State is buying half of all new homes - this has to stop!

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118680762#Comment_118680762

So the state should be buying houses instead of building?

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118671782#Comment_118671782

They live with their parents like many working people are having to do as they cant afford to rent while looking for a mortgage

Or just use the existing stock. A full audit of existing stock. Living on your own in a 3 bed, you get moved to a one bed and a family takes your place.

Shiok

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118675682#Comment_118675682

Sure its part of the Singaporean dream to own a private condo but there is no shame whatsoever associated with living in social housing / state subsided HDB. This is how around 80% purchase a home. For most, the steps who need to take to get a HBD are a Singaporean rite of passage.

A junior member of my team is going through the process at the moment so am hearing all about it. She is a well-educated finance professional and is incredibly proud of getting on the property ladder & of her HBD. If she lived in Ireland, on her salary, she would be able to aim at purchasing in a nice suburb of South County Dublin in a few years.

My 4-bed private condo is roughly selling for 4-5 million, were a 4-bed HBD is 300k-400k. I guess that alone is the benefit of a controlled social housing market.

Gov recently introduced cooling measures into private market which in reality have mainly just acted as a deterrent to foreign buyers. They always adjust access to the release of HDB housing as necessary. 

Regularly see the SG social housing model lauded on Boards - most often by those who clearly know little about it. While it works very well at controlling prices and building racially integrated communities, there is a whiff a 1950’s Ireland off the whole thing. It is a highly effective Singaporean solution to a Singaporean problem - no one seems to reflect that the model has not been replicated widely in other countries or think why that may be.

The Student

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682683#Comment_118682683

Ireland and Singapore are culturally different as is every other country.

You reference it having a "whiff of 1950's Ireland". Ireland's approach to housing in the 50's (certainly in Dublin) was a result of inadequate housing following the collapse of tenement houses in Dublin and the chronic disrepair of them. What was done then in the 50's was right for then. It is not right for now. However we never dealt with issues in council areas which made them no go areas. We have made our welfare system to generous and by extention our housing situation worse as a result of this.

Singapores approach may well work for them but that is because the culture is different. Ireland is not unique with housing issues throughout Europe.

Shiok

Don’t disagree with your sentiment here. I was highlighting the unfair representation in original comment that the public housing was seen as a bad thing or last resort in SG. 

The reference to 1950s Ireland was in relation to the application process & eligibility i.e one of the fundamentals is you must be married or need to wait for a minimum age restriction to pass.

As you say, not going be culturally accepted in other countries.

vriesmays

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673318#Comment_118673318

From their welfare paid by the taxpayers.

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673318#Comment_118673318

Are you for real? they might pay 50 euro a week out of their 500 euro dole for a couple with 5 kids- 10% of their income- new house - everything fixed by the tax payer - thats free in most peoples eyes

Fattybojangles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118684284#Comment_118684284

You are happy living in your ignorance the answers to this rubbish have already been given in the thread.

hatrickpatrick

Surely the solution here is more public investment in building, therefore allowing us to widen the criteria for public housing, squeeze profit-seekers in the market and thus make housing significantly cheaper for everyone?

OP and others arguing against state investment here have weirdly managed to correctly diagnose a problem (the state competing with prospective owner-occupiers for privately built housing) and come to entirely the wrong conclusion (the state shouldn't be involved in housing at all), where in fact the solution which would make life the easiest for the greatest number of people would actually be for the state to build its own housing, thereby simultaneously ceasing to compete for privately built housing and dramatically reducing property values and rent yields.

Fattybojangles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118680762#Comment_118680762

The average paid is 309 euro a month and it isn't free obviously it is simply cheaper than the rip off greedy souless parasitical private sector.

Brucie Bonus

The last 4 or 5 governments behaved/behave like a greedy fool who sees his house value rise, so sells it for the profit, but then needs to book into a hotel with the proceeds. Short sighted and greedy.

Quitelife

309 a month out of 2000 a month dole for the couple with 5 children is only 15% of their dole . Compared to a house where people work getting 4000 a month but pay 1500 -2000 rent/ mortgage which would be 40-50% if their monthly income they got off their ass to earn plus they have the cost of going to work and maintenance of their home . Anto also will have medical card and fuel allowance which the working couple won’t have either .

Fred Cryton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118684792#Comment_118684792

Aboslutely, the State should build its own housing. On cheap land outside the M50. Otherwise if it competes for land in Dublin, then it is directly competing with private buyers.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118689442#Comment_118689442

so again, the financialisation of our property markets has been caused by the welfare classes, yea?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118690158#Comment_118690158

...so you d agree with gentrification, yea?

maestroamado

There is a very simple solution National "Protest Day" May 1st...

