Councillor gets social and housing sorted. Met with protests.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

If I grow an apple and it costs me 5c and I sell it to you for 7c instead of 10c like the man up the street sells them for, nobody is paying for that, it's not a discount and I'm making 2c instead of 5c. There is no loss to me. I'm ahead 2c.

Housing is very different to the mass market goods or commodities like apples, or iPhones or shoes. Principally because one cannot export/import houses or apartments and they need to be built on land. If it were that simple, we can simple order a bunch of houses from China on the cheap.

But to take our South Park economic logic, why would one sell an apple for 7c when the market rate is 10c. What extra value does one give that apple?

Only an idiot would sell an apple to someone on a Monday for 7c, that cost him 5c, only for that person to sell it on a Tuesday for 10c for no value-added.

When the tenant or person buys the house, there is no loss to the tax payer. Absolutely none. Zero. Once again you are confusing less profit, with losing money spent.

Of course, there is. First, it depends on the price one sells at. If you sell below the market value, then its a loss. A house is an asset, if you sell it for below market it is a loss, an there needs to be a write-down.
The LA/State/Taxpayer also has to replace the house for more social housing. This is not 'free' either and costs money. Also, land is finite.

If I sell a pie which cost me 1 euro to create, for 2 euro. I'm making a euro, even if a man up the street is selling the same kind of pie for 3 euro. I'm not left short, I'm still coming out a euro ahead in profit.

As I said, if you sell a pie for €2 but the guy up the road is selling the exact same pies for €3 then you are an idiot.

On owning. A house was commonly the only asset working people could aspire to.
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As I said, private property ownership in of itself is fine, but we in Ireland are obsessed with it. We perhaps need to reevaluate our relationship with private property.

The trouble is the people with the most money are buying up all the houses to rent them to people with less money.

Landlords are leaving the market in droves. What is happening though is large companies buy up blocks to rent out. This may not be a bad thing in of itself, it is how its done in Germany and the like. It drives the professionalism of the rental sector. The issue, of course, is supply which drives prices.

Therefore unless you are relatively wealthy you will always be a tenant beholden to a market where rates are driven by sales.

Not sales, supply.

If wealthy people are spending large sums to buy houses, the prices will not come down. With rents, if you can't afford rent, the government might sudsidise you, rents won't come down if they are being met.

Did you sleep through the last crash?

What does this mean for the working tax payer? He/She is forever beholden to the profit margins of a few. You work hard, pay tax and die having made a few rich people a little richer.

Very very Dickenson of you. Is that how it works in Germany and Austria, where homeownership is a minority?
This whole Bull McCabe attitude to property in Ireland is quaint and backward.

99nsr125

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Time limited food stamps as the main welfare distribution in the USA seems to make people very motivated to get work for some bizarre reason.

They don't put up with cradle to grave welfare sh!t there.

Mrs Cash would be actually street homeless (or quite possibly dead) over there and that's no exaggeration! You are just not allowed live that lifestyle without the consequences.

That is in no way better, it is appalling.
We are better than that.

Don't forget about the cost of crime, prisons, lawyers . . .
those societies are burdened with.

Our way *is* better

bubblypop wrote: »

So, the state should build & sell houses cheap to people who can afford to buy them
They should provide social housing for those who cannot house themselves
Two different things.

Which, I have no issue with, by the way

Not exactly.

But we have tried it one way for 30 odd years now, it's been a spectacular failure.

Building more houses only leads to more expensive houses.

markodaly wrote: »

Bit of a ramble there Matt.

I am sorry, but if you are advocating giving people up to a 50% discount on a house, paid for by the tax payer, then you can take a hike.

Social housing is that, social housing, not a shortcut to own a 400,000 house for 200,000 paid over 25 years, while the guy next door has to foot the entire bill and then subsidise the family next door. In no universe is that fair.

I understand that there may be limited cases where property can be sold, but it should be done so, where the tax payer recoups costs at a minimum and it should be sold at market rates, not a huge discount.

Regardless, if we are to take the European model and not the UK/Irish model, the property will remain in the hands of the LA/State. We need to chill a little on property ownership in this country. Owning a property is not a 'right' and its highly amusing that some people point to Austrian provisioning of social housing as a plus, but then with a straight face advocate selling off these units for a song under a UK/Irish framework, because that is how we always did it here....

You cant have your cake and eat it too.

