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

Again, Shared Equity has had a total of 100 houses purchased in 2022 and 1,000 in 2023. Looks like it will level out at 2-2.5k or so in 2024 and beyond.

I can see pros and cons to it, but on balance, I don’t support the First Home Scheme and would remove it if Minister for Housing.

That said, I think its impact on house price inflation (so far anyway) would be so small it couldn’t be measured. Perhaps it will be inflationary in future but for now the numbers are so small it’s largely irrelevant.

Agreed on HAP that there is no quick and easy way to unwind it without causing major societal issues.

The 110% mortgages were an off plans new build thing, price locked in with booking deposit, value increase before closing so 100% mortgage on inflated value at drawdown despite fixed price. They were short lived before the bust.

In the last few years, the loan to income cap has been the only thing keeping a lid on prices, the recent increase in the loan to income cap was a mistake when it was really kicking into action in Dublin.

The big risk in keeping the loan to income as it was may have been a reduction in construction output. I'm convinced this would have been temporary until site prices reduced accordingly but politically, any reduction in output would have been catastrophic given current demand.

The CEO of the Government`s housing agency reckons the way to bring down housing costs, is to build more houses.

So the 200 billion euro borrowed to re-inflate the housing bubble of 2008 isn`t the problem?

I think we need a new CEO of the government`s housing agency.

He is correct that it is a major part of the solution. The other part is control of immigration. Both are needed.

It's 2024. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of what we did in 2008, it's water under the bridge now, banging on about very much isn't part of the solution and is not remotely in that guy's job description.

While it might not be the most palatable thing for some people, eventually you reach the point where beggars cant be choosers.

Otherwise you end up in the current, ridiculous situation where people are refusing free houses becuase it doenst have enough stable space for their horses.

We built almost 10,000 social houses a year during the 1970s, when we were one of the poorest countries in Europe with a population not far off half of what it is now. And plenty of other countries in the year 2024 are still building large amounts of social housing. Theres absolutely nothing stopping us from doing the same now other than governmental policy, its not remotely "pie in the sky stuff".

Nobody in 2024, anywhere in the world, is building anything like Ballymun. Do a little reading on modern social housing projects to educate yourself.

Whats your alternative, that we just allow HAP to keep growing, at a cost of billions of euros to the state? Further crowding out more and more renters from the private rental market every year, using their own tax euros against them?

Most people on HAP would prefer to be in a permanent home of their own, not stuck in the private rental market subject to eviction at a landlord's whim. The same as anyone else in the rental market.

yes some of these areas may already suffer from increased social dysfunctions, such as those mentioned, but uprooting a load of people, and moving them elsewhere, would more than likely lead to a significant increase in these social dysfunctions including increasing crime rates, as social connections are abruptly broken and in cases severed permanently....

for example, if moving means moving further away from employment, schools and other critical social needs....

...again, reelecting ffg, will probably help resolve our most prominent issues!

...yes all our political parties are talking sh1te, all of them!

SF likley would stop blocking permissions because it would be in their interest to see the housing stock rise, but their attack on investment funds means fewer devrlopments will be constructed in the first place, which means a decline in new homes.

Approving a new build estate is pointless if there is no money to build it and a SF led govt, through the blocking of financial investment funds, will oversee a reduction in new homes to market, not an increase.

Its a turkey voting for xmas if people vote SF and want to see more homes being built.