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

I have no doubt there is an element of what bass is saying going on, but I'd imagine it's confined to a small proportion of people.

Can you give a brief description of the renovation proposed, just to see if the cost differential can be in anyway justified

Hard to disagree, but we really need to ask how we have had a starting point of knocking down oversupply to chronic undersuppy in the space of a decade.

I think its a situation that could have been managed better

The cheapest part of any houses is the four walls. When you get into renovations the only saving I see is the fact the house was there so no planning required.

There is a large percentage of people that want the '' new house or new house look''. What people need to start realising is forget about Ber ratings. Look at running costs. There is no one forcing you to have a A rated house unless its a compete new build.

When you go looking for planning ya they want iy. A lot of C and D rated houses have nearly as low running costs as an A rated house.

We have a holiday home and the one next door was bought lately. New owner is talking about changing the windows and door, doing insulation, revamping it completely and bringing the house up to an A or B rating. It will cost 150-k IMO. This is a holiday home.

We have put in a pellet stove in the living area. We hardly burn 150 euro worth of pellets in the year. Our electricity bill is less than 600/year for th house. The windows and door were put in about 2003/4. Are they not as well sealed as nowadays, ya but spending 20-30 k replacing them ??. It just dose not make sense. Ya I probably do the insulation wrap some time on it. But surely there is some way to redo window seals. The crazy part is the new windows will have exactly the same issue in 20-30 years time

It's the same with doing floors. Is it justified to take out floors and put in new insulation and underfloor heating. Even in a small house its adding 10+k to the job at least. This might seem all beer. But managing minor costs is as import as managing the larger ones.

In a lot of older houses a pellet stove based heating system should probably be considered. On some houses drylining using insulated board should be looked at. These also make rewiring much easier.

But you will not have the ''A rated house or the new house look''.

I hear you but the building regs require this type of upgrading. It’s not really a choice if you’re doing anything but a small extension.

Fair point, but you also have margin, sub contracting margin, cost of Finance, connection to services.

If housing was substantially cheaper, would the state be subsidising to the same degree, ftb grant, HAP savings,

People closer to employment centres Greater efficiencies.

If we approached housing with a focus on what's best for the economy, the country and people, we would have a very different system to what we have now and surely that is the responsibility of government.

Good point but every layer of taxes is extra waste.

If state building could cut out a few billion in taxes from going:

-> revenue -> local authorities -> bidding on houses/HAP/lease agreements

Then its a good thing. High prices and high taxes lead to high amounts of money wasted

How many Irish social housing estates are in fact ghettos. Is it a case of the noisiest being the "voice of all". Would it be an exaggeration to say half our city stock was initially social housing

@Bass Reeves

To me the whole rating system is a bit of a joke. Seems to be some formula that takes window size and a few other tick-list items such as heat source, rather than attempting to measure things like heat loss.

Source of income you say?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/dublin-city-council-owed-38m-in-unpaid-rent-1.4781829

council houses resolved the previous housing crisis but will the housing be for working class or people unable to get on the housing ladder for whatever reason. This is never debated. If the housing was open to anyone regardless of income then the argument of having to pay taxes for the welfare class goes out the window. But this will never be debated despite it having solved previous housing crisis when implemented by previous governments.

I see the housing minister is meeting builders next week regarding accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. I reckon there will be a lot of builders binning the house building and going at refugee accommodation instead. Less supply n invariably higher prices to come-

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will hold an emergency summit of key stakeholders from the construction industry, estate agents and other bodies next week to discuss the medium to longer term response

Is there a difference between these 2 cohorts you mention? Certainly the qualification income limits need review in light of current property prices and lack of affordability. Increased supply would also cool both rental and price inflation

Of course certain candidates should be prioritised such as essential workers that need to be physically present at their workplace. Dress it up as a reward to those that kept the show on the road during lockdowns.

Rates are jumping higher in the US and aso in Europe.

irish 10y now 1.30%, hope this hits 2% thisnyear. This whole “big government” needs to come to an end to fix the housing market.

There should be a higher cut off income for it (high enough you could afford a mortgage), but below that its simply means tested rents. But again, this would require actual enforcement of non-payments & evictions, which is the reason for such massive arrears in social housing. People who decidedly can afford to pay (the rent is means tested), but choose not to.

Rent is means tested so that almost everyone can afford it, even if on welfare alone

Deducting rent from welfare directly would be a good idea, stop chancers from withholding.