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

I understand the sentiment as people will indeed always find something to moan about, but this is absolutely not unique to Ireland in any way shape or form.

And as things to moan about go, the state of Irish property market is a very, very easy target.

One of the biggest problems and this is an article in the FT today; is that inflation is potentially worse than a recession, but it is not easy to measure this for individuals. So, when people think of 2008-13 they think of a recession whereas 2021-24 have been inflationary which is utterly obliterating so much of people’s income, that it “feels” like the years of 2009-13 but just a bit different in a way that maybe cannot be accurately, verbally explained by people but they can sense it and see it in the amount of cash they have at the end of each month.

Property acts as an inflation hedge so it makes sense that less people are being hit as hard as they would have been 2009-13 given the number of homeowners in the country but at the same time they are not immune. The big losers, suffering equivalently to how they did 2009-13 are younger people and added to this for this era are those that are renting, who probably feel like they are working to stand still due to inflation. We had massive unemployment 2009-13 and this is bad for the whole economy but it is pretty bad for the individual to be working to stand still, possibly even worse given the time and effort that working entails.

This is not all to say that 2009-13 was better than 2021-2024 but that these last few years could be said to be on a slightly better level than 2009-13 because inflation can be and absolutely is awful for those impacted. Renting and not being able to squirrel away decent savings means many people are drifting along aimlessly in life due to inflation and home ownership is that life raft just out of reach.

The problem is the majority of properties being built in Ireland don't make it to the general market.

Of the houses built last year 32695, only 27% went on sale on the market. 73% of new properties were one-off houses (not on sale to public) or apartments for rent or social housing. In Dublin City Centre 94% was apartments (needed) but only 2% went for sale to the public 98% were private rent or social housing. We definitely need more apartments but to have only 27% of the record year of housing going on sale in the market is ridiculous.

They are very expensive to build. The only way they are viable is if they are build to rent.

But then they are also only viable if the rents are high. So rents won't materially come down with more apartments either, if rents do start to decrease apartment supply will dry up.

The issue is the cost of delivery, that needs tackled, not pushing up demand to make it viable.

Im learning as i go. Some great diy tutorials on youtube. I would rather learn how to do it than pay the new build premium. Well i cant afford the new build premium so no choice really. My only problem is time, but sure if it takes us a year or two longer to do it all, because we have to fit it around work and life, thats what we will have to do.

Im getting quite good at painting, digging, wiring, gardening, plumbing, woodwork and flooring. Oh and demolition :) Even did a bit of block laying the other day.

and many FTBs are older now plus are finding it much harder to save deposits with nose bleed rents

They werent disgusted that it wasnt a new build. They were disgusted that i would buy a doer upper and move into it BEFORE it was done up. Ever met anyone like that?

Even with the increased density on each site, the land costs are still far too high.

We need to tackle land speculation, and implement land rezoning taxes - windfall profits from rezoning land from ag to residential should be taxed extremely heavily to discourage land speculation.

Smaller taxes should be levied on residential lands on their market value also, to discourage hoarding. Many towns and cities have just a few developers and businessmen who own majority of development land, and can effectively put the squeeze on anyone looking to build, forcing them to pay eye watering prices for zoned land if they want to build.

Yes, more exemptions than applications of it.

New residential zoned land tax due to come is already seeing local level politicians lobby to add more exemptions, such as for any residential zoned land that is being used for agriculture.

Meaning you could rent out residential zoned land to a farmer and avoid all taxes on that prime development land you own.

Dezoning is fine, but I personally know local councillors (FF) who are pushing for straight up exemptions to the tax.

If owner wants to still farm they should object to zoning or apply to dezone, but to have residential zoned land but also pay no tax on it is definition of having your cake and eating it.

We should not facilitate that - residential zoned land should be developed, don't like it? Appeal for dezoning and you won't get benefit of price increase.

Irish regs are very stringent for things like lift cores and the number that must be dual aspect.

Apartment blocks on the continent have far higher ratio of apartments to lift cores, but here it's very low before you need to add another lift core which adds massively to both build price and maintenance costs.

You don't get half as many dual aspects in European cities either as are required in Irish regs - there I think we go overboard.

In Barcelona or Madrid you get far more pisos - flats that are family home sized, 3+, bedrooms all across one floor. Some have no lift cores, others have just one. And blocks themselves are still quite large. And even these are seldom dual aspect. We should really take a lead out of there book - Barcelona is one of the best cities for density without going proper high rise throughout