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

Agree with all these views without exception. But I think the last figure I saw was roughly between 10-15% land cost for apartments.

Let’s say you could optimistically knock half off that cost. For a €500k apartment you’re theoretically making it €465-475k instead. It would be fantastic but don’t think it solves the problem necessarily. A 50% reduction in land value also feels ambitious. I would venture that the value of land in Central Dublin is already low vs other capital cities (probably because of building height restrictions)

When you go beyond I think its 5 floors( it's a height related limit) you can no longer use standard building practices of blocks and timber. You are now into steel and mass concrete. The higher you go the more room services take up, everything from lifts to sewers. Young lad building a bungalow at present, there will be 3k of steel going into itand it not that complicated a building. Buildings regs are crazy in this country

On buying anything a friend separated from his other half about 5 years ago now. I told him at the time buy anything. There was option sub 80k at the time. He as he put it "was not ready to buy" 5 years later he has probably spend nearly 50k on rent. The options at 80k are double that now

Another lad moved into the village three ish years ago himself and the partner had a bread snapper and another one on the way. I was talking to him he had a decent job but wanted to build. Again I advised him to buy anything even a house in a council estate( nothing wrong with them) but his other half would not hear of it. So three years later 35-40k gone and houses 20-30% more expensive

You and Bass clearly know significantly more about apartment building regs than the layperson. Say a group of experts conclude Irish regs are overdone for reasons x,y,z and advise the government to change them. Just imagine the optics of how that would play through public opinion? Especially given the defective apartments we built in 2000s and how strongly that sits in peoples minds.

‘Panel of building experts advises government to reduce building standards to increase developer profits’

I think it’s a major problem in Ireland that housing has become so hot a topic that sensible discussion has become almost impossible.
If I was Minister for Housing, even if I felt weakening building requirements was the right thing to do, there is not a hope I would do it because it would be weaponised against me. Any positive impact of the changes would have no real world impact until long after my 5 year term was finished.

There are edge cases. There are people whose family have been farming land for generations who don't want to be forced off it. Yes, they can apply to have it dezoned, but in some cases there would be genuine fears that their now agricultural land would then be CPO'd at that value to provide, for example, green space for the local population because the Council allowed the developer to build without providing it.

You don't think that could ever happen ………… Dublin City Council tried to CPO 2 acres a stone's throw from St Stephen's Green back around the height of the Celtic Tiger madness after the then owner refused an offer of 100k for it. In the end up it turned out to be moot as the crash came before the issue was resolved and it was eventually bought for about 140k from receivers after the crash and donated to them.

There was no suggestion that a speculator could buy up land, sit on it, and avoid the levy by renting out under a peppercorn rent to a fella with a horse for rough grazing.

Did the same. Mind you our bungalow doer upper cost over 700k in North Wicklow.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/homes-in-at-least-16-counties-affected-by-defective-concrete-as-concerns-raised-over-eu-safety-standard/a1836332722.html

one has to wonder are irish house prices now simply over valued ... there looks like there is going to he a serious amount of issues found over the next few years with the properties we have thrown up over the last 20 years or so

Buy a house that was built before we became a "knowledge economy"

Can't beat the regulation of time and a period when you next job depended on the quality of your last

Well theres a doer upper you can work on while you are in it and there is one that you cant move into. I wouldnt even bid on the latter. But ive seen lots of people now buy perfectly liveable houses and have the whole place gutted and practically rebuilt before move in. Im sure the builders love them, but those kinds of places are not for me tbh.

I would posit that that is more a reflection of the friends you keep rather than general society. there would have always been people like that in any period, and there always will be. They may just have come from money etc.

Well if there appears to be a common thread of repulsion at you buying a particular type of property, then that correlation is likely due to the types of people you hang around with rather than being a reflection of broader society. Because most people frankly wouldn't care one way or the other.

Davy Stockbrokers contesting that we need 85k new homes each year, between now and 2030.

Interesting that the National Planning Framework had planned for a State population of 5.36 million by 2030.

We have likley reached that figure already.

Will the 85k new homes per annum target be adopted by the State? 50k appears to be the quoted target figure.

As per article, most of the homes coming to market are not available to buy. The article says only 33% of new builds are available to buy privately, nationally.

I would be very confident that the percentage is much lower in Dublin.

Likley =<10%, maybe up to 15% in some areas.

Therefore, as far as purchase prices go, the vast majority of new builds may as well not exist because there is next to no supply coming to the purchase market - hence we will continue to see house price inflation; when viewed in context with the huge spending and savings power of the top 20% of the (ever growing) population.

10s of thousands of wealthy people in the GDA especially, competing for limited housing resources = house prices, especially in the good and average areas of the capital, will keep on rising.

Definitely concerning to see prices reaccelerating. Hopefully a blip.

However, ‘what goes up…’ is a very bad rule to follow for nominal prices…of anything. Take a look at 100+ years of global property and equity prices! They rarely come down (far or for long anyway!)

85k houses would be a truly astronomical number for a county like Ireland to build. 6 times the EU average. There is absolutely no way it’s adopted as a target.

Two parts to this:

1. Davy do little to back up their figures. They have assumed a deficit. Assumed a future population growth and decided deficit should be fixed by arbitrary 2030. All of those assumptions are debatable. Nice headline though

2. Even if Davy were right. Targets should be stretching, but realistic. Looking at the data shows, despite most countries having a housing shortage. Most build in and around the same amount - increasing housing supply is hard. It’s not like making face masks for COVID. One country is doing great and managing to 2x the EU average - Ireland. Expecting to 6x would be an unbelievable statistical outlier.

50k is a ambitious target that progress is being made towards at good pace (6-10% growth year on year, faster than anywhere else). Aiming for 200% growth in short order is silly.

If we somehow did get to 85k per annum. We’d then have to almost halve output in a few years to avoid another 2009 catastrophe as it would be utterly unsustainable. A government target to triple, then halve housing output in less than a decade would be very foolish.