"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

Francis McM

Mary Lou McD has let it slip in recent hours that she thinks the average Dublin House prices should fall to the 300k mark.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/12/20/mary-lou-mcdonald-sinn-fein-leader-says-average-dublin-house-prices-should-fall-to-the-300000-mark/#:~:text=She%20said%20that%20average%20house,about%20%E2%82%AC430%2C000%20at%20present.

Figures from the CSO show Dublin prices are currently at the 430k mark. Down the country of course prices are much affordable in places. Let us however concentrate on the Capital city and I wonder has she thought this through? Capital cities in Europe and elsewhere are always more expensive than country areas.

What about the "average" buyer in Dublin who bought this year? They paid €430,000 and took out a mortgage of €387,000. They are on a rate of ~4% fixed for 4 years. Will they be in massive negative equity once SF take power?

As quoted elsewhere construction costs in Dublin at the moment are nearly €2900 per sq.m. According to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI), the average cost of building a 3-bedroom house in Dublin is €371,311. That excludes site purchase costs, site development works incl roads, paths, landscaping, services, planning and development costs and fees, developer profit, etc,etc.

€300k for a new 3-bed house in Dublin is completely unrealistic. So if prices drop to 300k you will see nobody in the private sector building houses, if they can only sell them for 300k - or can be bought for 300k - and they cost a lot more than that to build.

And another point is that SF were claiming the cap on the mica relief fund was totally insufficient to rebuild homes in rural Donegal where the land was already purchased and services were already installed- but they think 300k is realistic for average house prices in Dublin? Something wrong there?

Is M L McD and her advisors for real, is she stupid or does she think people are stupid? Is there going to be another massive recession where so many are in negative equity, no new houses being built and government receipts from property taxes goes down, and builders emigrate in their droves again? Or does she / her advisors propose to control prices for goods? We saw the Soviet Union try that and and you'll get not just inferior quality but also shortages due to nobody feasibly being able to create them at this price? And house-owners in huge negative equity again, many in the building industry gone and banks in trouble again? And the IMF here again?

Personally I think one way to increase supply of houses is to train and encourage more trades people ( blocklayers, sparkies, carpenters, plumbers etc ) - there is a shortage of them in the country in recent years. If property prices were going to crash and most trades people would be out of work like last time prices crashed, that is not how you encourage them to get trained.

.

Brussels Sprout

I'm just impressed that a politician from a major party has said the magic words "House Prices need to come down".

Typically they will shy away from being that explicit because they don't want to scare off all of the home owners who are perfectly happy for them never to come down. So usually they will say "Houses need to be more affordable" or "We need to increase the supply of houses"

nullzero

Yeah, house prices are too high.

I'm sure Sinn Fein will bring them right down when they start taxing all the foreign corporations that employ most of us the way they want to, thus driving all those nasty jobs out of the country.

Then Sinn Fein can get to work on pulling all the free houses they've promised everyone out of their backsides.

Don't vote for pragmatism, vote for the Sinn Fein and their magical house crapping fairies that definitely aren't made up.

micosoft

SF appeal to the same voters as FF and the same folk who voted in Bertie & Co. three times in a row and Jack "abolish taxation" Lynch despite being warned. The problem is that Ireland will be overdue an electorally driven crash by 2030 (given we are doomed to repeat history), so Mary Lou & friends have to get in this time around to really crash the economy by 2030. Not sure they will make it and of course we've luckily got responsible adults in the ECB overseeing this kind of nonsense. I'll tell you one thing - if I were a trade I'd be concerned about expanding right now with this level of uncertainty in the market and random badly thought out government interventions.

Sweet.Science

Are they intentionally looking to lose votes ?

Strumms

Why will property prices drop ? They are slowly trending upwards again according to the CSO..

a significant number of people are coming here every month… looking to get housed and assisted and sorted. That’s not going to stop in fact it’s probably going to get worse.

the greater demand the higher the price everyone to pay …

Quiet Achiever

Population to increase by 30% by 2050, so demand ever increasing.

It's hard to see it given the cost of materials and the fact that THEY HAVE NEVER SAID WHO WILL BUILD ALL THESE HOUSES

Christmas has come early for FFG.

https://www.finegael.ie/how-exactly-will-sinn-fein-deliver-e300k-homes-in-dublin-cummins/

Clo-Clo

Sinn Fein come out with statement to take the discussion away from immigrants because they have been suffering in the polls.

That is what the headline should read.

Mary Lou knows the conversation at the moment is around immigrants and Sinn Fein are suffering because of it, change the news story to housing and then hopefully everyone will give out about the government not building houses.

