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

I'm trying my best to follow you here but I'm struggling.

It seems you're concerned about people in one bedroom apartments who want to move up, but you don't care how many of these there are.

I'm saying it doesnt matter if they are in 1 beds or 2 beds or 3 beds. For the market to work people have to move up while others downsize.

If you are in negative equity then you arent moving up because you cant, so where do the people who want to downsize AND have the money go? They go compete with the very people you are concerned about trying to get onto the ladder.

But this does not solve the housing crisis. A full solution to the crisis would be where houses within reasonable commuting distance to jobs are affordable (both renting and purchasing) to ordinary people.

A full comprehensive solution I think would affect the prices of properties purchased just prior to the implementation of the solution. I don't think you can get around that even though the solution nevertheless needs to be implemented.

I don't think that solution is one that is practical in a growing economy and population like ours though.

Take Sandyford in Dublin for example. In the last 5 years there have been 10s of thousands of square footage of office space added which means there will be thousands more workers in Sandyford. How do you magic up the houses nearby for these people to live in? Where do you get the land from?

Its the same problem all over the world, as your population grows you run out of land and the price of land and hence housing increases in the places where the majority of the people want to work.

Anything that impacts prices will impact all prices, not just the ones that bought immediately prior to any change. Even someone who bought 10 years ago will be impacted, their LTV will change, maybe they took out another mortgage to do an extension, etc, etc.

Why does masses of high density state housing not solve the housing crisis? What bit doesnt work?

So feck it up for everyone, potentially cause another recession and then see whats left afterwards? Awesome plan.

That's literally what I just said in the post you quoted. You are now pushing the downsizers into direct competition with the people trying to get on the ladder, all the while reducing the ability for people in those same houses to upsize and free them up!

The downsizers cant buy those homes unless someone upsizes, but they cant because they are in negative equity thanks to your awesome policies.

House prices are up 72% since 2015.

So a 10% fall from 2023 levels would not cause any negative equity.

Even a 20% fall would not affect too many borrowers, too much.

Well you have the concept of affordable housing now with income limits so one would presume that idea would continue.

If you bought a house in 2023 for 500k and it dropped by 20% in value you'd be in 100k negative equity.

That's a huge amount.

Only if you had a 100% mortgage on it.......................

The thing is though housing is complex. Part of addressing the housing crisis means any solution has to address concerns around any solution that could potentially involve home owners being put into negative equity. Arguably anyone who ignores this concern can be said to ignoring the housing crisis. Remember at a national level the majority of voters own their own property so anyone who wants to form a majority government has to listen to the majority of voters ie home owners. At a local level it's even worse where NIMBYs can have a huge political impact when it comes to objections to new developments. As they own property in an area they have a lot more at stake locally than anyone renting/looking to buy in the same area. Look at the number of objections politicians of all parties support and a lot of them boil down to concerns around the impact a new development will have on local property prices.

Any plan to bring the average price of a house in Dublin down to 300k is doomed to fail because the majority of voters ie homeowners don't want their main asset to drop massively in value.

You can't complain about anyone ignoring the housing crisis and ignore people's concerns about negative equity. Concerns around negative equity/property values are one of the reasons we have a housing crisis in the first place.

Honest question, how do you help someone in negative equity?

As I suggested earlier, for those people looking to move from smaller apartments, the state could agree to purchase the apartment from them at the price they paid.

It would be cheaper than the state currently buying one bed apartments for 500k.

I'd imagine the state could also step in with lower cost loans for those in this particular situation.

I appreciate your view but I find it funny all the other posters saying you have to prevent negative equity and you come along saying people need to be held to account!

I think some people should face the consequences of negative equity, for example if you bought as an investment to rent, a holiday home, etc.

For those meeting strict criteria where they could show they would now be able to afford a larger property, and have such a need, then I think the state should help.