Is technology partially to blame for the housing crisis?

Ubbquittious

Houses in the backarse of nowhere were dirt cheap before WFH and the universal availability of broadband, AirBNB, rich tech workers buying up holiday homes in the countryside.

Houses in Dublin were cheap-ish before tech companies flooded in and started importing workers from other countries

In 'merica it's gone bananas altogether with AI overlords controlled by Zillow buying up massive amounts of houses for investment purposes.

ancapailldorcha

No. House prices were insane before working from home became more widespread as a result of covid.

What an odd question.

corsav6

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250020#Comment_121250020

Houses around me in Mayo have significantly increased in value since COVID and especially since NBI has been rolled out.

However I don't think technology or that industry have played a major part. We have more people than houses so prices were always going 1 way.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250020#Comment_121250020

People in certain parts of Co Clare would disagree.

Dunno about the rest of the country.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250048#Comment_121250048

Same as in the UK. The rents in Trafford aren't far off double what they were when I lived there.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250073#Comment_121250073

Prices have risen across the board, but mostly driven by an oversupply of people and under supply of housing stock.

Prices in traditionally cheaper areas like Clare will likley jump by higher percentages at the tail end of the cycle, as the population dissapates away from larger/more populated areas, because there is no supply there now.

But I expect there is still a good difference in house prices in Dublin Vs Clare - though that isnt much comfort for anyone trying to buy local in Clare.

SharkMX

What has caused the increases in house prices has been going on a long time.

Ireland started to become richer.

It was encouraged that every household have 2 earners instead of one. Now its normal. Double the money to spend.

Those double wage houses started to look for somewhere to put their money were encouraged to buy more houses.

House price crash so building was halted.

By the time building started up properly again the welfare state had been paying peoples rents and buying up houses for people who could not afford them otherwise. Companies stepped in to finance them as the state paid them leases on them. Totally pushing those who have to buy their own houses out of the market.

The state encourage people with property to rent out to take it off the market with all sorts of stupid market manipulation that is going totally the wrong way.

Then the state throw money at people who now cant afford houses to help them spend the money they have saved on houses. Of course the price is going to go up.

State invites more people than there are houses for into the country.

Inflation now into the bargain.

And it just keeps on getting worse.

AlanG

In real terms most areas were more expensive from about 2003 to 2008 than they are now. At that time there was little work form home and no Air B & B.

Increased population and smaller household size are the main macro cause.

mariaalice

It's amazing the theories on this, I would say it is easier to do up a wreck in today's society look at that program cheap Irish houses, roads, and transport have gotten better making access better, society is changing, and what people value is changing look at the phenomena of daily swimming, decline in things like the pub being important all sorts of reasons.

I have family in a small village on the Tipperary/Limerick border 25 years ago there was one small housing estate of about 6 houses now there are hundreds of new houses, you can be in Dublin in 2 hours using the motorway, it used to take about 3 to 4 hours to get down there nearly everywhere in Ireland has become more accessible.

Its also becomes a lot easier to make a mixed living, an Airbnb mixed with something else, I have stayed in a place that was a yoga studio and Airbnb business.

Count Dracula

No, it is caused by the media and by leftie opposition parties, recognising it as a feasible issue to go to war with, in raising their popularity and political power.

Also allowing women to marry and also keep their jobs, when having a family, brought much more competition for buyers. That has also been a great cost in maternity benefits and to the exchequer.

If more women walked around barefoot and pregnant it would sort it out.

The revolution will be televised, but also available on X, Tick Tock and other social media dross.

If the government had given the money to homeowners, rather than to the banks , we would not have a crisis now and would have skipped through the crash. The money could have saved the homeowners having to liquidate, they would have then paid the banks , who then would have been able to remain in business. The department of Finance are a gang of overpaid clowns.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058318551/is-technology-partially-to-blame-for-the-housing-crisis

That's not "technology" that's just jobs.

This is cycle that been happening long before WFH and all those other things.

mariaalice

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/news/derelict-wexford-cottage-on-04-acre-site-sold-for-well-above-guide-price/a889978814.html

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250048#Comment_121250048

There's still plenty of empty houses, there's even a few abandoned town lands, around where my Parents are from in Mayo some are fairly new.

We don't have a housing shortage, we have a shortage of housing in places people want to live and that's nothing to do with tech it's happened in nearly every developed country as people leave rural areas to live in urban areas.

Atlantic Dawn

10 years back if you were in a non wired broadband area with poor mobile coverage the only option was slow and expensive satellite broadband (Q Sat I recall). I would put good broadband access before heating in my priority list 😁.

Now with Musk's Starlink you basically have near best of the best from anywhere on the face of the earth at an affordable price.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121252776#Comment_121252776

Funny thing if you started occupying any of these "abandoned" houses, you'll find they will have owners popping out to see you all of a sudden.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121252883#Comment_121252883

Do you do this often with other things? See an empty car, decide to "occupy" it?

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121252883#Comment_121252883

With you it's always the cynicism, abandoned does not mean it's not owned by someone, it means it's not lived in and or falling down. The is no major issue with squatters in rural Ireland. As this is AH there is just as much sex drugs and rock and roll in rural Ireland so less of an imperative to get to the bright lights of Dublin, and London, plus more jobs in today's society in rural areas.

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058318551/is-technology-partially-to-blame-for-the-housing-crisis

Pls position the term in the context that you want it discussed:

otherwise I am with mariaalice on the exponential growth of sex drugs and rock and role in Post Father Ted rural Ireland: I just can neither keep[ it up nor up with it]

thinkabouit

Dont think it’s any one cause that has made it the mess it is.

But i do no that the money used for Funding HAP is just being wasted. Council’s are paying hundred’s a month to subsidise rent.

Common sense would use that money to build house’s.

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121253139#Comment_121253139

It is funny when somehow a village or small town they couldn't wait to get out of as a teen, suddenly in their 30s with small kids in the same village, it's not so bad better life for the kids a lot of that happening after COVID.

mickdw

Rural mayo. No houses available. Everything getting snapped up at high prices. I can certainly see a strong influx of city based work from home families. I can only see it continue.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121253736#Comment_121253736

My sister and her husband can't find anywhere in Donegal they can afford. It seems to be across the whole country. Galway isn't much cheaper than London.

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121253736#Comment_121253736

Indeed, with impact on LPT

Saw it in my home place in rural Carlow

House listed at 350k, two couples from Dublin, with no association with the village, went head to head

dxhound2005

Censuses show that there is a continuous trend happening in the number of single person households. This obviously means that more homes are needed than in the past for the same population, and of course the population is increasing. Also the Property Tax stats show that there are a large number of people who own two houses. And there are all those vacant properties. If there is a crisis, the solutions lie with those areas, not broadband.

• The average household size was 2.74, a slight decrease from 2.75 in 2016.
• Average household size declined markedly since 1991 when it was 3.34.

From Census 2022. Back in the 1960's it was over 4 occupants per household.

BrianD3

I started a thread on here before about all the posters asking for "money makeovers" on askaboutmoney while earning 6 figure salaries. Often well into 6 figures. As per Revenue statistics, it looks like the number of taxpayer units earning over 100k increased by about 40% from 2018 to 2021 and I bet it has increased again since. Plenty of these will be working from home and able to purchase houses in rural locations.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/documents/statistics/income-distributors/individualised-gross-income.pdf