Housing Crisis - Your Take

BailMeOut

The capital markets are awash with cash with nowhere to go. Any developer needing money to build xx homes with some expected rate of return (relatively low for the finance side) can get get this money easily. Same with governments, they can pretty much raise as much money as needed on the bond markets. It's not about money, they issue is entirely related to everything else I noted.

BailMeOut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828469#Comment_118828469

The capital markets are awash with cash with nowhere to go. Any developer needing money to build xx homes with some expected rate of return (relatively low for the finance side) can get this money easily. Same with governments, they can pretty much raise as much money as needed on the bond markets. It's not about money, the issue is entirely related to everything else I noted.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828782#Comment_118828782

I clearly dont know the developers you are talking to :)

The ones ive been talking to can build for a price that makes it worthwhile anymore. They also cant get money to do it anymore.

And sure everyone thinks ahh sure thew governent just go to the bond markets without thinking about the consequences of that.

CPTM

I think we should ease the A1/A2 BER requirement which (I believe) is still in place for new builds. Properties with B1 ratings are demonstrably fine. But in saying that, I would only open that door to builders who have achieved a certain number of A1/A2 houses already. Say if a builder comes along with a plan for 100 houses, 50 of them can be B1 houses so long as the other 50 are A1/A2 rating. They can bring one B1 or B2 property to the market for every one A2 property they've brought to the market.

I love the idea of A2 properties but we need to fix this supply issue, and reaching those standards is very difficult for builders, particularly with the global supply chain issues we're seeing at the moment.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828397#Comment_118828397

...and this resolves the issue of lack of supply by.......

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828408#Comment_118828408

...the abilities of the market in providing us with all our needs, is nothing but a myth, theres is now sufficient evidence to support this globally! this is the adult discussion we must now have, but we still dont want to admit this to ourselves!

yes one of the issues is in fact money, but we have decided the best use of most newly created money, in both the public and private domains, is to use it to increase the value of assets, in particular in relation to property and land, and not in creating new assets, including new properties!

yes, there's serious issues in the sectors you have mentioned , planning, regulations, taxes, i.e. public domain issues, but there is also serious issues within the private sectors, particularly within the fire sectors, as the main goals within these sectors is to maximize returns, at all costs, which in turn leads to speculation! i.e. our currently situation is an accumulation of major failures within both public and private sectors, both are equally at fault

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828536#Comment_118828536

again, yes, there is serious issues within the public sector, but handing the majority of this critical need over to the private sector, particularly the fire sectors, has catastrophically failed, we need to grow up now, and accept these failures.....

BailMeOut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828865#Comment_118828865

I am talking about proper developers who can build at scale. Example Cairn homes who raise their money to develop from the public markets on the Irish stock exchange. Glenveagh is another one doing something similar.

Mom and pop developers are only a band-aid and we need I believe somewhere around 50,000 homes a year so billions of euros are needed to finance this and this is available on worldwide capital markets (quite easily I will add).

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118829043#Comment_118829043

You should run in the next election :)

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058238629/housing-crisis-your-take

What does DMcW mean by borrow from "Europe"?

Does he mean the ECB? Impossible, as the ECB don't lend to states.

Does he mean the EU, as in the Commission? Until recently, the EU does not lend to states.

There is a new COVID fund, though, which involved the Commission borrowing, and making grants to states.

Geuze

Quick policies:

(1) drive down the cost of development land by a lot

(2) move the 40,000 people on the Live Register whose last occupation was related to building back into employment

(3) reduce the cost of finance faced by property developers (both AHBs and private)

Claw Hammer

Housing needs a twin strategy. Solve the current homeless/high rent issues and get new development underway to cater for the accummulating accommodation requirements.

By far the simplest thing to do is make better use of existing buildings to reduce outlay on hotels for the homeless and reduce rents generally.

There are numerous other requirement :-An apprenticeship scheme.

A properly structured construction industry with finance and standards.

A properly integrated planning system with pre-planning meetings, realistic applications quick turnaround of applications and appeals including judicial review.

Dealing with trading in planning as opposed to building.

It is a massive set of interlocking challenges and problems and so far there has just been cherry-picking of solutions with short term measures which are ineffective or cause worse problems than those they are intended to solve.

Xterminator

1: We elect governments for 5 years. 2: The housing crisis will not be fixed in 5 years.