I have being complaining about this for 5 years including here...

People Power worked for Mica in Donegal..,

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118672001#Comment_118672001

You don't know much about the world outside Ireland..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118675091#Comment_118675091

Terribly sad. I'll be retired in my early 50s and none of those people will have any affect on me. Whatever you are doing with your life, you need to change.

Murph85

Drive past many new developments, the density is a joke. Sorting this could deliver massive increase in housing , without going high rise...

It's a total farce, over a million euro after tax for a mortgage on an average house, then pay for your neighbour to get the same house for free...

The state should be banned from buying housing, let them contract it directly and get it built that way, that would change things !

Murph85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118675739#Comment_118675739

They are total cowards. They rob their ism voters blind and take them for a ride, to provide the worlds most outrageous welfare state and these people they bend over backwards for, despise them...

There is no backbone or leadership here. Any new party that formed with a non apologist leader, who put those paying for the running of this country first, would win a large amount of seats...

Fffgsf are all a total joke. The real problem is, no party here actually does represent the low or mod paid tax payer. And they certainly dont look after the higher paid, but they dont care about them as a percentage of voters, they are a drop in the ocean...

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118695894#Comment_118695894

once again, very few, if any citizen gets free homes, most pay rent and taxes, including the unemployed.......

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118695968#Comment_118695968

this is really getting fcuking boring now.....

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118690317#Comment_118690317

I am not blaming the people, but I do think the indulgence of many by the media and this the political classes has led to house prices increasing for buyers as the state outbids them on property.

This is exacerbated by some rules around social housing, and the very high building standards /regulations we have, this increasing cost to build /buy.

Housing is very very dysfunctional in this country.

The Student

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118696087#Comment_118696087

You are completely missing he point. We have people who do not (not cannot) contribute to society economically at all.

A welfare system should not give anyone a better standard of living than working does otherwise you disincentive the need to work. If someone who can work chooses not to work then they should receive food stamps and credits directly into their utility accounts.

To bring this back on topic our welfare system (even outside of the financial payments) impact on other sectors of society in this instance housing.

There is an unfairness in the system where those who choose (I specifically use this word) not to work are better off than those who don't have that choice. In this instance people who pay a fraction of their income be it from social welfare or low paid employment have in some instances better housing than those who work and are above all thresholds.

Before you say increase wages bear in mind we are a small open economy who need foreign investment for employment and the associated income tax revenue used to fund the State.

Tough choices need to be made but we can't "square a circle" no matter how hard we try.

Murph85

Its typical Ireland. Free or extortionate housing, no middle ground... peasants paying a fifty percent marginal rate of tax, while they have companies worth more money than god, pay a pittance in effective corporation tax rates...

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118684193#Comment_118684193

which is still income and thus rent, thus the house is not free but subsidized.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118684284#Comment_118684284

which means that most people are factually wrong because it's not free as it doesn't constitute free.

not sure that is likely therefore that most people think paying money for something equals free.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118690158#Comment_118690158

competing for land in dublin is not competing with private buyers, otherwise it would be the case that buying cheap land that isn't or at least wouldn't remain cheap outside the m50 would be doing the same.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118696922#Comment_118696922

the wellfare system in ireland doesn't give a better standard of living then working, at least not by design.

the only thing that disencentivises working is the working conditions and terms offered themselves, even if wellfare didn't exist in ireland that wouldn't change.

if someone on wellfare has a better standard of living then a working person, then it is because the job the working person does is a job where the employer does not want to offer a proper wage and good terms for the work.

food stamps and credits would not be financially viable as the costs involved would be a lot more then the current system which simply gives a very basic cost cover.

The Student

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118698198#Comment_118698198

If costs are to high our products/services become to expensive in comparison to our competitors and we lose business which leads to job losses, then reduced revenue from income tax and increased expenditure on welfare.

Food stamps would work as the state can bulk buy them and receive a bilk discount for same.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118698262#Comment_118698262

bulk buying wouldn't ultimately lead to a discount as the admin costs and the buying of all relevant equipment for each and every outlet that would be subject to subscribe to the system would wipe any discount even if it could be got, out.

+ the massive costs of trying to police fraud which dispite whatever systems that would be put in place to negate it, would still happen.

just not worth the bother or the cost to satisfy a few with a bea in their bonet.

The Student

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118698539#Comment_118698539

Systems already exist they are called credit card machines. How do you think gift cards are read?

I am not sure what fraud you think might happen.

Your comment of "satisfying a few with a bee in their bonnet" speaks volumes about your response.

But sure hey feel free to have a blinkered view of an issue that external factors have a greater impact on a small open economy that Ireland is.

I forgot we are an economic super power who can dictate terms of business with all countries and they will accept them.