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

Wasn't the same going on in Vancouver? Chinese buying property and putting the price up.

I am sure their cash tree will dry up soon.

Difference is, most Chinese buyers here are owner occupiers and resident in Ireland.

to them property with 6% rental yields and nominally cheaper prices than much over Europe is justba no brainer to buy.

ive heard of more than one property in cualanor going for a 7 figure sum to a chinese cash buyer. i think they favour newer builds.

There's a few indian families on our estate too - definitely more than Chinese at the moment. They're also cracking families to have around - they threw an all-invited party for the Holi festival in our local green area. When my daughter fell and cut her knee, there was practically a queue of doctors ready to put a plaster on her 😆 It's quite comforting to know a couple of doctors are close by.

I do feel a bit for the Irish couples that are trying to buy through. Clay Farm was an "affordable" option a few years ago for those who grew up in Stillorgan/Dundrum/Foxrock and were priced out of those suburbs. It seems they'll soon be priced out of here too, certainly if every second hand house is snapped up by clients of this Carrickmines agent.

Hansfield in Dublin 15 seems to be the suburb of choice for the Indian community in Dublin. Not sure if that means prices are going for higher there than they otherwise would but its understandable that if the interested buyers want to move to an area where many of their peers have established themselves already and they have the financial means to do so, then they are probably prepared to pay over the odds to secure a home in that area.

Well I think that the Chinese buyer of my grandmother's house did specifically say that he intended to rent the property, but beyond that, I've no idea what's going on with Chinese buyers. I do know that one Chinese investor own three houses on the street with my other (still living) grandmother lives. Two of those properties are rented whilst she (the Chinese investor) lives in a third house.

The Chinese stuff might have been to get a passport. If you invest a million you get the passport. That loophole was closed a while back....

Would you prefer to be shot in the head or the foot?

An affordable and functioning property market is what the hard working young people of this country deserve.

Being thankful of the big foreign investment which has enabled people in their 30s to house share at nearly 50% of their income is a slap in the face IMO.

Thankful for foreign investment is like the soup during the famine. Thanking the British for giving you soup after they orcastrated a famine.

Would you thank OPEC for creating a lovely cartel that provides the world with the oil it needs?

I'm sorry, I'm clearly not finished.

Please don't take these comments as an attack against you. It isn't.

I'm a fan of the free market. But the property market in this country looks very fishy. You would have to be a bit of a "clutz" to not realise the corruption going on.

Its too legally/logistically difficult to make buying property here for citizens only. A decently high property tax is the best way to prevent or at least significantly reduce foreign buyers though.

Tax property at 1-3% of value per year, with a rebate/exemption for low and middle income households that are tax resident, and you'll make Irish property far less attractive to foreign owners buying it just to park cash. And raise lots of revenue for the state as a bonus on top.

Something like a system that worked out to 0% property tax on households with income of up to 100k per year, 1% property tax per year on households with income up to 200k, 2% property tax per year on households with income up to 300k, and 3% property tax per year on all others (including non tax-residents) would be fairly hard to argue with on a moral level and would do wonders.

You could even have an additional failsafe if required that if households are asset rich/cash poor and unable to pay the tax on a yearly basis thats fine, the tax bill will just be retained as a lien over the property that will be charged at sale or transfer of the property. Again minimizing the impact to actual Irish residents, nobody ever loses their house or faces poverty, but it reduces the attractiveness of a house as an investment asset hugely.

China has very strict capital controls on the outflow of money from the country. For local Chinese people, there is a USD $50,000 annual limit on money transferred outside of mainland China. There are of course ways around this, however it is very complicated and comes with risk (not only to loss of capital but loss of freedom!).

Also AFAIK, Chinese residents are also restricted from buying houses overseas. Immigration is the only legal way if they want to buy property abroad.