Live media publication has a bargain buddy section where the "bargains" are €550k. I wouldn't have thought that was a bargain for its reader base...

Yes and I wonder if any 1 bed terrace even if it is in Ranelagh is worth €525,000?

Villa05

bubblypop wrote:

I wonder why exactly the Finnish kit didn't work..... My ex was Finnish and I spent a lot of time there, everyone had timber houses. It is winter, pretty much, for 7 months of the year! When the ice and snow go, around end of April, they have 'summer ' for 5 month-ish! The whole country is full of lakes, there are mosquitoes everywhere, not to mention lakes, absolutely everywhere! It's damp/humid. How can their houses not work here? Their weather is not that different, apart from being frozen more. I would love a Finland house here, I loved their houses.

The surveyor claiming passive 3 bed houses for under 160k was sourcing from Finland

Will link the article later as its fairly detailed on how the cost savings are achieved. His first house was built 40 years ago and is in perfect condition today. Im sure Clare would be good barometer for how it would hold up to Irish weather

yagan

Villa05 wrote: »

The surveyor claiming passive 3 bed houses for under 160k was sourcing from Finland

Will link the article later as its fairly detailed on how the cost savings are achieved. His first house was built 40 years ago and is in perfect condition today. Im sure Clare would be good barometer for how it would hold up to Irish weather

I'd be curious too. I've worked with Swedes who'd say that even though it can get so cold they can skate to work they felt a lot colder in Ireland because of the humidity.

From what I remember timber needs a lot more upkeep in Ireland as a result, the once a decade recoating in Scandinavia becomes a biannual affair here.

Anyway it's really only an attractive option if you're gifted a site.

L1011

Finland has not massively dissimilar humidity - lower in summer, little higher in winter - than East coast locations here.

However, change that comparison to the West coast and its much, much less humid. And the wood system build products are often being suggested for damp sites in the more humid counties; so definitely not suitable there.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

Finland has not massively dissimilar humidity - lower in summer, little higher in winter - than East coast locations here.

However, change that comparison to the West coast and its much, much less humid. And the wood system build products are often being suggested for damp sites in the more humid counties; so definitely not suitable there.

Why though?
I'm not sure, having spent a lot of time in Finland, all year round, I don't understand why their houses cannot work here?
It's not so different?

L1011

bubblypop wrote: »

Why though?
I'm not sure, having spent a lot of time in Finland, all year round, I don't understand why their houses cannot work here?
It's not so different?

The West Coast is significantly wetter (humidity) which rots wood quicker, even with the chemical treatments used.

Most of these cheap system build systems are not suitable for high density sites like those we need in the slightly drier bits of the country.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

The West Coast is significantly wetter (humidity) which rots wood quicker, even with the chemical treatments used.

Most of these cheap system build systems are not suitable for high density sites like those we need in the slightly drier bits of the country.

But Finland is not significantly different in humidity, in fact, I would say the humidity in Finland is higher in summer then Ireland.
And it is freezing/frozen for months, we don't have that?

L1011

bubblypop wrote: »

But Finland is not significantly different in humidity, in fact, I would say the humidity in Finland is higher in summer then Ireland.
And it is freezing/frozen for months, we don't have that?

It's lower and significantly lower in summer. Houses here don't get any time to dry out

Freezing doesn't push moisture in to wood.

Wooden houses here either rot or need continual, expensive upkeep that an average home owner will baulk at or just not do.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

It's lower and significantly lower in summer. Houses here don't get any time to dry out.

Is i though?
I have spent a lot of time there, to me, it's more humid in summer. They have a huge amount of inland water there.
They do get rain, not as much as the West of Ireland obviously, but it's pretty humid.