Some reasons why houses are more expensive in 2024 than years ago

foxsake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591187#Comment_121591187

we can disagree on that I guess. Well its' not as straightforward as that so we probably agree mostly with qualifiers.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591226#Comment_121591226

I think many young people would take the 3 bed in clondalkin - unless youre on welfare the prices are huge.

and thats fine you made a choice but its not right that you were forced .

The point is sure - you may not have the right to live on your parents road but you shouldnt be forced to move to wexford from dublin either.

our society has failed if that is the case.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591252#Comment_121591252

I wasn't forced. I/we had the straight choice of a perfectly serviceable house in many a perfectly serviceable (but "bad") area in Dublin, or a lovely house with some land around in wexford. What I did not have, was the lovely 6 bed house in Dublin. Because they were more expensive, reflective of demand.

I don't see a problem. Sure, some folks would pick the Ballymun, Clondalkin etc house but it wasn't for us. We work from home so the location isnt an issue anyway.

Choice driven by market pricing is not "forced".

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121587197#Comment_121587197

Would that mean that there should be a massive discount on a 2-year old house that was never upgraded? Relative to the price of a new build?

ec18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591268#Comment_121591268

no because there isn't enough houses for people to be able to make the choice and the older house usually has other advantages such as larger garden etc. So no the only time there will be a 'discount' massive or otherwise on housing will be if everything goes tits up again

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591319#Comment_121591319

That's the point. People justifying the house prices as being solely, or mainly, due to increases in standards etc are not correct. It will have some impact of course, but not to the extent being presented

ec18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591330#Comment_121591330

The cost to build doesn't have any direct correlation to the price of second hand stock. It's not tvs or phones we're talking about where the older models become heavily discounted. Housing can be both be more expensive to build thus making newer builds more expensive and older houses maintain value. There will always be a level of demand for older houses whether based on area, plot size or any number of other reasons that mean value will be maintained. (if not increase in some areas)

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121587925#Comment_121587925

I don't think that this is entirely accurate. New builds are timber frames over which layers of insulation and cladding are placed. I'm not even sure that blocks are used in all builds. There is a new block of apartments under construction up the road from me, and I can't see any brick-work. I could be wrong about that as I'm not a builder. However, if you wanted real red-brick on the outside of your house, you would pay an arm and a leg for it.

Just as a slight tangent, I do genuinely worry about the longevity of timber-frame houses in Ireland. The air here is very, very damp, and wood is traditionally not used overmuch as a building material for this reason. Given that many Celtic Tiger builds are already decaying after just 20 years, I wonder how the current generation of builds will hold up. We'll see, I suppose.

ballyharpat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591122#Comment_121591122

This has been replied to by many others and I agree that we cannot expect to be able to live close to our parents or any other area that we choose. I have no idea how you can see this as plausible. I want to live in Dublin , D6 or whatever are the expensive areas. Why can't I? I can't afford it. No one who's parents or friends live there or grew up there should be entitled to live their either. They can live there. if they can afford it and want to, just like I can, if I can afford it and want to.

In your ideal, everyone that grew up there or has ties, should be able to live there, let's take it on a basic level, let's say all the people that lived there had 3 children, all those children want to live there now, and by your reckoning, that's their right, where do they live? who gets to say which children can live there? Is it no a better system that the ones that can afford to and have a desire to, get to live there?

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591567#Comment_121591567

Yep, that's just reality. Unless the population density in the area where you grew up has increased, or at least can increase, then chances are you're not going to live in the place you grew up.

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591713#Comment_121591713

I understand your logic and what you are saying but the opposite is actually true. Houses built 60 odd years ago have much lower occupancy rates now than the did from when they were built. Houses that had families in them are now occupied by single residents or couples as their children or gone and their partners have died. Dublin is circled by housing estates filled with OAPs. The social aspect of Ireland means people don't downsize and retain the family home. On my mother's road taking 10 of her neighbours used to have 60 individuals living in them (including children) now there are 13.

Dublin has an occupancy rate issue for existing stock not a shortage of housing.

ballyharpat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121600625#Comment_121600625

That's a fact, but, do you have any solution for this?

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121600625#Comment_121600625

I had an idea of incentisizing older people to downsize to one and two bed apartments to free up their houses.

JCN12

I guess when the economy slows again, it will ease the pressure somewhat.

I often wonder do people in Ireland realise the reality of economic cycles, or do they just think previous downturns will not occur again?

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601388#Comment_121601388

Well the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see CPOs places on houses wherein an older person lives alone.

Personally speaking, I think that this could be handled within families with the state kept out of it. Maybe a family could group together to buy an apartment for an elderly grandmother and free up the house for a younger member of the family. I doubt that this would catch on however; it would require sacrifice and thinking beyond oneself, both of which are in short supply these days.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601617#Comment_121601617

It's difficult to know.

Ideally the downsize apartment would be in the same community which isn't possible really in a lot of cases.

Maybe it's better to incentivise older people to house share but that would be a tough sell.

I wonder if the government has data on the amount of older people living in decent sized houses.

When you walk around Dublin suburbs sometimes you see loads of old people.

I was in a coffee shop in Stillorgan shopping centre a few weeks ago and it was full of old people. Then the cafe upstairs was the same.