Also with Christmas Break coming up it means the media will follow that story over the Christmas now. Like sheep we flock :-)

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518077#Comment_121518077

The "magic house building tree" will be used like Sinn Fein

IT is planted beside the "magic money tree" which SinN Fein also plan to use

rolling boh

That's some waffle from Mary Lou maybe she is planning on moving the gurriers around all areas of Dublin as a way of making all areas go downhill so prices will fall .

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518077#Comment_121518077

I suppose the same magic builder who can transform a 1 bedroom cottage in Cabra in to a 5 bedroom 2-storey house for half nothing. I think she is desperate to get the votes back they've lost in the last number of months. It's all lip service, plucking a 300k figure out of the sky, but I worry sometimes about what the economy could be like if the economy crashes like that again.

Last time it crashed we were - just about (with the help of EU, UK and IMF ) able to borrow our way out. In 2006, before the crisis hit, Irish public debt stood at less than $44 billion, 24.6% of GDP, and the country was in a state of fiscal surplus. In recent reports, Ireland National Government Debt reached 243.1 USD billion in Mar 2023.

If a crash happened / crises happened with a new government, would we be able to borrow our way out seeing as we are already one of the most indebted countries in the world per head of population, the magic money tax tree from multinationals may dry up and the EU / UK etc may not be in a position to lend to us again / may have their own or other world problems to worry about?

rob316

My relative is a developer, he told me his quantity surveyors are coming back with average build costs for a 3 bed semi of €395k. That varies with site costs.

Danzy

In a functional economy, with a proper functional building sector , that would be the right price.

That's not the case in much of the world now, especially not in western Europe and even more so in Ireland.

We had 150k added to the country last year, so external demand is about 50k housing units, Irish demand of 10 to 15, and as Leo says we have a unit shortage lag of about 250k.

That's a new Dublin, where will this new Dublin go, just to meet demand as is, another Dublin in the next 6 years, where will that Dublin go etc?

Britain added 750k net this year, so they need a new London every decade, where will that go?

Who will build these globally significant projects, same is happening in parts of Europe .

Where will the materials come from? This is bigger than people realize, especially people who have never been even on a house site.

Add on top of all that we must push for net zero, despite having to embark on a globally significant building project.

Solidarity, the new name for an ultra free market approach, it's all one of the most bizarre approaches and it is at a scale that is unsurmountable and only growing.

Never mind interest rates.

It's just a complete fantasy from the govt and SF and most of the political leadership of Europe.

If it was even just managed to reflect achievable goals.

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518077#Comment_121518077

How do you know the population will increase by 1.5 million in the next 27 years? It certainly won't be by natural increase.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518040#Comment_121518040

Prices will drop if SF does what FF did in the 1930s-1950s - by building huge numbers of social housing.

Crumlin, Kimmage, Ballyfermot, Gurranenabraher and the like all over the country including the Bord na Móna villages sprinkled throughout the midlands.

If the average worker doesn't have to buy or rent an overpriced property, does it not stand to reason that prices will drop in the private sector?

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518630#Comment_121518630

They'll make the effort and express an interest in doing so, that alone will get them elected but they are as completely in denial about the scale as FG and FF are, despite their interest in making some dent.

Finty Lemon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121517667#Comment_121517667

You are easily impressed. Should salaries come down also to make it happen?

Buddy Bubs

Sinn Féin in Ireland are targeting the lower classes, the illiterate and the innumerate, they know their audience and they spout nonsense accordingly. They know well themselves that their promises are empty.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518682#Comment_121518682

This is from the party which said everyone over 140k would have to pay additional tax in the "tax the rich" nonsense they came up with. Then a few months later that was 100k.

They are a shambles at best of time and Eoin and formula would be hilarious to see. My kids would probably pull it to pieces based on what they come up

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518630#Comment_121518630

The government is not setup to build houses, neither are the county councils.

Plus we have a shortage of labour in construction industry so if they set up to rival companies they would need to pay higher wages, with pensions etc driving up the cost of housing and not reducing it.

The 1930's are nearly 100 years ago, go back 40 years and Ireland is totally unrecognizable to what the country is today.

Finty Lemon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518594#Comment_121518594

2023 avg house prices for comparison

Copenhagen 650k

Amsterdam 590k

Brussels 578k

Stockholm 503k

Sheffield 289k

'Make Dublin less like Stockholm and more like Sheffield'- Mary Lou McDonald

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518630#Comment_121518630

Labour costs aren't the driver. Material costs, internationally, have risen steeply. No matter how many social houses are built you won't build a half decent house for under €300,000.

HBC08

People need to call her out on nonsense like this (maybe ask her about her parties immigration policies while we're at it)

There's a lot of bad sh1t happening in the world but seeing this showers of chancers blow an open goal of an election cheers me up.

