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

Argos have closed huge amounts of their conventional UK stores, integrating them in to the parent firms shops (Sainsburys).

Sainsburys have no shops to merge with here.

Also, they have no other operations here at all so all the costs of doing business in Euro and dealing with Brexit fall on the one, failing, division.

This isn't a canary in a coalmine for the general economy, just for British shops with poor business models. Similar to how HMV and Game have no stores here anymore.

Irish Builders Could Re-Purpose Offices Amid Shortage of Homes

• CBRE warns rising cost of finance threatens apartment building
• Report notes “massive undersupply” of available homes

Office and apartment buildings in central Dublin.Photographer: Paulo Nunes dos Santos/Bloomberg

ByPeter O'Dwyer

January 19, 2023 at 3:33 PM GMT

Developers may look to repurpose commercial buildings into homes to take advantage of a chronic under-supply of housing in Ireland, according to research.

The repurposing of commercial properties has become a significant feature of other markets and could become more prevalent in Ireland as the country is “massively under-supplied across all housing tenures,” Commercial real estate firm CBRE said.

However, there are also “significant” concerns regarding the viability of apartment building as construction and financing costs increase, the company added in a 2023 Market Outlook report.

“It is likely that new supply in 2023 should reach similar levels to 2022, as projects that are currently under construction carry over from 2022,” CBRE said. “However, beyond this, there are significant question marks over the viability of apartment development in Dublin in a higher interest rate environment.” 

Ireland is grappling with dual housing and rental crises, with the latter sector being squeezed by a mass exodus of private landlords. On average, 40% of house sale instructions in the final quarter of 2022 came from landlords selling investment properties, according research carried out by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland.

Higher financing costs will “impact new dwelling completion numbers over the medium-term” with smaller developers in particular likely to find it difficult to deliver new stock, according to the research.

Furthermore, a recalibration of building standards for build-to-rent apartments is likely to make building more expensive and “add more pressure to apartment viability,” it said.

Demand for rental accommodation will be “resilient” this year and likely support average rent price increases of up to 4%, CBRE added.

The firm also expects institutional investors from both North America and mainland Europe to continue growing their Irish presence over the next 12 months.

Argos Jervis is already gone - they had been quietly downsizing whenever leases came up for renewal for years

Their HQ for Europe, Middle East and Asia is in Dublin, so I would suspect there will be a good few jobs lost out of the Dublin office unfortunately.

One thing I am curious about is the amount of contractor roles that are lost as a result of these cut backs in the tech sector. Somehow I'd say there are a lot of contract jobs being lost that are not being reported, we all know the contractors are 9 times out of 10 the first to go as it is extremely easy to cut ties without any redundancies.

I suppose it all depends on what type of contract they are on… if it’s a fixed term contract then I would assume it’s included in headcount and captured in the 12k.

if the contract is “consultant” and they invoice the company in order to avoid paying employer PRSI then it won’t…it just means that the consulting company has lost a contract

Fairly sure that in these big tech companies they are either full time permanent or agency staff. Obviously, with a few exceptions.

I assume the agency layoffs are behind the scenes and not in official numbers?

If you are on a fixed term contract, they most likely will never offer you redundancy and you will not be included in the figures. They will typically "bench" an employee and just let their contract run out. Very common in MNC, I knew a guy once in Ireland who managed to get a nice 5 months pay to do nothing.

Head count reduction will mean redundancy for a good chunk of people. I know couple of people in Microsoft that are being let go and both of them were with Microsoft for over 10+ years. Last in, last out is not how it works in large MNC.. They bring in accountants and see what best way to restructure the teams.

About 10 years ago, the MNC I worked in let go their entire first level support team, most were in their roles for over 20 years. Most were earning as much as a new mid level engineer would, by just being in the role for so many years and get small increment raise every year.

It is going to be an interesting year for sure. Time will see how it plays out!

Interest rates will decide the fate of the housing market. Everything else is on the periphery, including job announcements and even supply.