"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

Well the average 3 bed semi in Ireland is over 100m2, so you havent actually built a house yet. You also have no plumbing or electricity, plaster, paint, carpet, heating, etc, etc. Giving example costs and then comparing them to the cost of a fully finished, 50% larger house is kinda pointless, no?

How many days did it take you? What would that have cost using your current salary rate? How much liability insurance did you setup while doing the job?

It will always be cheaper to do something yourself compared to paying a professional, but its not an apples to apples comparison, unless your solution is for everyone to build their own houses?

Not true with the 3x.

Semi-d will have shared walls, so even if 30sqm larger quite similar in terms of blocks, slates, insulation etc.

And yes of course there'll be more materials overall, but we're forever hearing certain industry figures telling us how much this or that material went up, as justification for proportionally far, far greater end price increases.

I've not talked anywhere about the price of doing things myself... I've given actual tradesmen's rates, against builders quotes to show how much profiteering is going on.

Ireland's house affordability (price v income index) is pretty close to the average of OECD countries. Better than NZ, Canada and Australia in this regard. Don't be expecting miracles if you are moving there to escape the 'housing crisis' here

House price relative to median income by country (OECD)

Portugal              147.99

Canada                140.23

United States    132.54

Czechia                131.08

Luxembourg     130.40

Netherlands      129.83

Austria                129.73

New Zealand     121.96

Australia             121.73

Switzerland       119.42

Spain                   119.39

OECD - Total      118.06

Estonia                116.60

Germany            116.11

Hungary              115.79

Greece                115.06

Norway                115.03

Japan                  114.58

Slovenia              114.23

Ireland                113.92

UK                        113.72

Chile                    113.54

Euro area            111.12

Euro area (17 countries)              110.37

Latvia                  107.78

France                102.74

Denmark            102.72

Lithuania             101.24

Belgium               100.67

Sweden                100.58

Croatia                99.69

Poland                94.98

South Africa       93.67

Italy                     89.32

Finland                86.25

Yeah, thats exactly what I said. Come back to us when you have public liability insurance, run payroll, health and safety, pensions, paye, etc, etc.

No, my contribution (along with many others) has been to point out that its always been like this and always will be, for the umpteenth time, due to supply and demand for a limited resource. So to get around this, you need to improve your lot over what your parents had. If they were minimum wage workers and you are also a minimum wage worker, then you are not going to be able to compete with the many non minimum wage workers who also want to live where you want to live.

No security when renting?

Irish tenants are the best protected in the world.

Non paying tenants can expect to enjoy 2 years free rent before a District Court will issue an eviction order.

Stop spreading fake news and cop on.

Thought she'd be more a Cosmpoliton lady. The only generation who had low house prices relative to their wage was the 1970s/80s. Sadly this then was at the price of a major part of that generation emigrating.

A limited resource. Youre right. This resource is purposely limited... funny covid etc hits and the dramatic action and money no object ... the housing excuse ?

For anyone interested in why government love rip off property, take a look at the brilliant Australian documentary below... realestate4ransom

Again none of that addresses the issue that previous generations were easily able to afford home despite not putting as much effort into educating themselves and progressing in their careers.

Population of Ireland has increased by 30% in the last 20 years and the number of houses being built has not kept pace with that demand.That is the issue.Until people accept that not enough houses are being built to cater to our population then nothing will change.

More houses need to be built. Simple as that.

Everyone's earning capacity can't be increased if it was it would mean we would have a society with nothing but managers and nobody doing any work.There is a shortage of supply of housing , this needs to be addressed.As I said in an earlier post there are ways to do this:

• So many empty houses all across the country that have been allowed to rot, this issue could be addressed fairly easily of they wanted.
• Allow more high rise apartment buildings in cities.
• Build more houses in areas that need them.
• Start training programmes to get unemployed people off the dole and into a trade so this reduces the labour shortage, seems the lefties in Ireland like to let the unemployed rot for eternity rather than do something to improve their lives.