solve the housing problem easily...some solutions?

y0ssar1an22

1. allow owners to evict non paying tenants very easily
2. people on the housing list, take a free house where its going
3. allow higher builds - even by 1 story

i'm sure there are many more, buts that's just 3 off the bat that would address the problem.

i feel sorry for students who have to defer a year in college cos they cant get accommodation.

cnocbui

Ban councils and commercial interests from purchasing existing housing and make them build. It should save the taxpayer 40-50% as councils don't pay vat on materials or development charges and the like, which make up a verly large portion of the total cost. Germany banned REITs and other funds from buying existing housing. If they want them, they have to build them from scratch.

New Zealand managed to stimulate the construction of an extra 27,000 homes by relaxing planning restrictions. Do the same here, wind back on the councils powers to impose myriad conditions on houses that drive up costs and dilute the means by which nimbys and other vested interests can object to or block accommodation from being built.

Cookie_Monster

except that hasn't really worked at all in NZ. average house price is $1m NZD, 600k Eur. Houses in Auckland can easily be $4-5m for a standard 4 bed. the delays in building is massive due to supply chain issues.

standard housing stock here is also appalng bad, building standards are very low.

The easiest way to solve the long term housing problem is to deal with the population growth problem, but that has been and will continue to be swept under the carpet

cnocbui

You seem to expect an instant quick fix to something where that is clearly impossible. Very little time has passed since NZ introduced these measures and Auckland isn't the only place they apply to. You jumping the gun crying failure, several years too soon. Anything that increases supply should eventualy lead to lower prices, this is a fundamental tenet of economics, but expectations there have to be realistic as prices can't sustainably fall below the cost to build and supply.

Just to confirm I'm getting this right - you are an Irish person living in NZ and saying population growth is the real problem, implying NZ should never have let you and other immigrants in?

Supply and demand.

Failure to address the demand side is foolish. We will end up in the same situation again and again. Forever suggesting that we densify and build up.

Out birth rates have been below replacement since 1990 we should literally be enjoying a reduction on the demand side of the equation.

With housing the main cost in life it's time to consider the opportunity costs. I.e if we spent less on housing but more on pensions what is the true net benefit of an increasing population (which is/was supposedly the solution to the pension crisis).

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IRL/ireland/fertility-rate

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

Build build build is the part of the solution but it's fools gold without considering things like the population aims of government (I say that because the population itself is self regulating already).

Endless shortages otherwise

There are of course many policy/ planning reforms possible but it's tinkering around the edges compared to the rest.

jimmybobbyschweiz

Raise mortgage rates to 6% and the property market will crash

hello2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653458#Comment_119653458

population growth may be low but Immigration from India and other countries is growing every day.. just visit any private college in Dublin and its full of foreign students who are living in shared accommodation but will be looking for new houses in next 5 to 7 years as they settle down !

rob316

I'd start with limiting the numbers we take in seeking asylum.

Stop councils from buying up existing housing stock.

Getting rid of the current coalition, they only serve REITs and big developers.

NiceFella

The first and most important thing that needs to be done is Ban big commercial buyers of houses at least until the crisis is over. They can buy apartments but not houses which are for people who primarily want a family.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653356#Comment_119653356

Ban councils and commercial interests from purchasing existing housing and make them build. It should save the taxpayer 40-50%

It would also reduce the cost for private buyers. Plenty of people bidding on properties only to find out that they are being out bid by their own taxes!

pjdarcy

Ban Airbnb

hello2020

build some seaside high rises

Lot of good suggestions already.

Councils need to move away from providing forever homes, low cost and basic purpose built social accommodation is required that will provide shelter and basic human needs when required but will encourage the tenants to make an effort to provide for themselves and move on when their situation improves.

This would free up funds to focus on those that really need social supports.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653668#Comment_119653668

Will Bray look like that afterwards?

Not to be too socialist but I'd ban corporations from making profits out of the housing market.

Private individuals could own properties up to a maxinum of 10 or a value of 10 million euro.