Deebles McBeebles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518699#Comment_121518699

You mean even more like Sheffield? It's no Stockholm.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518716#Comment_121518716

Sinn Fein best chance was if the current government didn't last the term. They are absolute chancers and the more time they are asked questions the more it crumbles around them.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518735#Comment_121518735

It worked at the start and if you questioned him the answer was "oh he wrote a book on this". Has anyone read the book? no idea. But I seen him a few times live when he wasn't reading off a sheet of paper and it was a car crash.

astrofool

They should stick it on the side of a bus, where all nonsensical political statements seem to belong these days.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

Even 300k is not really affordable. It would require a couple on the average wage each or a single person earning over 70k

The housing crisis seems to be largely one of single people stuck living at home or in house shares. I'm one such person, with a total salary of just over 50k. But a basic income (banks dont accept bonuses or commission/overtime) of 40k

When we think of affordable food we think lidl because everyone can afford to shop in it. When we think affordable cars we think Dacia/Fiat because everyone can afford to buy one. If realistically at the "magic money tree" cost of 300k only 50% of the population could afford to buy a home, can someone please tell me where the rest of us are actually meant to live. This is not an issue of entitlement, not about gaining assets/investment. I want to know from the people here saying its pie in the sky etc, tell me where all of us grown working adults who are stuck living at home or renting are meant to live long term?

It seems like the answer for many is bad rentals or the folks house forever and kick the can of what happens in retirement down to line 30 years

In the days before mass home ownership and public housing, the 50% of us in the bottom half lived in workhouses, tenements or massively crowded intergenerational homes. Maybe thats what people here expect?

Former Former Former

Ah listen, it's a soundbite. Yes, houses should be more affordable. Unfortunately, Mary Lou has no idea how this will actually come about, or how she can effect the changes necessary. She might as well be saying that China should relinquish its claim on Taiwan - it might well happen but not because of anything Mary Lou is going to do.

But she is a very canny media operator, she knows that the average SF voter doesn't care about the details, they just KNOW that things HAVE TO CHANGE and a headline like this will play very well to them.

I love the blithe assertion that SF are going to just build loads of houses. How? Where? And how does that tally with their policy of objecting to every single planning application for the last decade?

micosoft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518630#Comment_121518630

The CSO projections. Not fantasy SF land. Why is it so hard for people to validate publicly available information. Combination of life expectancy, natural population growth and immigration that we need to sustain our economy AND social care systems.

Fake history on house building rates. We are building vastly more housing today than we did in the fifties, sixties or seventies and the state did not have some form of building agency - it outsourced to builders in the vast number of cases. Moreover we have totally different standards of building and much more focus on Dublin. We also learned that building sink estates like Ballymun and large creates even more problems so we now build mixed developments.

Frank Bullitt

I mean, she is right, but actually getting them to that price? Yeah, not going to happen.

micosoft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518704#Comment_121518704

Also land costs. We aren't building it anymore. And many of the talking heads fail to acknowledge that Imperial Cities like Vienna and bombed out cities like Berlin are not reasonable comparators where the state through edict owns the land. Major projects like moving Dublin Port up the coast to free up land is much more important than trying to crash the economy to reduce house prices as some seem to want or the bizarre Year Zero Khmer Rouge approach of sending Civil Servants out to build houses in the fields.

whatnext

Does anyone on here understand or have they noticed the presence of the word average in all the quoted figures.

some are less, some are more. A simple mathematical fact is more will be less than the average than above.

sometimes it’s very easy to see how the looney left and far right can get a strangle hold when people gloss over what they think they have read and accept it as fact and then go on to perpetuate this interpretation to even more people.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

Im sorry to seem like a broken record. But Ive been asking this for a long time and the answers people give are always about upskilling or moving out of Dublin which is not viable it would mean not having any low paid jobs in Dublin (which would just double current house prices anyway)

300k is still out of reach out over 50% of the population. So what will happen to half the people who cant buy at those rates in the long term ie the urban working class? Are we accepting that people are just going to live at home until their 50 or house share into their 70s? And then what will happen in 30 years when todays live at home/renters retire unable to pay to rent a room anymore?

micosoft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518682#Comment_121518682

Scrapping the property tax lands them on the extreme libertarian end of the spectrum of dismantling the state. Both the right and the left both believe in wealth/property taxes. This idea that we have a right/left orientation in Ireland when we have a less/more populist dimension. Our failure to invest in water infrastructure has not gone magically away either.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121517967#Comment_121517967

Possibly so - maybe she is being honest about what people will get when they vote SF.

Wonder why she singled out Dublin? Is the housing crisis only in Dublin? Is SF not (famously) and all-Ireland party?

Also, maybe explain why SF didnt employ this strategem whilst actually in govt in NI; where there is also a housing crisis.

Finally - how did she segue from Robbie Keane to this?

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518789#Comment_121518789

the honest truth?

