Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

You can’t seriously argue that there isn’t an overwhelming negative sentiment towards developers and housing financiers in Ireland

I agree there's plenty of negative sentiment towards property developers - but that is not the claim that was made. It was that there is a significant cohort who simultaneously hold both the view that developers are evil and should make losses but also that they should keep making more houses at cheaper prices. I don't think many people hold both those views simultaneously

perhaps an increase in 35 to 40 year mortgages is the answer to all our property woes - stretching out the payments will allow builders and sellers to jack up prices considerably more thus increasing supply and allowing everyone escape the rental trap - except for no money to afford children property problem solved

'I had no choice but to get a 35-year mortgage'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn3dded32j2o

https://www.businesspost.ie/news/exclusive-government-contacts-hundreds-of-property-firms-in-bid-to-house-asylum-seekers/

Another scheme of the government to prop up house prices, under the guise of helping IPAs. What a country and seemingly an endless supply of free money to pay for all of this - and people somehow think it matters how SF fund their housing initiatives!

With the average age of FTB well over 30 now I think 35 year mortgages are pushing it for many

Nicola's five-year fixed rate mortgage costs £598 a month.

Different world in the UK

Honestly, I think this is a bananas estimate.

I am extremely dubious about these high side estimates and have been since I started to dig into Lyons et al work.

They involve assumptions around migration, housing obsolescence and household sizes which imo are very challenging to forecast. Housing obsolescence in particular is one where Lyons overshoots imo and doesn’t appreciate the impact of retrofitting and private investment.

In terms of household size. Can someone tell me why we have both one of the highest household sizes in Europe but also one of the most underlived homes stats in Europe? There is an contradiction to these two data sets. This would imply we have two massive extremes. Whilst I know we have too few apartments, I don’t accept that this would lead to such opposing indicators. Europe data suggests 2 out of 3 homes are “under lived” in Ireland which huge capacity to absorb the existing shortfall.

To be clear, I accept we have a massive undersupply of the right kinds of units. But I would content that this is in the order of closer to 100,000. And it is 1 and 2 bed apartments. This would unlock the underlived in homes.

This is basically the lost units post crash. If you take 20k as a minimum, that is basically the shortfall less any catch up in the last couple of years.

66,000 homes would be the equivalent to nearly 13 per 1,000 in the population. This would blow through other countries with the existing high side in Europe being around 7.5 per 1,000. Ireland is currently on 6.4 and one the highest in Europe, despite the popular narrative. I get that having a couple of years of this kind of supply would be amazing to clear a backlog, but it isn’t the reference point here.

EOB had a ridiculous comment on developers and profits in response to some concerns on their “policies” at the weekend. Goes to show how unserious it all is. He is just gaslighting people who devoured the narrative on developers being evil post crash. Developers should be viewed with healthy suspicion like any grouping but the narrative has been twisted to a ridiculous degree.

I wonder has Eoin gone to any building sites recently and asked why when the developer has substantially completed their work that it is taking months more for these homes to reach the market. It wouldn’t be anything to do with state owned utility companies, would it?

State building company though, that’ll solve everything.

You mentioned 2 developers/home builders in an earlier post. This is a big part of the problem, the small builder has been pushed out to one off housing/sub contracting.

We have effectively monopolised supply and its in there interests to have a supply demand imbalance thereby continually pushing up prices

We need to create an environment where those capable of delivering more supply can do so rather than stacking everything in favour of a small number of developers

In terms of household size. Can someone tell me why we have both one of the highest household sizes in Europe but also one of the most underlived homes stats in Europe

Would it have a thing to do with lack of smart effective taxation on property and particularly under used/empty property and 3 month a year air bnbs

Would a builder building 2 or 3 one off homes a year be capable of delivering 4 to 6 smaller identical homes in the village or town close to these one off homes

Better efficient development, planning, provision of resources and doubling of output in an area that's currently delivering 20% of total output

Deleted

They were pushed out by the system, cost of capital being the deterrent. The state need housing and are paying top dollar for it.

Some of those dollars could be diverted to build central housing in towns and villages across the country in a more efficient manner engaging these builders to build them

No speculation

The case for building double is that we have been in massive under development for the past decade post the crash, we need to make up on essentially the stock that should have been built that wasn't.

I'm assuming that you own a house, it's always the people who own their houses stating that we don't really need much more or that the market isn't too bad.

If you were trying to purchase a house you'd be screaming for the number to be doubled or tripled for the next decade. It's not triple indefinitely but we certainly need to make up for lost time and massively increase the supply.