We've covered this before and I think, giving the benefit of the doubt, that you pretend not to understand.
Let's knock each slice of baloney out of the park:

if you are advocating giving people up to a 50% discount on a house, paid for by the tax payer

If I grow an apple and it costs me 5c and I sell it to you for 7c instead of 10c like the man up the street sells them for, nobody is paying for that, it's not a discount and I'm making 2c instead of 5c. There is no loss to me. I'm ahead 2c.

I understand that there may be limited cases where property can be sold, but it should be done so, where the tax payer recoups costs at a minimum and it should be sold at market rates, not a huge discount.

When the tenant or person buys the house, there is no loss to the tax payer. Absolutely none. Zero. Once again you are confusing less profit, with losing money spent.
If I sell a pie which cost me 1 euro to create, for 2 euro. I'm making a euro, even if a man up the street is selling the same kind of pie for 3 euro. I'm not left short, I'm still coming out a euro ahead in profit.

On owning. A house was commonly the only asset working people could aspire to.
The trouble is the people with the most money are buying up all the houses to rent them to people with less money. Therefore unless you are relatively wealthy you will always be a tenant beholden to a market where rates are driven by sales. If wealthy people are spending large sums to buy houses, the prices will not come down. With rents, if you can't afford rent, the government might sudsidise you, rents won't come down if they are being met.
What does this mean for the working tax payer? He/She is forever beholden to the profit margins of a few. You work hard, pay tax and die having made a few rich people a little richer.

bubblypop wrote: »

So, the state should build & sell houses cheap to people who can afford to buy them
They should provide social housing for those who cannot house themselves
Two different things.

Which, I have no issue with, by the way

Not different at all.
People can't house themselves if their income falls below the level required.
Purchasing requires you earn a certain wage. Getting social housing requires you earn a certain wage.
The indo and the like throw in the chancer of the week stories to angry up the blood so we blame those less well off for our ills.

Bambi wrote: »

Worth remembering that large tracts of housing in Dublin and beyond was social housing, Marino etc. We just did it better back then

Same with farms, most of our farmers are on "forever farms" that their forefathers bought for a pittance from the state

I've no problem with the idea that citizens should not be indebted to a bank for the rest of our lives just to have a place to live. Big problem with the idea of people expecting everything be provided for them by the taxpayer including a house next to their Mammy.

Little problem. These people don't call the shots. They get options and are left waiting until those options come up and if they refuse for no good reason they lose their spot on the list.

Boggles wrote: »

I'm a believer in affordable housing, for everyone.

So, the state should build & sell houses cheap to people who can afford to buy them
They should provide social housing for those who cannot house themselves
Two different things.

Which, I have no issue with, by the way

bubblypop wrote: »

Your examples are that anti social behavior is curtailed when social houses are sold & become private. Oh and that people take more pride in their own home than a council owned one.
So basically, you are actually against social housing for many of the same reasons as others on this site.

A real believer in social housing would believe it should stay in state ownership for the good of those who cannot house themselves.

I'm a believer in affordable housing, for everyone.

Boggles wrote: »

In the examples I gave clearly private property ownership is for the social good.

I have seen it first hand.

Your examples are that anti social behavior is curtailed when social houses are sold & become private. Oh and that people take more pride in their own home than a council owned one.
So basically, you are actually against social housing for many of the same reasons as others on this site.

A real believer in social housing would believe it should stay in state ownership for the good of those who cannot house themselves.

markodaly wrote: »

So it's anecdotal, good to know.

It's a implemented strategy I have seen work and that does work.

Do I remember you saying before you grew up in social housing?

Or am I thinking of someone else?

Boggles wrote: »

In the examples I gave clearly private property ownership is for the social good.

I have seen it first hand.

So it's anecdotal, good to know.

markodaly wrote: »

If one wants to continue the ideology of private property ownership over social good,

In the examples I gave clearly private property ownership is for the social good.

I have seen it first hand.

Dyr

Boggles wrote: »

Well not exactly. It didn't belong to "the state" to begin with. The forefathers were paying to get back their forefathers land.

Let's be honest here, it belonged to the state of the time or was privately owned, we can bitch about how they acquired it but once we gained independence we accepted all that private ownership was legitimate

Boggles wrote: »

Allowing tenant purchases is an inherently good thing, I know from first hand experience and I'd hazard a guess that long term for "DE TAX PAYER" (which also includes the person buying the home which seems to be forgotten) it's cheaper.