So we get a housing policy skewed with announcements and tinkering at the edges. Any government that invests in a policy that takes over 5 years to deliver will not reap the benefits.

What we need is a housing agency, with funding ringfenced, run independently of the government of the day. Something like NAMA for building housing. It should have the power to recommend legislative changes if needed, & be able build housing projects using fast track planning to avoid NIMBYISM. To avoid planning concerns it may even require EU acceptance.

Its aim should be to deliver the number of housing units required with the correct balance of private/public units for sale & for rental The we need to hire the right people to run it and trust them enough to accept their recommendations.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118828015#Comment_118828015

We can borrow to our hearts content, money has never been cheaper. The will is just not there, too many vested interests. Thats not exclusive to Ireland either, most capitalist nations have left their housing development to the private sector.

JimmyVik

If it couldnt be solved before the population suddenly increases by over 100k then I dont fancy anyones chance of solving it now.

iColdFusion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118829673#Comment_118829673

We are falling over government agencies, approved housing bodies and local council housing depts as it is, we don't need any more quangos, they are a massive hole of public sector wages not delivering on what they should be doing for years now.

The LDA do seem to be pushing ahead with a lot of good plans though but the fact it exists clearly demonstrates the other depts aren't doing their jobs.

Im still wondering when government money is actually going to start getting funneled towards helping out middle income working families priced out of the market, lots of talk about affordable homes and affordable rental, shared equity etc but I see little to none getting delivered, its all new 4eva homes for those that are already the biggest drain on the economy.

tommybrees

I'm actually trying to find a place for rent for nearly 5 weeks now, applying for absolutely everything on daft.ie in Dublin

Probably applied for at least 100 places and only had 3 viewings

In those viewings I'd say 80% of the other people were non Irish people.

Prices are savage but when almost anybody can get HAP what do you expect.

Can build as many houses you want but won't solve a thing when every Tom Dick and Harry keep coming into the country

NIMAN

We haven't really got a housing crisis. Wait until 200,000 refugees need to be housed in the next year, that'll be a proper housing crisis.

snow_bunny

Yellow_Fern

Posters might no aware the barriers to construction are increasing all the time. From 2024 we have a statutory register of builders which all we will to join. In a couple of years later, BER certs will be downgraded and houses being built as we speak will have to be retrofit.

snow_bunny

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118829673#Comment_118829673

That's the most intelligent and realistic idea I've heard yet.

iColdFusion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118830412#Comment_118830412

A fully qualified sparks with 3-4 years experience would be on 50k yeah, bit more if he's good for a foreman but a good few go back to college and end up engineers - not many trades that are still fun in your late 40's unless you are the boss of a crew and off the tools so its easy to see how you would give it up for a lower paid but less strenuous job. The big money is in being self employed but that creates all sorts of issues for mortgages and its not for everyone to be self motivated all the time.

Still trades are cleaning up at the moment especially with the cash nixers, not surprised so many are still on covid payment...

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118830539#Comment_118830539

This strategy overestimates developers margins and underestimates the cash cow that house construction is to the taxman. I am no expert on developer margins, but if the estimates in the media are reliable, developer margins can be less than taxes, so the real cost of this proposal changes radically. That is before one factors the loss that is incurred by not selling these state-owned lands

iColdFusion

This is from a 2020 report so out of date by a decent bit now but technically if you cut out VAT, planning fees, land costs, profit and finance costs cheap houses are doable if you have a clean greenfield site but its a massive hit to the taxpayer, you'll recoup a bit from employee income taxes and the like but realistically they would be building houses for tax paying working families to buy if they weren't on social housing

https://scsi.ie/scsi-real-cost-of-new-housing-delivery-report-2020/

Click on the PDF button top right corner to open the report, obviously things have only gotten worse since this.

riddles

The globalisation project doesn’t leave much room for social welfare. The welfare cradle to the grave concept we have here has now attracted all-comers from around the globe. The notion of providing free housing will ensure there will never be enough supply.

It’s a shocking state of affairs when it’s almost accepted that well paid grown adults need to live at home with their parents, whilst at the same we are socially housing economic migrants and in general people who’ve made zero PRSI contributions. As long as that’s the norm the list will just get longer.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118832058#Comment_118832058

Find a different forum to spout off about immigration in. Do not attempt to do so in another (third? fourth? I shouldn't have to count) thread. Do not reply to this post.