That allows them to make a few bob out of their investments. If they have excess they can look to invest in the million other possible investments (shares, investment funds etc).

Housing is a fundamental human need and our housing market should not be tossed around in the winds of globalised commerce.

Possible public-private partnership to build modest low cost/low price homes using modern materials. Surely there is a way to build cheaply these days without compromising too much on safety/quality.

EOQRTL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058264525/solve-the-housing-problem-easily-some-solutions

Agree with point 1 and 3 but point 2 makes no sense. There is no free houses available all social housing tenants pay rent.

hello2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653824#Comment_119653824

Bray could look like that or much beautiful with world class high rise hotels and apartments ...

city planners needs to visit island countries like Singapore to learn how to build modern cities

EOQRTL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653803#Comment_119653803

The majority of people in social housing are in low paid employment and will find it hard to buy their own home unfortunately. Thankfully the assurance of having rental security provided by the council is never going to change for them. Of course if employers want to start paying these people in low paid jobs better wages they could possibly one day be lucky enough to get a mortgage.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653578#Comment_119653578

The ECB sets Ireland's interest rate. So they won't be changing it to suit specific conditions in the Irish housing market. Part of the give and take of being in the Eurozone. They need to look at the bigger European picuture (e.g. how Germany is doing 😀).

Although if the ECB go hard on inflation and jack up the interest rates, it could indeed take a lot of heat of out of the Irish property market, temporarily.

Don't forget the ECB had low interest rates which helped fuel the runaway housing boom pre-2008 - because of low growth in Germany and France. And in 2008, when the world was heading into the Great Recession, Ireland facing a massive housing crash, the ECB raised interest rates, over concerns about inflation in Germany: Trichet reaffirms ECB inflation line in German TV | Reuters

As a small number of poster have mentioned, you need to tackle both supply and demand. Changing planning regulations is "tinkering around the edge", and will inevitable lead to problems like Priory Hall, and other safety and environmental issues. Building more is only part of the solution. A rising population will continue to absorb new builds.

Boggles

The populous needs to stop hyperventilating about property. The same fúcking bi-polar attitude for the past 40 years. Commentators creaming themselves at crashes and peaks and homelessness.

It wasn't long ago we were bulldozing houses.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653939#Comment_119653939

Do you mean bulldozing ghost estates etc due to the recession?

The population of Ireland in 2008 was 4.9 million. Its now over 5.1 million, and rising.

The news seems to give the impression that house building hasn't restarted properly since the recession, but look at CSO figures you can see house completions jumping up year on year from 2015.

House Building & Other Construction - CSO - Central Statistics Office

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653917#Comment_119653917

They were low paid when they entered social housing. Doesn't mean they stay that way afterwards. Clever ones make sure they're poor for just long enough.

EOQRTL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654037#Comment_119654037

Yeah that's right, it's their fault we've invited half the world into the country to keep wages artificially low.

Also rent in social housing is based on the households income and doesn't stay the same. If you earn more you pay more.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654004#Comment_119654004

We weren't bulldozing estates in 2008.

The current demand although it has slowed now is being driven by record deposits because of Covid and cheap interest rates (although gone up recently).

The supply side according to the industry is because of material costs. Although we are set to exceed or new build targets this year. This will all normalise given time.

If we don't stop and analyse exactly what the cause is and just jump in with more knee jerk reactions we will just keep continuing having a batshít housing market.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654064#Comment_119654064

We have the second highest minimum wage in the EU and second highest hourly wage across the board.

Greyfox

Most important thing is to build lots and lots of high rise apartments that are of reasonable quality and we tell anybody against high rise without a very strong reason to f*** off. No more d*ckheads refusing planning for silly reasons. To get the money for this we can promise companies lots of tax credits if they finance and own the buildings. Or we can get a massive loan to fund all this.