I think lots of the houses there were built in the 70s and 80s, so it makes sense.

If you search property prices in Genoa, Italy you can get perfect small apartments for 30,000. It's demographic decline. All the old people dying off and no young people to replace them.

I don't think they'll happen here as Italy's population is actually shrinking, but maybe a similar effect will happen in Dublin suburbs as lots of them were built in the 70s.

It would be interesting to see a map of Dublin with estates colour coded by the decade they were built.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121586804#Comment_121586804

FIAT currency is backed by sentiment and trust. Money is just a tool to make things happen.

Backing money by something that is finite is simply unworkable and/or useless.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601672#Comment_121601672

Hmm. Here's the thing, when the word "incentivise" is used, it usually means that the state will punish or shame people into doing something. It is my very strongly held opinion that what a private citizen does with their property is absolutely no business of the state. End of.

That said, you are quite correct. My late grandmother (God rest her) was the sole occupant of a 5-bedroom house in Stillorgan until she went into a home a few years before her death. My mother (60s) lives alone in a D5 house, and my still living grand mother is the same. This is problematic, but as I mentioned above, there are ways that it could be dealt with within the family.

Using myself as an example. I'm a single, childless man in my late 30s, and I live alone in a 3-bedroom townhouse in Wexford. If my nephew (when he's older) were unable to house himself and his family, I would be open to pooling resources to buy a small apartment that I would take whilst giving him my house. N state involvement needed.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601713#Comment_121601713

Yes, trust in banks and the state. If you trust either entity, I have magic beans to sell you.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601724#Comment_121601724

Ridiculous response.

Irrelevant who I trust. Maybe your magic beans can back some currency somewhere.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601718#Comment_121601718

By incentivise I just mean some type of financial incentive. Or Maybe just offer them a straight swap and the government pays the difference, either to the old person or the developer.

I know loads of old people will be like "I'm staying put, you'll have to drag my body out". But who knows, maybe a modern A rated apartment in the same community would be attractive. Those older houses can be very cold. Much cheaper heating bills, easier to clean and maintain, safer etc. There's definitely plenty of upsides.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601753#Comment_121601753

Okay here's a better one.

Without FIAT currency, the value of money would not decay at such as rate is currently the case. IT would be possible to actually save money without having to invest. Further more, states would be unable to fund things like enormous wars. Is fiat currency an entirely bad thing? No it is not, but it can and is abused.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601765#Comment_121601765

I don't think that there's any harm in the state's asking the owner for a sale or a trade. Indeed, if they wanted my house, I'd at least listen to the offer.

One down side of this is that the vacated house would become the property of the state whereas it otherwise would have become the property of the family of the said elderly person.

JCN12

The problem isn't elderly people though. I have heard this hypothesis batted around more and more lately.

It's a very short sighted fix for a long term problem to move people away from the place they feel most comfortable in the most vulnerable stage of life.

It's worth remembering that the through worth of a society can be measured by the way it treats its elderly people.

JCN12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601672#Comment_121601672

You should look up the documentary Birth Gap on YouTube in terms of global population decline.

Sonic the Shaghog

See the thing I dont like about this "you can't expect to live where you grew up" is it often can destroy a community, especially when it goes through gentrification.

It's similar to the Tory's "get on your bike" for work decades back and people moved all over England away from families only to be getting told in recent years it's their fault for moving away when the government can't provided adequate care to their parents, aunts uncles etc

I'm rural so it's not too bad but Jesus without close family support I think we'd have a care crisis worse than the housing crisis so don't know what's going to happen urban

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601889#Comment_121601889

Agreed. It's also a typically Irish response to a problem. I.e., "Just deal with it" rather than questioning why something is a problem and actually attempting to solve it. It's perhaps no wonder why the state behaves as it does when the population roll over and ignore its behaviour.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601865#Comment_121601865

I didn't say old people were the problem or that it's THE solution to the housing crisis.

But it would in theory free up a lot of houses.

It's just offering an attractive choice to older people. It's up to them if they want it or not.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601889#Comment_121601889

But in a city it's basically impossible for everyone to be able to expect to live where they grew up. Lets say an area has 100 houses with 100 couples in, and they have an average of 2 kids each, who presumably all want to move out and live in houses of their own, you now need 300 houses in that area. And up to 900 for the next generation if the grandparents haven't all died. If you're in a part of the city where all the land has already been built on, it's literally impossible to have everyone live where they grew up without either paving over whatever little green space there is left, forcibly evicting older people, or replacing houses with large apartment blocks to increase density. The last one is the only realistic one but there's not much appetite for that among the general public.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601977#Comment_121601977

Yeah the arithmetic doesn't add up. You also have people moving into an area from rural Ireland or abroad.

That's why we've sprawling suburbs with newer houses the further out you go.

It's also why certain suburbs have family connections with outer ones. Like Finglas with Blanch, Ballyfermot with Clondalkin, Crumlin with Tallaght. The kids moved out and moved to the nearest new suburb.

It's a different topic but lots of the gangs will control both connected suburbs eg the "Family" control Ballyer and Clondalkin.

Sonic the Shaghog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121601977#Comment_121601977

No I get you there totally. But surely it would be realistic to be able to comfortably purchase a home 15 to 20 mins away in Dublin you'd think if adequate housing numbers were being built