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

Price index seems to be following asking price data as expected. A return to month on month growth in Dublin and Ex Dublin after several months of declines.

0.6% MoM increase countrywide.

That’s true, but again, politically speaking the biggest issue in Ireland is not the price of houses in isolation. It’s the supply of houses for purchase and the ability for people to secure loans to buy them.

One way to address this is to give people more money to shift the supply curve. Prices go up, hopefully that stimulates more building, and despite the prices going up, if people are being leant more, they can still buy them (albeit with higher debt burdens).

It’s economics 101. Rising prices is not the intention, it’s merely the by-product of them trying to stimulate supply. Can strongly debate whether the objective is correct, but I think it’s important to get away from the idea that policy makers want higher prices for the sake of higher prices.

It's entirely consistent with what the state has been doing for 30 years ie

Driving up the cost of housing and/or preventing the natural correction of prices during downturns

Working terms/conditions are extremely poor for construction workers in comparison to other professions

Paid holidays, short term contracts, pensions, healthcare etc all below most. Very few young folk would consider it as a career option in the current environment

Need something more secure and rewarding to attract workers. Irish wages in construction have been shown to be at or below EU averages

Cut the white collar fat that adss little, no or negative value share it amongst those that do add value

First year apprentices as of this year are still only on €6.84 an hour, €274 a week. In second year they're on €411 a week. Both are significantly below what someone entering a minimum wage job in retail or anywhere else would get (€452 pw), mostly in much physically easier jobs.

Its absolutely ridiculous that they're not paid at least minimum wage. Thats the rock bottom of what needs to be paid to get young people into the industry in decent numbers.

Have our own local pool, all reasnoble.

The won't work for a contracted ever again as they were scalded in the crash

Get em in after junior cert, like in the past. School as it is does not suit many young folk.

This of course does not fix the terms and conditions. Many qualified apprentices are leaving for better pay and conditions in MNC

Will someone send that minister to Victoria's Secret. My god does he love posing

The residents being transient wouldn't cancel out any of the positive factors I listed above. There are 20,000 jobs and just under 16,000 residents according to the last census. If you had 10,000 "transient" young people aged 25-40 living and working in the area it would be extremely lively, if it actually had a proper village center. The problem is terrible urban planning, not the people who live the area.

You cant blame builders or developers for this - their remit is to build whatever the market demands - it is up to planners to constrain them.

Town/area planners should have masterplans for these areas and consider things like schools, parks, creches, shops and other commercial, etc etc. It is the job of the local authority and the planners to ensure an area develops correctly.

Developers just build and sell whatever is allowed according to LAP. If the LAP allows for soulless highrise and glass offices and nothing more, that is the LA's fault.

@drogon

Sure, developers are gonna develop. But they're not who're responsible for urban planning, as timmyntc outlines. Its the county council.

The problem isn't the large apartment blocks, they are if anything a positive - they're high density housing, which in most places results in a far more vibrant community and more viable local businesses.

Sandyford industrial estate was a greenfield site. With better urban planning, ie with a proper central walkable main street with cafes/restaurants/pubs etc, it should have resembled Ranelagh these days. Its got the population density and youthful demographics. Instead we have a weird high density ghost town with almost nothing going on there, because its 120acres of unplanned urban sprawl.

As a result cairn homes are looking to reduce the internal amenity space of the proposed apartment blocks by 90%, because the AHB in question wants a barebones building with no amenities as it costs less to maintain.

Approved housing bodies are just institutional landlords with a finger in the government tax pie also