People who arent directly affected by the housing crisis dont really think about it. People dont 'expect' you to do anything because they are thinking about other problems, the problems that affect them. Sorry if that sounds harsh, I think its the truth.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518887#Comment_121518887

Ok, so heres a better way of phrasing it. What is going to happen to us in the long term. Like the over 50% of people in their 20s and 30s that either rent, many in house shares, or live at home. A very large amount will never own. The current social welfare policy is to subsidise the rent of workers in the private rental market. So where are we going to live if its impossible to actually make housing affordable

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518897#Comment_121518897

Honestly - if it was me - if I was 25 and earning 40k a year and really really wanted to buy a house, first thing I would do is leave Dublin.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518904#Comment_121518904

Im in my 30s. I wont be making 40k outside of Dublin.

And that advise is basically saying working class people should not exist in Dublin.

I know how other countries deal with it. They have a functioning long term rental market. In Germany (and most of Central and Eastern Europe as far as I know) when you sign a lease you have lifetime fixed rents like a mortgage does. So what starts off as a salaried rent becomes affordable on a pension over the lifetime of the lease due to inflation.

Tombo2001

OK - but if you are waiting for a state solution to your problems, you will be 50. And thats being optimistic.

Hence, saying what I would do.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518953#Comment_121518953

I've had the mistake of personalising these posts before and it goes nowhere.

Im talking about perhaps a million people in 30 - 40 years retired without owning a home. Maybe the plans is we all inherit. Although I cant see how that works when we still wont have enough homes for our population. What did single people do in the past in retirement?

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518965#Comment_121518965

You are right - and to some degree I was being flippant and short sighted.

It does affect me. At the moment peripherally - schools in Dublin cant get teachers. When the kids get older it will affect me a lot more.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518965#Comment_121518965

Im trying to buy now and its proving difficult. I i wait much longer i'll only be able to get a shorter mortgage. Time is my enemy.

But im not so stupid as to think that voting SF will get me a house. Id have to be now trying to buy one myself for that.

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518981#Comment_121518981

Our birthrate has dropped 50% in a decade because people cant have kids in house shares or mammys house. Helen McEntee even stated as much last week in a debate on immigration saying we need migrants to do the jobs to pay the pensions of the future because our birth rate is too low to keep up. Which in turn makes housing even worse

BillyHaelyRaeCyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121518989#Comment_121518989

I dont think SF can fix the housing issues directly. I know that FF and FG cant, or at least cant do it without hurting their own votes which they wont do in the short term. Maybe we will see a covid style response in 20 years when boomers are dead and renters become 40 - 50% of the voting public.

To be honest, I work for a Irish company, and I could see SF policies crashing inward investment and lowering immigration or leading to depopulation which would lower house prices. Wages rising is how it traditionally worked but since the 90s real wages have been falling while asset prices rise.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121519014#Comment_121519014

So crash the country to bring down house prices. Yep, that'll get the votes.

nullzero

Mary Lou and the wing nuts.

Sinn Fein offering simplistic answers to complex questions.

Everything SF have claimed they can offer the electorate in recent years should be enough to set alarm bells ringing in any sane person's ears as all of it is pie in the sky unattainable politicing nonsense.

We all know the price of property is a joke in Ireland and needs to be addressed, offering soundbites instead of an actual well thought out road map out of this situation (which is what is needed) shows how insubstantial SF's ideas are. They've had a long time to formulate a real solution but we're still only getting soundbites.

Allinall

If all that happened was average house prices coming down to €300,000, not one extra person would be able to buy a house.

Without increase in supply, nothing will change.

Francis McM

If there was a property crash and house prices in Dublin fell to 300k, there would be a lot of people in huge negative equity and a lot of people out of work - just like the last time there was a crash. What developer is going to build houses now and train apprentices if the possible (some would say probable) leader of the incoming government in 18 months time wishes the price of Dublin houses to fall to 300k, which would mean few if any new houses would be built by the private sector. According to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI), the average cost of building a 3-bedroom house in Dublin is €371,311. - so builders and developers would not employ people or build if houses could be bought for an average 300k.

So SF would be making a much bigger problem / mess overall.... far fewer houses being built, huge lay-offs, huge negative equity ( for those who bought in 2023 for example ) , less property taxes / stamp duty / vat / taxes from builders etc.

And that fellow from Donegal, the hopeful Minister for finance who did not even complete his course in Letterkenny I.T. (or whatever it was / is called) - does he realise if there was a crash like last time and developers went bust, people handed back keys to properties etc, and many skilled building workers emigrated (same as last time), the government may not be able to borrow out of the crises like last time? Our national debt is what, 5 or 6 times higher per head now that just before the last crash in 2007 / 2008.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121519037#Comment_121519037

Best not to let them near it then.

How long have SF had to get answers to the "How?" part when they make dramatic ill thought out announcements? Yet they still never come out with the "How?".