Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

I've always been of the view that the state should build not purchase from the private sector.

There is only a finite amount of builders though so the private buyer is potentially screwed either way if the builders are all tied up building social housing instead of private estates.

Its a total smoke screen by the government, they claim to be fighting off those pesky vulture funds to save private buyers while social housing bodies are buying up full estates.

Its a total disaster basically!

Other thing to note is ive seen a few private developers who have a site and planning and end up doing a deal with Tuath or similar for all the houses, then when it comes to being built the signage and news stories are all about "New Tuath Social housing development" to give the impression it has been planned by them since day one, they own the land etc when really all Tuath have done is sign a contact to take over the houses once completed, it could have easily been a private estate for sale to the public but they try their best to hide that fact.

Well, that's what the basket and weighting is meant to cover in inflation calculations. I just have a feeling the basket is very wrong right now. Inflation figures for the past few years were low to negative due to reducing prices of clothes, electronics and stable prices on food primarily - while housing and rents were running wild.

I spend more on housing than I do on clothes, electronics and food and I have a very low mortgage! Renters and people with higher mortgages spend many multiples.

But that assumes that all builders are vying for the same work when in fact if the state were to build houses themselves, there would be a cohort of builders & businesses that specifically seek to rely on govt housing projects as a steady reliable income at the exclusion of private sales. A serious concerted effort by the state could drive the cost of building down through sheer scale of volume.

There is a shortage of construction workers right accross Europe.

The state has shown itself incapable of bringing in projects cheaply. Look at NCH. Builders on such a project would be stage payed, holdups and management of such projects would be chaotic and overruns would be common pmace

I know how it works - I just personally feel that it hasn't been vaguely accurately weighted for quite some time. I don't smoke and I wouldn't pay attention to the cost of my holidays compared to domestic costs!

The basket is based on the Household Budget Survey which is more than a little self-selecting in who does it; for starters (my parents did it or a predecessor for a cycle, a very long time ago) and often has quite comically outdated items in it - the 2016 rebase removed clock radios, disposable cameras and the cost of having a perm done. I'd imagine collecting data for those wasn't easy!

I meant the people who do it are self-selecting. There's no compulsion and no reward so you mostly get settled middle class households willing to do it and would find it quite hard to get anything else.

Yeah unfortunately the reality is that public bodies are bad at delivering homes, their staff have no skin in the game, there are no profits to chase, no bonuses for early project completion, no chance of getting fired or promoted, long slow chains of council approval for each phase and if they design the houses themselves the council architects go out of their way to design something new, fresh and hard to build, the likes of Cairn and Glenveagh are far better at delivering homes because they specialise in it and are motivated to get them done.

The NCH is not a comparative example. Typically new major hospital projects are never completed on time and on budget, typically because the built project is often not the same project that it started as which is what people don't get. Changes to incorporated medical technology (which runs at a higher level of inflation) and operational process changes can result in significant design changes throughout the life of the project, which invariably cost.

@Timing belt is probably right. Once upon a time the state was a major investor in direct labour through training of apprentices, but now would have to openly compete in the market place. It is possible but would take time.

I agree the government need to start building affordable homes but their track record on this is bad, maybe the LDA will do better

this wont be easy, it ll be fraught with all sorts of complications and failures, but its the only way out of it, such an approach is mutually beneficial now, it has to be done, and fast

The problem with the NCH was that Consultants and Professors had too much say in the location of the Hospital. People familiar with building and construction knew that it should have been a Greenfield site. However Consultants and Professors did not want it too far away from other hospitals or universities as it would limit there earning ability.

There was absolutely no regard given to the feasibility of either site chosen. There is no room for a helicopter to land and a pad cannot be put on top of the building. 90% of people knew the sites were sh!the but the intelligencia knew better than the ordinary Plebs.

LA's and the public service in general have shown themselves of being incapable of managing and construction projects.

Don't agree with that, have only had bare dealings with both of them but found them professional and straightforward to deal with, why would they be building to better than the building regulations and I haven't heard of many loopholes in the building regs these days?

More importantly why should the tax payer be paying for social houses built to better than the building regulations, surely they should be as cheap and basic as possible?

No really comparing like for like though if a council/AHB is getting free/cheap government land, part 8 planning, exemptions from planning fees, unlimited money tree with no finance payments, all their staff wages are paid for by government, etc. Its tax payer subsidies that allow them to be cheap whereas a property developer gets none of that and still has to hand over 10% Part V.