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

I didn't put forward the idea of decentralization. It was very, very much another user.

I only qualified that it was tried in another era before remote-working.

I suggested remote-working might play a part in tackling urban population pressure, hardly a novel idea I'll admit.

You now correctly acknowledge I wasn't suggesting a panacea, but suggest then I should!!! Why? How many problems have a quick and easy, one size fits all solution, which is what the term means?

Sometimes I don't know why I bother with you lot!

I don't think that chart is accurate. There was 93000 dwellings built in 2006, your chart says only about 25000 built.

Some 93,419 houses were built in 2006; 78,027 in 2007; 51,724 in 2008; and 26,420 in 2009.

SF are offering tax cuts and spending increases with an enlarged construction sector (If you believe them). How in the name of Christ is that a difference in approach for this country?

We might end up with a SF led government after the next election, but the reality is they are moving more towards the center and moving away from some of the crazier stuff. We will have EO'B as housing minister, so we will see if he actually knows what he is talking about or if he is basically all college experience (new grad). It is very easy to point to other successful countries and say we should do what they are doing, it's much harder to implement as governments aren't moving chess pieces around a board, they are dealing with lot's of vested self interests (including individuals who may or may not decide to get into the construction industry). We will also have David "up the ra" Cullinaine as minister for health, no comment needed...

When it inevitably turns out to be a bit harder to solve than they made out, what are they going to say? Nobody cares about excuses. They will have a year or 2 and then they will own the problems. Nobody cared that post 2008 until at least 2015/2016 we were still in the housing bubble recession (we only dropped below 10% unemployment rate in 2015). Certainly nobody cares that we had the pandemic from 2020-2021 and the Ukraine war and the resulting inflation. So any suggestion that the voters will be willing to give SF 10 years to solve the problems and be patient are absolutely delusional.

Where did you get that image from?

I don't know if I'm the poster you're ascribing that view to?

I don't think we should be trying decentralisation for a second time.

I think there's a possibility to use remote working to lesson the need for people to live as closely to urban centres, and bring about some of the desired effects of decentralisation through this approach.

I think SF might have an issue with stopping immigration.

So you want to kill off the buy to let market? If houses drop to 300K then everyone and their dog will be back at the BTL job. Because we know that prices will increase again.

The only way this works is if its cheap social housing that the state maintains ownership of. It wont be houses it will be blocks of flats because if anyone starts subsidizing houses down to 300K the market will crash.

But people want to live close to urban centres? Its not just about working locally. I know many people who moved out of Dublin during covid and are all trying to move back because while it might be cheaper to live in X, there is a reason its cheaper.

I've no doubt that's happened in some cases.

I'm happy to be able to live away from one of the bigger cities and a lot of people I work with remotely express the same.

Probably a thing that suits some but not others. I'd guess age is a factor too.

My fear with SF is that they take measures that seem reasonable to them but will have the effect of reducing supply overall. Then, to combat the further rise in prices due to reduced supply, they will introduce price caps, which will further discourage supply and create even larger numbers unable to find accommodation.

An example of this might be opposing supply of up-market housing on the basis that average ftbs and renters can't afford it. By doing so, they will fail to realize that this merely puts those with money in direct competition with those lower down the scale driving prices up at the lower levels or, if caps are put in place, creating queues of people trying to buy or rent.

In other words, taking a simplistic Marxist view of things and thereby making the very problem they are trying to solve even worse.

But it may be that we as a people need to go through a phase of SF failure to flush bad ideologies out of the system so we can move on.