It's time we actually started treating the issue as a crisis and not just as a problem

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653458#Comment_119653458

Ireland has an unusually large percentage of children still living with their parents well into adulthood, including my household, so this vast pool acts as a counter to any expectation that demand should fall when supply picks up. The supply never increases enough to reduce this pool by more than a tiny amount.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653917#Comment_119653917

Having a temporary buffer might take some of the heat out of the market hopefully making housing and rentals more affordable for all, instead of the councils competing for existing housing and rental stock. Unless you have a disability the state should only be providing the bare minimum until your situation improves. First time buyer grants and HAP supports provided up to this point have just made the housing and rental market more expensive for everybody. The state needs to stop relying on the private market and offer its own solutions where it can control costs. State could build basic low cost housing directly for first time buyers and low income families that act as starter homes you move on if your situation improves and sell back to the state so it can be offered to somebody else starting off or on a low income. Now there are plenty of issues that would have to be resolved first like the state having a skilled workforce to build these houses but any solution at this stage will require a lot of work. When there is a low end to the housing market the rest might start to balance out. Obviously there are many issues that have gotten us to this point, I'm merely offering one suggestion that might ease things.

Dyr

Ban AirBNB

Hard stop on Immigration/Fugees/language students

Watch problem disappear like the snows of yesteryear.

Too much money being made from the problem to want to stop it.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653634#Comment_119653634

While that sounds like a potential solution it can have terrible consequences.

Hotel prices are high enough without removing a lot of competition from the market, tourism will suffer if hotel prices become unaffordable, and removing airbnb is a dangerous game.

while not a fan of high rise living we should be increasing the high rise commercial developments, the less footprint commercial takes up the better.

We need infrastructure to make areas attractive to live in, and the more ambitious the infrastructure the more attractive the areas.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654239#Comment_119654239

Ban AirBNB

You have ran the numbers and formulated the overall cost to the tourist sector?

Personally I think letting hotels gauge more would destroy our reputation internationally and would extremely adversely effect what is a lucrative industry, especially to more rural places and excellent inventions like the Wild Atlantic Way, etc.

Again, not just my opinion.

THE STATE’S TOURISM development agency has said that without home-sharing sites like Airbnb, Ireland’s deteriorating reputation as a good deal for holidaymakers would be even worse

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653917#Comment_119653917

The vehicles in the driveways would not support that. They may start off in low paid jobs but a lot get better paid jobs and still keep the cheap rent.

All of which is irrelevant because we don't have the builders to build housing, try getting a builder for an extension or new build you are waiting years and you won't be called back for a small job , and they won't come here because we've no housing.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653803#Comment_119653803

Ghettos you mean, More ballymuns, and cherry orchards?

Look where that has gotten us in the past.

The new model of social housing spread around is actually much better, not perfect but much better.

MayoSalmon

Government needs to stop profiteering off of housing firstly.

UK Government just today has removed Stamp Duty for all first time buyers up to 450,000. Id go further and just get rid of Stamp and VAT on housing alltogether.

Stop taxing landlords 52% marginal on rental income...

ancapailldorcha

Stand up to NIMBYs, create an apprentice scheme to the people who'll actually build the new homes and invest in the infrastructure to support them.

Can't see any Irish government ever doing it though. Would require too much work and you'd have the usual bien pensants complaining. Parish pump politics is anathema to innovative projects sadly.

nigeldaniel

If county councils were not 'sewn up in red tape' I suspect things would improve. There are also too many busybodies from political units in opposition holding up developments and generally deliberately getting in the way to make the government look bad, and that has to stop.

hello2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653458#Comment_119653458

more demand means more money for everyone involved :)

so this wont be addressed ..as capitalist banks and economy needs to show growth which needs ever increase in demand ..

why do u think there is no cap on immigration which is the main driver behind this growth despite falling birth rates in Europe !!

Tombo2001

a recession would do the trick.

enricoh

If u don't pay the rent for 3 months court order n on your bike.

For EU citizens we are required under EU law to house n give welfare for 6 months. Paddy pays it forever. Anyone here now has 6 months to get a job or bye bye.

Asylum seekers - welcome to Ireland n family repatriation for genuine ones. One appeal n home for spoofers, no more leave to remain or amnesty's.

