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

Was chatting about this with my own mum who's in her late 70s. I asked her if she'd be happy to downsize to a hypothetical well-built 2br apartment in a block that was in the same estate (where she's lived for 40 years) - she said absolutely, no hesitation. I think a lot of the resistance to downsizing is just liking the comfort and routine of your own neighbourhood that you've invested decades into. It's a shocker that we don't have these kind of mixed uses in residential estates, such a no-brainer.

The issue with simple scenarios is that they rarely work in complex realities. Nothing about the real world and balancing the needs of millions of people is simple.

Property is Ireland is used inefficiently, that is without doubt, but even if it was utilised in the optimal manner, we would still have supply shortages.
Any expectation of property use being perfectly optimal isn't realistic either. We can and should aim to improve it, but there will never be perfection.

Less than 100 metres from my house, there is a 5-bed house with 6 young professional men living in it. They've converted one of the two living rooms into an extra bedroom.
There's no efficient reallocation of existing supply that sees those 6 young men getting to have their own places, unless there's a family with 4 young kids with each of the six (2 parents, 4 children) living in their own 1-bed apartments (which hardly seems a likely scenario).

With family sizes getting smaller, the natural outcome is that each property will house a lower number of people. Naturally it follows that this means that housing the same number of people requires extra properties (and housing more people requires an even greater increase in total supply of properties).

In previous posts, you've said "So they're to calculate the housing deficit in April 2022, a point in time when they had an accurate figure of a) population, b) habitable housing stock and c) average household size."
The issue with this is if you were to look at population, housing stock and average household size, supply would always appear to be perfectly delivered, because average household size is determined by the population and the housing stock.
The problem is that to identify the number of properties required, you need to divide the population by the number of "family units" (where a family unit is a person or group of persons who want to live in their own household).
Our average household size is higher than it would be if there was adequate supply, as there are a huge number of younger person continuing to live with their parents or in overcrowded rental accommodation specifically because there is not enough supply for them to be able to leave their existing household and start their own.

Lyons has also made good points that much of the housing built in the Tiger was in the wrong places.

I think that accounts for some of his aggressiveness in the targets.

I’d note he hasn’t really brought that up (and that report might not be the best place for it), but I’d also say that WFH culture has given at least a short term reprieve from that (whilst simultaneously driving prices up outside of Dublin).

I went to view one of those a few weeks ago. They are beautiful and a lovely part of Greystones, the right side of town for me and close enough (a lot of the developments out there are too far from town for my tastes).

That’s a massive house to be frank. Bit odd that they are using the 3 bed duplex photos there for that house though.

That said, I struggle with Greystones given the connections. You are really out there once you get out there.

I think it will ultimately hold its value. I agree on the location here vs. other ones in the locality.

If you are someone from Dublin though, you aren’t moving here to be in touching distance. You are just really committed to Greystones (until the day that they really improve DART services), which is fine. Lovely part of the world and a great place to raise a family.

Everyone has different preferences though so I don’t like to criticise. I see so much of that from older folks on social media running down new developments (and the prices!). The vast majority of new builds are a significant step up in quality on what was built even 15 years ago. The amount of older folk going on like they’re old squires of the land when they bought a cookie cutter semi D in 1992.

We took the plunge a few years ago and moved out (with a fair bit of trepidation) having spent most of our adult life in SCD. Couldn’t pay me to move back in to Dublin now. Probably too far out for a 5 day per week office commute to town though.

And here was I hoping we could coax UK builders to come here

Revealing Interview with Michael O Flynn on the Housing Commission report

sounds like housing commission want to up rents to attract more landlords

what are the chances that the government will abolish RPZs before the next general election - unless they are mad to lose a ton of votes and have a ton of protesters out on the streets all over ireland absolutely none

Sisk are specialist infrastructure builders and have worked in the UK for ages. Built the recent Blackpool tram extension.

The actual builders are unlikely to be the same people as Irish house builders need

The 4 minutes was frustration with the minister saying he was implementing 75% of the commissions findings. If the minister said he and predecessors were responsible for 75% of the problems, we would be closer to the truth. But the minister has form in this regard. Agreed he went of in a tangent with 1 aspect which the listener will be no wiser

1 minute if you make a product unaffordable you price yourself out of the market and work = everybody looses

2 minutes saying developers can't get funding unless they can show a significant margin, therefore need to look at the funding model. This is a little different to saying can't make a profit

He mentioned vat was 3% when he started business now, It's 13, The cost of housing provision/services to the state is recurring not one off. Need to find a way to remove this tax from new supply and make it an annual tax amongst all households without the developers pocketing it

His views on right to housing referendum only reinforced mine. I would expect a rejection greater than the last 2 referendum. Further waste of time and money.

It's just interesting hearing it coming from a developer who could make a killing if it was introduced

100%

It's very reassuring when people are posting that houses on the market for a million euro represent value.

I'm not even going to bother with viewings anymore... cannot wait for this house of cards to collapse.