But above all costs, it's value is immeasurable.

It depends.

If one wants to continue the ideology of private property ownership over social good, then maybe. But what you are doing is giving one generation a benefit and denying the other generation the same opportunity to live in social housing.

Also, if one truly believes in social housing then you cannot believe in the ideology of selling it off i.e. privatising it.

They do not sell off social housing units on the continent. Why is that?

We are forever telling ourselves and comparing ourselves to the Danes, Austrians, Finns, Swedes in all kinds of social policy. The reason we cannot implement any or much of it is that we, the Irish people, want things to remain as they are, hence the over-reliance on private property. We will tweek around the edges and then wonder why it failed while it worked in Denmark... yeap you guessed it.

If we really really really wanted to take the Austrian framework to provide social housing, then we need to ditch our obsession with selling social houses to its occupants. As I said, you cannot have your cake and eat it.

Bambi wrote: »

Same with farms, most of our farmers are on "forever farms" that their forefathers bought for a pittance from the state

Well not exactly. It didn't belong to "the state" to begin with. The forefathers were paying to get back their forefathers land.

Dyr

Worth remembering that large tracts of housing in Dublin and beyond was social housing, Marino etc. We just did it better back then

Same with farms, most of our farmers are on "forever farms" that their forefathers bought for a pittance from the state

I've no problem with the idea that citizens should not be indebted to a bank for the rest of our lives just to have a place to live. Big problem with the idea of people expecting everything be provided for them by the taxpayer including a house next to their Mammy.

Jaysus I'd swear some people are in danger of choking on their begrudgery.

Estates which have a high uptake on tenant purchase schemes have little to no anti social behavior where the opposite is true in terms of estates that are just been rented.

I've seen this first hand growing up in my own locality and it still rings true today.

We also have the problem where 1000s of vacant or boarded up social houses remain unused, 2 main reasons being, no one will dare move there and they are so neglected that it is not economical to repair them.

Councils routinely sell off stock on the private market and for good reasons.

Mate of mine bought one a couple of years for a very good price, it was a very good price for a reason he had to put in 1 and half times the purchase price just to make the house safe and livable doing the majority of the work himself.

Now the only reason he even thought of buying the house was because it was in an estate where the majority of people had purchased their homes, if it wasn't the only thing happening that house was steel shuttering on the doors and windows.

Allowing tenant purchases is an inherently good thing, I know from first hand experience and I'd hazard a guess that long term for "DE TAX PAYER" (which also includes the person buying the home which seems to be forgotten) it's cheaper.

But above all costs, it's value is immeasurable.

BattleCorp

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Mrs Cash would be actually street homeless (or quite possibly dead) over there and that's no exaggeration! You are just not allowed live that lifestyle without the consequences.

She'd be nothing of the sort. She'd have to get up off her hole and look after herself. Whether or not she would do that legally is another matter.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Flawed baloney as per MarkO.

People who buy are living in those homes. We don't have an extra family looking for social housing because the house gets sold.
The whole point is it's for people who can't afford the market rate, (I know you get confused at this bit).
How can you be idle and buying a house from anyone? You need a mortgage.
The housing crisis effects everyone, mostly, the majority, working tax payers on low incomes.

Bit of a ramble there Matt.

I am sorry, but if you are advocating giving people up to a 50% discount on a house, paid for by the tax payer, then you can take a hike.

Social housing is that, social housing, not a shortcut to own a 400,000 house for 200,000 paid over 25 years, while the guy next door has to foot the entire bill and then subsidise the family next door. In no universe is that fair.

I understand that there may be limited cases where property can be sold, but it should be done so, where the tax payer recoups costs at a minimum and it should be sold at market rates, not a huge discount.

Regardless, if we are to take the European model and not the UK/Irish model, the property will remain in the hands of the LA/State. We need to chill a little on property ownership in this country. Owning a property is not a 'right' and its highly amusing that some people point to Austrian provisioning of social housing as a plus, but then with a straight face advocate selling off these units for a song under a UK/Irish framework, because that is how we always did it here....

You cant have your cake and eat it too.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

This might sound a bit 'futuristic/police state' etc. but considering pretty much every legitimate service or product can be purchased without cash, would it not make more sense to swap the entire Social Welfare system over to a card-based system?

