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

It is really simple when it comes to rentals between house sales. Some people did rent most didn't in the past. To do it now is a lot more complicated due to the change in rental regulations. If a tenant decides they want to stay in a property that the owners expect back after a short period the tenant has the right no matter what was signed and agreed. In the past that was not the case so any owner is taking a huge risk to even try to rent for a short period so this doesn't happen anymore.

AirBNB is an expensive option and locations are spotty.

Yes it should be possible to rent short term for such reasons like selling and getting renovations but bad policies have really restricted this to no longer be an option. Friends and family are really the only ways to do this now and there have been stories here where this has worked out very badly

Back before the crash a lot of people bought their new houses and then moved in and kep t old house for a while (sometimes for years) before selling.

It was for many reasons, but its a lot less likely to happen these days.

Another really good podcast from David McWilliam’s that examines the cost difference on major infrastructure projects in different countries worldwide referencing a 5 year study of over 900 projects

Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sweden are tops and can deliver comparable projects up to 10 times cheaper than UK, US and other Anglo linked countries.

Starts about 20 mins in

They wont though - they are so afraid of another property crash they just cant help themselves.

Let me guess….Easier to confiscate/acquire land with less recourse through the courts or environment objections.

China are better than all those countries at major infrastructure projects….flood a valley with towns and villages in less than a year to build a dam.

They're in the top 5%-10% of earners. If they reflected a bit they might ask: shouldn't that result in living somewhere a bit nicer than 'Clay Farm'? Perhaps with room to comfortably pay creche fees in future?

I'm not saying it's the wrong decision, especially when contrasted with renting.

But it's not one I'd jump at...

Yeah that’s a fair point. I’m not familiar with the specifics of Clay Farm but sounds like these are 1800sqft 4 beds in not the epicentre, but within a stones throw of some of the most expensive areas in the country (Foxrock, Blackrock etc.).

I do agree at the upper end there’s a disconnect between being a top earner and what house you can buy as a top earner (I suspect that’s due to familial/inherited wealth), but at the same time those 4 bed houses in Clay Farm would be a dream house for the vast majority of the country.

Obviously you guys all earn a lot more than me. I’d love to buy in Clay Farm but I can’t afford it.

People really get caught up in what they THINK is a functioning housing market. If property is being sold and bought it is functioning just not the way you want. I do agree that things should be different but something radically changed in Ireland in the 90s disrupting the traditional housing market here. Those changes are now the norm after 30 years.

A few years in the difference of buying a property meant completely different outcomes. I have seen senior managers living in bad areas and small properties compared to much lower paid staff who are paying less for their mortgages. This means if that lower paid staff, if promoted in the mean time, can afford these expensive homes. The belief new housing is being sold to FTB and they have no saving above the deposit is the issue. The expensive housing was very rarely sold to FTBs and more often sold to people going up the ladder.

FTB housing is always the cheaper property and not every development has to be for them as we need the smaller properties and prices for FTB to become free by getting them original FTBs to move up the ladder. That is the nature of housing markets.

At one point prices were going up so quickly it made it affordable to retain the FTB house and still buy another one.

We need more housing is the only thing most people agree on now. When the government was advised by the ERSI to encourage building a large vocal public were furious. No investment happened and no housing was encouraged and we ended up with a huge housing defecate that will most likely sorted by an aging population rather than new buildings.

Bigger housing is going to be split up and can be seen in many modest housing estates around Dublin already.

There are many ways that the housing market can and will change in Ireland that people aren't even considering as they expect certain things to remain. WFH is also a huge change to housing requirements that people were considering but COVID ramped up the speed on that than anyone expected.

Its surprisingly low. The Irish Times had an article a few months ago that said only the top 10% of households had income of more than €90,000 a year. That was based on last year's figures iirc, so its probably closer to €95,000-100,000 now, but its still not high.

Our average income figures are wildly inflated by a) being an average and b) a limited number of very high earners in finance/tech jobs in Dublin in particular. Incomes in the rest of the country are still comparatively low.

What is also not taken into consideration with this side argument is the ridiculously low point that our higher tax band kicks in. Anyone earning a penny over over 40k gives almost half back on tax this needs to be factored as buying a house is done in after tax monies.

The quicker people cop on to the fact that the only thing keeping prices up is our government, we could tick up supply really quickly using modular builds and tell people on welfare and refugees, there you go that's for you then take away all supports for people buying houses and the price would drop like a stone, but there is too much interference by our government in its supports, in how it threats an individual vs a company when it comes to taxation and in the way that it is the biggest buyer of residential property in the country then in second are big companies that have favorable treatment in taxes to buy the property and the stupidity of government that are then renting these properties from above mentioned businesses at ridiculously high rents for ridiculously long periods of time. Then throw in inheritance tax on property when someone who had a house dies and tries to pass it to their kids the state thinks this asset is open for further taxation when it is passed on even do it has been paid for in after tax monies and a mortgage with interest and then some. The property game in Ireland has been well and truly rigged the state do not want people to own their own place any more and those of you under the age of 30 will struggle to get on the ladder without winning the lotto. The state may not have set out to do this but this is the nett effect of successive Irish governments introducing ridiculously stupid taxation and house buying schemes. Case in point property prices dropped (even with our p1ss poor supply issues) at the start of this year so what did the state allow happen ?? They allowed the upping of the lending rules from 3.5 to 4 and these prices drops reversed.

CSO does decile averages by household. The average of the decile will be above the midpoint because earnings are skewed but still gives you a good idea. 9th decile average (likely to be roughly top 12/13% of households) =€128k

10th decile average would be massively skewed by huge earners but is €240k.

These figures also include those who are retired and unemployed who are massively overrepresented in the lower percentiles. Excluding those would push the figures above higher.

3+ income households probably skew it a bit higher though too to be fair going the other way.

The amount you still owe out after paying ridiculously high taxes and other high costs for essentials in the country. :)