Varadkar hits the right note for Landlords

I can predict we're this will go.

Leo Talking common Sense is a rare thing, he does make a fair point as there are clearly two sides to the rental crisis coin but the "common sense" comment is not going to actually achieve anything sensible. More a sound bite and utterly meaningless.

Intriguing the added comment about the SF party, it would seem not a single thing, Leo says or does can not have a slight thrown in about SF thrown into the mix.

I listened to the late Debate last night and my god, it is very clear where this Housing for all plan is going, clearly not much common sense put into its drafting and indeed by all accounts its implementation. The FG representative (Limerick City) was savaged and wasn't talking any sense at all.

Common Sense not at all evident it would seem.

Bunch of small portfolio landlords are already leaving the market due to the punitive changes in the way their income is taxed

When these properties disappear it's not gonna help with the supply issues people keep talking about

Great news. I'll have a 5 bed in Howth with a sea view and tennis court please.

We literally do. There are all sorts of social welfare payments to help people stay off the poverty line as much as possible. Even for people who are totally destitute, there are homeless shelters and food banks etc. No-one should starve to death in Ireland. It is a cornerstone of our social contract I would say. The famine still looms large in people's collective memories despite being so long ago.

There is a massive contradiction in people's constant demands for better housing supply on the one hand, and the denigrating of landlords on the other.

Landlords bring housing into the market place. Thats what we want. So lets kick them. Lets do everything we can not to encourage them.

Makes no sense.

A rental cap is a direct intervention in the market. If his reason against direct intervention is that it would negatively affect the income of a certain selection of society, i.e. it would distort the market, then that same reason holds for indirect intervention.

That would mean no more government schemes or reliefs for any developer/investor and also no more intervention in the housing market by the State. So no subsidised rents, no payment of rent to private landlords for social housing, and also no purchasing or building of social housing. If you want to take it to the full extreme, it would also mean removing standards and protections.

I personally think that the government should indeed be intervening directly in the market by encouraging and promoting development and by penalising those who hinder it.

I would, however, be against the concept of market caps, but for a different reason. That being that they could only ever be a short term relief. If you have a market cap, then the only way to increase profit is to decrease costs. A landlord would have no natural incentive to ever upgrade or improve a property for a tenant.

People do. But if you live in Dublin and pay nearly €1800 a month on rent, how are you supposed to also save for a deposit?

Has the cost to a landlord of renting a house out gone up by the levels of the rent increases of the past few years? I can't imagine it has, mortgage repayments won't have anyway...

Small landlords are, in general, merely rent seekers (the economic meaning of the term).

They are surely removing housing from the market (rentals that is. Obviously people are buying the ex-rentals).

Right well look at what Leo is saying in response to a three year tent freeze: it's someone's income.

Would a normal person be unable to go without a pay raise for three years - after massive pay raises in previous years which outpace inflation?

Lessen the tax burden for small landlords, and make it possible to evict troublesome/non-paying tenants if you're worried about their livelihoods.

There would be no option to rent privately if there were no landlords and that would create problems of its own.

It doesn't change the fact that individual small private landlords, in general, don't add to the overall housing supply.

Fair enough. I'm not an LL, I rent.

They seem to use the excuse of having to pay tax to continually raise rents.