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

Not quite. These misconceptions are common and have come up before. THE CSO addresses them comprehensively:

An increase of 220,000 more houses than people does seem like a lot.

But irrespective of that, one thing that was never disputed at the time was that we were in a period of significant oversupply in 2011.

Are you suggesting that is incorrect as of 2011?

You'd wonder why we bother with the Central Statistics Office when we have Fingal Co Co willing and able to do their job better.

In this exchange the only alternative figures that have been raised are those of Fingal Co Co, and I deliberately avoided getting into an incessant argument about whose figures were more likely to be correct, the CSO or Fingal Co Co.

Stating that Fingal Co Co have disproved the CSO's data by no means contradicts my point that there is nothing in the CSO data to suggest the current problems in the property market are due to a lack of housing stock. Quite the contrary. It reinforces it. It's no skin off my nose if a poster arrives at the same conclusion I do different reasons.

I take your point about the futility and frustration re previous incessant arguments about vacancy figures but I disagree with this: "They are all so massively different from each other, it is likely that none of them are right."

They are massively different because they are comparing different things. Eg the recent exchange about ESB figures.

The ESB figures attempt to measure exclusively the long term vacancy rate. The census attempts to measure a point in time vacancy rate, including the temporary vacancies. The massive difference is very easily explained.

Hence both can be correct.

But what is happening in this debate is people are citing long term vacancy figures as proof of something that you would normally include the short term vacancies as part of.

Don't take my word for it, take the governments in their Vacant Homes Action Plan 2023 - 2026

That 6% includes all the sort of temporary vacancies normally required for liquidity in the market, eg between tenants, owners, probate, renovation etc.

Including all those we have a vacancy rate of 7.8%, in excess of what you'd expect in a properly functioning housing market. Those temporary vacancies are precisely what makes the market function, providing liquid stock for healthy turnover.

Yet clearly we don't have a properly functioning housing market.

And posters are saying ignore the temporary vacancies, and citing the long term vacancy figures - eg ESB at 4.3% - and comparing that to the 6% and saying "See, the vacancy rate is very low, that's why we don't have a properly functioning housing market."

This widely held misconception, IMO, is one of the biggest issues in the property market today. I think it is appropriate to be allowed to discuss it in the property market chat thread.

A peculiarly Irish problem it would seem - our excess supply over what is considered normal in a functioning market is not sufficient to fix our shortage of supply in our dysfunctional market.

I have consistently said we have a shortage of supply available for sale or rent on the market.

The evidence for that is very clear.

But that is not the same thing as a shortage of total housing stock.

I have seen no evidence of a shortage of total housing stock.