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

But that’s down to the people whipping that up. Same goes for migration.

The frustrating thing in Ireland is that we have these short term bursts of emotive anger and it often leads to sub optimal policy making.

Rents go up a crazy degree- demands for rent controls. We then react and bring in these controls in a long term manner that is bad for housing.

This is also evidence with historic debates around hotels and now office building. The thing right now is a demand to stop new office construction because there is slackening demand. This is reactionary and is demanding state intervention when none is needed. Worse, when demand picks back up, we could have stupid regulations in place that stop the market getting going again. And people call this “leaving it to the market”.

We also saw this with the “no family homes” lark when developments came back with studios, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. This is despite us having definitive data that we have an abundance of 3+ bed types of homes and not enough 1 and 2 beds! Councils now have stupid regulations in place that limit what capital can do, and it isn’t based on data and more on feelings.

Air BnB should be regulated and limited for sure. But it should be on planning grounds. And we need to be clear that the impact is limited.

1. I'll repeat so, since you seem to be desperately trying to avoid admitting you have no actual figures: so thats a "I have no evidence" for your claim so? You've provided zero sources for exactly what % of the "sigificant amount" of funding you're claiming was paid for by religious orders. Talking about general increases in state education funding is not evidence of religious funding in any way, its peak whataboutery.

2.

"The new figures show Fine Gael-led governments spent €3.2bn on
Rent Supplement, €1.8bn on the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS),
€3.5bn on the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and €900m on long-term
leasing schemes. The total figures across all these taxpayer-funded
schemes amount to €9,583,731,000" [1]

€3.5bn spent specifically on HAP. Close to €10bn on rental supplements overall, a complete waste of tax payer euros that just serves to drive up the price of renting and buying houses for actual tax payers in the private sector rental market hugely.

So just to clarify, is your argument that you think this €10bn spent is sound government housing policy, and you wish it to continue and expand, the way it has been going?

Or do you think that perhaps all logic would suggest it could have been used to actually build large numbers of social housing, assets that the government would now own long term and would actually serve to reduce rents?

[1] https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/sinn-fein-in-election-attack-over-fine-gaels-10bn-spend-on-landlords/a2003795417.html

We have one of the youngest populations in Europe, one of the worst existing housing deficits, and are projected to see some of the highest population growth in Europe.

Why you feel it's fit to compare our current output to those of our European peers and then exclaim "everythings fine, nothing to see here" I do not know.

We need to be building well in excess of other countries in Europe because none have the same pent up demand or projected forward demand as Ireland does.

So builders have no access to finance and the State has so much they decided to broadcast to the world they were setting up a sovereign wealth fund

Some solutions

Private market

State provide a guarantee they would buy unsold units at a pre determined price a little under market rates, sure beats paying half a million for 1 bed units in Limericks most expensive area

Social and affordable

Fund the developments and reap the gains of developer margin removal, significant difference in cost of finance, removal of risk premium. Looking at a 25 to 30% saving on those 3 alone. Add in the potential of the state building on own land and you have significant savings on the private market price

State saves on current spending policies while likely generating significant income from rental income to allow further investment

More made up twaddle.

What is it with people unable to actually debate and bringing in emotional gibberish to the fray? I’m a renter myself looking to buy, so get off the stage with this BS.

A 100,000 unit shortfall is not “fine”. It is an extraordinary deficit built on years of under supply.

I didn’t say I knew better, I said I disagree with some members and their assumptions. Forecasting is extremely difficult to do, as proven by the consistent underestimates by the ESRI of our population growth for 30 years.

I think it should be noted that one of the outcomes of the report is that we spend the most in Europe but need to improve outcomes. My assessment is that we need to ensure a consistent supply of social and affordable housing along with reducing costs where we can to make it more desirable. The market then must be allowed to “work”. This makes all of our estimates moot as it can respond to peaks and troughs in demand. Personally I think if we had 100,000 extra units now along with our current output that we’d have a far more normalised market. That doesn’t mean every young adult rents a studio, that’s a policy and culture point that we need to grapple with.

From the report, the government appears to be the problen

In the area of social housing, it recommends that the Department of Housing urgently reform current procedures to remove barriers to delivering social housing.

This includes making funding approval and procurement procedures easier

They appear to be calling for a push away from rural McMansions to more centralised town and village developments

It also calls for reform of the planning system to provide clear, consistent and equitable protocols for sustainable rural housing

A familiar complaint from our FFG governmet(s)

It also finds that "Ireland has, by comparison with our European partners, one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing, yet one of the poorest outcomes".

Impressive array of contributers to this report including property developer Michael O Flynn and Ronan Lyons of Daft. Maybe if government moved from industry lobbyists and implemented the recommendations in this report we might have far better outcomes

It believes that while specific details in relation to housing delivery can be "complex, the overall strategy to successfully achieve a sustainable housing system is not complicated".

Hope it did not cost too much as many of the recommendations have been suggested here

Are you trying to be ironic here talking about lobbyists and mentioning Lyons/O’Flynn?

They use blunt numbers and assumptions, one of which is the flawed E.U. SILC survey on young people staying at home rather than the more important CSO data. They don’t take account that our housing stock on average is significantly larger than the E.U. average

Larger homes may have fewer inhabitants

We are subsidising one off McMansions (20%+ of total new housing output) that may only home one or two people, instead for every McMansion we could build 2 3 bed terraced homes in the local village that could home up to 8 people.

Housing supply is driven by young couples at close to max earnings, there is little supply of units for people that wish to downsize thus allowing more efficient housing

There is no deterent to leaving property empty or removing it from the market for which it was granted permission for to stl

No I don't agree with it. I think any credible calculation of housing deficit in April 22 needs to be based on the known habitable housing stock and known population in April.

It is based on census data from last census, April 22. And most accurate information we do have about habitable stock as of that date.

It seems like your complaint is that the housing commission are not omniscient and don't have a figure accurate to the unit of how many houses there are in the country suitable to live in.

Do you have any evidence to support your own thesis that we only have a liquidity issue and not a supply shortage?