There's a lot of underutilized council stock, maybe set up an old folks estate n give a lump sum for pensioners downsizing. A lot would be happy to move into a smaller A rated gaff.

Tombo2001

Not being facetious - but genuinely, there will most likely be a recession in the next two years which would lead to lots of people leaving the country and housing shortages ceasing to be an issue.

There is a very decent chance that will happen, as it happened 15 years ago.

Of course then, the 'public' will completely forget that there is still a long term structural shortage of houses, the media will stop writing about it, and politicians will stop planning for it. As happened 15 years ago.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654291#Comment_119654291

The problem with that is builders will not pass on the decrease.

What has to happen immediately is taking rent paid into account when calculating first time buyers ability to handle mortgage repayments. To many people are trapped paying rent over and above what a mortgage would be but are getting turned down for a mortgage.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654336#Comment_119654336

And who's going to be lending in this recession? Who's going to be earning enough to save for an absurd deposit in a recession? It's the young graduates who're most likely to emigrate en masse taking the state's investment with them.

screamer

Planning permission needs a total overhaul, a lot of stalling caused by nimby mentality. Takes too long to get approved also. We need fast tracking.

council housing should have a simple straightforward design, no bits stuck on here, bay windows etc, they should be rectangular shaped simple structures, which are quick, easy and cheapest to build and one set of plans, not wasting money on architects etc.

to relieve presssure at the moment, mobile home parks should be allowed also to provide temporary accommodation.

the standards that we are expected to build houses to are too high, adding significant expense. Again, I think this is just to be the “best boys” but that’s no use when we’re homeless. That needs a looking at also.

In towns and villages, road frontage land should be cpo’d to build houses. Farms need an entrance they don’t need miles of land. If cpo is not possible then land in areas which are deemed acceptable for building on (towns and villages) the farmers should pay vacant property tax on the road frontage.

old vacant houses should also be cpo’d and either renovated or flattened to build new housing.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654355#Comment_119654355

What were they initially intended for and what have they strayed into?

lawrencesummers

A lot of interesting points being made here but lets all remember.

The only solution to the lack of supply is to increase supply, the lack of supply has been going on for years so it will take years to rectify and little ideas here and there, and government schemes here and there might help a tiny tiny bit but the overall problem still exists, a lack of supply.

On that the gov PLANS to have 33k houses completed a year for the next 10 years, so they might do well and get 20k or 25k.

David McWilliams reckons you need 50k a year.

The problem is supply and thats not getting fixed anytime soon.

EOQRTL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654131#Comment_119654131

And prices too match.

EOQRTL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654279#Comment_119654279

"The vehicles in their driveways"?? I live in a part social and part affordable housing estate and the people in social housing are driving older cars than you'd see in private areas and of that there is no doubt. Nobody owns an electric car that in itself tells a story.

Also as stated before rent goes up as wages go up. They do not stay the same.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654370#Comment_119654370

Housing standards are required for a lot of very valid and well established reasons, in fact they should be strengthened if anything not reduced.

How much is the Mica issue going to cost joe soap taxpayer?

farmers paying vacant property tax for land thats in use in areas where people don't want to live and often don't have services. Hairbrained.

EOQRTL

The only way to solve the housing crisis is too build more units and build up if at all possible. Turning on those in social housing or the poor is just Trump playbook tactics.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654384#Comment_119654384

I'm all for increasing supply but there are real problems there. Who's going to build the houses to begin with? Where to these workers come from? Do you import them or train them domestically? What about wages? Do you subsidise them or hope that the market will offer a competitive rate?

The biggest problem are the NIMBYs IMO. They contribute nothing and tend to be people who want to hoard wealth. At some point, someone in government is going to have to bite the bullet and stand up to them or face the fact that Ireland is a country hostile to young people with aspirations who lack the bank of Mum and Dad.

I'd quite happily see councils who reject sound plans for sustainable housing financially penalised. Not every project should go ahead but the NIMBY brigade needs to be checked.