Some reasons why houses are more expensive in 2024 than years ago

we can disagree on that I guess. Well its' not as straightforward as that so we probably agree mostly with qualifiers.

I think many young people would take the 3 bed in clondalkin - unless youre on welfare the prices are huge.

and thats fine you made a choice but its not right that you were forced .

The point is sure - you may not have the right to live on your parents road but you shouldnt be forced to move to wexford from dublin either.

our society has failed if that is the case.

Would that mean that there should be a massive discount on a 2-year old house that was never upgraded? Relative to the price of a new build?

That's the point. People justifying the house prices as being solely, or mainly, due to increases in standards etc are not correct. It will have some impact of course, but not to the extent being presented

I don't think that this is entirely accurate. New builds are timber frames over which layers of insulation and cladding are placed. I'm not even sure that blocks are used in all builds. There is a new block of apartments under construction up the road from me, and I can't see any brick-work. I could be wrong about that as I'm not a builder. However, if you wanted real red-brick on the outside of your house, you would pay an arm and a leg for it.

Just as a slight tangent, I do genuinely worry about the longevity of timber-frame houses in Ireland. The air here is very, very damp, and wood is traditionally not used overmuch as a building material for this reason. Given that many Celtic Tiger builds are already decaying after just 20 years, I wonder how the current generation of builds will hold up. We'll see, I suppose.

Yep, that's just reality. Unless the population density in the area where you grew up has increased, or at least can increase, then chances are you're not going to live in the place you grew up.

That's a fact, but, do you have any solution for this?

I guess when the economy slows again, it will ease the pressure somewhat.

I often wonder do people in Ireland realise the reality of economic cycles, or do they just think previous downturns will not occur again?

It's difficult to know.

Ideally the downsize apartment would be in the same community which isn't possible really in a lot of cases.

Maybe it's better to incentivise older people to house share but that would be a tough sell.

I wonder if the government has data on the amount of older people living in decent sized houses.

When you walk around Dublin suburbs sometimes you see loads of old people.

I was in a coffee shop in Stillorgan shopping centre a few weeks ago and it was full of old people. Then the cafe upstairs was the same.

I think lots of the houses there were built in the 70s and 80s, so it makes sense.

If you search property prices in Genoa, Italy you can get perfect small apartments for 30,000. It's demographic decline. All the old people dying off and no young people to replace them.

I don't think they'll happen here as Italy's population is actually shrinking, but maybe a similar effect will happen in Dublin suburbs as lots of them were built in the 70s.

It would be interesting to see a map of Dublin with estates colour coded by the decade they were built.

Hmm. Here's the thing, when the word "incentivise" is used, it usually means that the state will punish or shame people into doing something. It is my very strongly held opinion that what a private citizen does with their property is absolutely no business of the state. End of.

That said, you are quite correct. My late grandmother (God rest her) was the sole occupant of a 5-bedroom house in Stillorgan until she went into a home a few years before her death. My mother (60s) lives alone in a D5 house, and my still living grand mother is the same. This is problematic, but as I mentioned above, there are ways that it could be dealt with within the family.

Using myself as an example. I'm a single, childless man in my late 30s, and I live alone in a 3-bedroom townhouse in Wexford. If my nephew (when he's older) were unable to house himself and his family, I would be open to pooling resources to buy a small apartment that I would take whilst giving him my house. N state involvement needed.

Ridiculous response.

Irrelevant who I trust. Maybe your magic beans can back some currency somewhere.

Okay here's a better one.

Without FIAT currency, the value of money would not decay at such as rate is currently the case. IT would be possible to actually save money without having to invest. Further more, states would be unable to fund things like enormous wars. Is fiat currency an entirely bad thing? No it is not, but it can and is abused.

The problem isn't elderly people though. I have heard this hypothesis batted around more and more lately.

It's a very short sighted fix for a long term problem to move people away from the place they feel most comfortable in the most vulnerable stage of life.

It's worth remembering that the through worth of a society can be measured by the way it treats its elderly people.

See the thing I dont like about this "you can't expect to live where you grew up" is it often can destroy a community, especially when it goes through gentrification.

It's similar to the Tory's "get on your bike" for work decades back and people moved all over England away from families only to be getting told in recent years it's their fault for moving away when the government can't provided adequate care to their parents, aunts uncles etc

I'm rural so it's not too bad but Jesus without close family support I think we'd have a care crisis worse than the housing crisis so don't know what's going to happen urban

I didn't say old people were the problem or that it's THE solution to the housing crisis.

But it would in theory free up a lot of houses.

It's just offering an attractive choice to older people. It's up to them if they want it or not.

Yeah the arithmetic doesn't add up. You also have people moving into an area from rural Ireland or abroad.

That's why we've sprawling suburbs with newer houses the further out you go.

It's also why certain suburbs have family connections with outer ones. Like Finglas with Blanch, Ballyfermot with Clondalkin, Crumlin with Tallaght. The kids moved out and moved to the nearest new suburb.

It's a different topic but lots of the gangs will control both connected suburbs eg the "Family" control Ballyer and Clondalkin.