Varadkar hits the right note for Landlords

You are still ignoring that fact that that buyer(s) is(are) generally going to be moving from housing that they themselves are renting. Thereby freeing up one rental property. If they are moving from another house that they own, then that results in their old house then being available for someone to purchase. Eventually, at the end of that chain, you will either get an investor buying up that spare house and renting it out, or you will get someone who is currently renting and who will then leave that rental property available for other renters.

And you forget the fact that, especially with rent-a-room-relief, many single first time buyers rent out spare bedrooms even if they do go from a multi-tenant situation to one where they have spare beds.

Let us apply reductio ad absurdum to what your logic appears to be saying. We will extrapolate. You appear to be saying that if less houses were owner occupied, and more people were renting those houses from landlords instead, it would result in a a discernible alleviation of the housing crisis.

Therefore, let the government pass a law that no house can be owner occupied. Each individual must live in a house that someone else owns. You can buy as many houses as you want - you just have to live in one that someone else owns. How much additional capacity would be generated under that rule?

If a relatively small number (i.e. small landlords leaving the sector as a proportion of all housing in the State) is as important an effect as you appear to be saying, then surely outlawing all owner-occupation would have an enormous positive effect?

What caused or is contributing to the scarcity? Smaller landlord exiting the market, other being reluctant to enter.

A sh1t one, but "accidental landlords" arent the problem. Its a supply issue. We've always been crap at homes and public transport.

I'll let you in on a little secret. If you pay up front, as you are now appearing to say, then you won't be paying back a mortgage.

Or are you counting it twice? C'mon, this is very basic

So you would also agree with my absurd thesis from above that extrapolating that, it would be a solution to the housing crisis if nobody was allowed to live in their own house?

There is a scarcity of housing due to current policies. It is quite simple. Developers are allowed to sit on landbanks for as long as they want, without penalty.

It can be difficult to open up new areas for rezoning, and even when rezoned, nuisance interference by "nimbys", and by elected representatives, can drag out the process for years.

Government rules and regulations also inhibit the supply of houses.

There are small landlords on here. What percentage of those do you think bought an already existing house? And booking off the plans is included in that because even in that scenario, they don't hand over all the money for the house until they receive it. They are not increasing supply.

Years ago, we had a situation where there was a strict limit on taxi licences. There was a fixed number. If an individual went and decided to buy a taxi licence in order to rent it out as an investment, they were not increasing supply. When you buy your house, you are not increasing supply, you are only replacing ownership of that house. You may be transferring from the owner-occupier market to the rental market if you outbid or buy from an owner-occupier, but that is irrelevant in the current context of critical shortages in both.

We are unfortunately in a de-facto similar situation of effectively fixed numbers of "licences" (houses) due to current government policies and rules. Who owns them does not affect supply

So you also agree with my absurd thesis from above.

i.e. if living in a property that you owned was made illegal (you could own as many properties as you like, you just couldn't live in one you owned yourself), then that would solve the housing crisis?

It is curious that you mention financing of developments but don't seem to understand that a model with many small landlords is not conducive to financing developments. Were you and 100 of your buddies willing to draw down your mortgages in advance and hand that over to a developer to get a project off the ground, then you would be financing development. But the chances of you doing that are effectively zero. What the small landlord wants is the property which is already built before they hand over their money.

There is an inherent risk when using reductio ad absurdum logic to support your point of view, as your namesake demonstrated repeatedly.

Well lets assume you currently live in your own house. If you instead rented out your own house, you might try to squeeze two families in (bring back the tenements m'lud).

Now when you have to rent the house across the road, your family unit will now be apparently content and happy to share the hosue with another family unit. Because you are renting. If you were living in your own house you would demand not to share.

Everyone would be happy ... or so your argument goes. You will also be rightfully thankful to your new landlord for providing you with your housing.

Pretty much our experience as almost ex-landlords!

We were renting a 4 bed house to 3 couples (basically 2 sisters, their partners and a couple who were friends of one of the sisters).

Unfortunately, the tenants before them completely trashed the property and we used up all our "reserves" (and then some) to get it put back into a fit state before re-letting it. This was second time the house had been trashed over the years and even though the current tenants (and every other set of tenants, those two excepted) have been brilliant we found the anxiety associated with being landlords and worrying about looking after a property without the cushion of a reserve to be really worth it - even before you factor in the general rhetoric around demonising landlords.

Considering that, and the state of the market, it just makes sense (for us) to exit the rental market as a supplier - so we're adding to the supply of property available for purchase but creating extra demand in the rental market.

Institutional landlords are pretty much standard across the rest of Europe which have far better long-term rental models.

But then those parties also oppose water charges which are also something pretty much standard there.

I had the painful experience of switching on newstalk the other evening and someone from the Labour party talking about getting the 'balance' right whilst proposing the new bill for more tenants rights and ignoring the fact that LL were getting nothing it in, dispite the use of the word balance. She then used the word 'eviction' many times instead of notice to vacate since there is a difference. She blabbered on about the research showing this and that (all pro tenant) and then finally when the host asked about LL exiting the market she mentioned that there was no research on this area and by her tone she didnt want any either. 

So at this stage I was shouting at the radio about not wanting to discuss the actual reason LL are leaving. she then replied it must be house prices, ignoring the fact that LL's having been quitting for years now. Finally the host thanked Ivana Bacik and it all made sense .......