This would knock a lot of the illegal activities on the head, as you can't buy drugs or pay someone to do dodgy stuff or nixers without some explanation as to why they'd be receiving money off you, and you could review people's spending, so when they rock up to the Community Welfare Officer looking for money for a communion dress or new Fridge, the Officer can say "but hang on, you have enough money to buy that already" or "but you've spent €x on alcohol this month, and a fridge will only cost €y, so we'll only give you €z towards it, get your act together".

(and so forth).

Naturally the scheme would become redundant as people would figure ways around it, or if you could simply withdraw cash from a bank it'd be spoiled, but nonetheless it'd make things more traceable and stamp out certain illegal activities.

it probably wouldn't stamp out anything in reality. probably just cost us a fortune trying to admin it.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Time limited food stamps as the main welfare distribution in the USA seems to make people very motivated to get work for some bizarre reason.

apparently they actually don't in reality.
those who do not want to work still do not work.
for those who do there are greater opportunities, regardless of skill or lack of, and there will be employers who aren't fussy and will be willing to give people a chance as long as they can show they deserve it.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

They don't put up with cradle to grave welfare sh!t there.

Mrs Cash would be actually street homeless (or quite possibly dead) over there and that's no exaggeration! You are just not allowed live that lifestyle without the consequences.

yes and they end up throwing away money that could be better spent trying to deal with the consequences of the system they have.
i suspect that if we implemented american style systems here in ireland we would be bankrupt quite quickly.

Kermit.de.frog

Time limited food stamps as the main welfare distribution in the USA seems to make people very motivated to get work for some bizarre reason.

They don't put up with cradle to grave welfare sh!t there.

Mrs Cash would be actually street homeless (or quite possibly dead) over there and that's no exaggeration! You are just not allowed live that lifestyle without the consequences.

This might sound a bit 'futuristic/police state' etc. but considering pretty much every legitimate service or product can be purchased without cash, would it not make more sense to swap the entire Social Welfare system over to a card-based system?

This would knock a lot of the illegal activities on the head, as you can't buy drugs or pay someone to do dodgy stuff or nixers without some explanation as to why they'd be receiving money off you, and you could review people's spending, so when they rock up to the Community Welfare Officer looking for money for a communion dress or new Fridge, the Officer can say "but hang on, you have enough money to buy that already" or "but you've spent €x on alcohol this month, and a fridge will only cost €y, so we'll only give you €z towards it, get your act together".

(and so forth).

Naturally the scheme would become redundant as people would figure ways around it, or if you could simply withdraw cash from a bank it'd be spoiled, but nonetheless it'd make things more traceable and stamp out certain illegal activities.

Idbatterim

99nsr125 wrote: »

What about the paramedics and firefighters and doctors ?

Or maybe public lands should be used for the public good. Providing security for the people that are not as lucky as us.

“ lucky “ or maybe they never lifted a finger a day in their lives ...

DeconSheridan

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

Prime city centre location. Right beside the Pheonix park / Luas / Heuston. Short walking distance to O'Connell street.

Its the bargain of a lifetime.

A bargain.. :rolleyes: I know of a guy who bought in an estate, he was first buyer! they couldn't sell the rest and gave them out for F all to everyone and anyone. I do feel for his predicament being the only one paying back a 300,000 mortgage. Dont be that guy!

Matt Barrett wrote: »

People who buy are living in those homes. We don't have an extra family looking for social housing because the house gets sold.
The whole point is it's for people who can't afford the market rate, (I know you get confused at this bit).
How can you be idle and buying a house from anyone? You need a mortgage.
The housing crisis effects everyone, mostly, the majority, working tax payers on low incomes.

I never thought you would be in favour of the privatisation of state assets Matt, but I learn something new every day here. :pac::D

padd b1975

Boggles wrote: »

That isn't how it works.

Anyway do you think or boom bust housing market is good practice?

Ireland has had one boom and bust cycle in its history.

One.

99nsr125

maxsmum wrote: »

Yes and none of them need free or cheap housing in a prime city centre location. Nurses, guards, teachers working in the city should get priority for this housing. There is no inviolable right to be 'housed' where you grew up. I for one will never be able to buy a house where I grew up, let alone be given one.

What about the paramedics and firefighters and doctors ?

Or maybe public lands should be used for the public good. Providing security for the people that are not as lucky as us.