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

The main word you seem to have skipped over after the drilling down is "estimated". Their estimates may be way off.

I personally know of several rental setups that are not registered with the RTB, that do not fall into any of the categories of their '"estimates" - i.e. fully professional rental setups in Dublin paying full market rate, where landlord pretends the tenants are not actually 'tenants'. This 'landlord' has multiple 'rental' properties. Surely he cannot be on his own - we are in the middle of a housing crisis.

There is no requirement to increase income taxes in this country with plenty of scope reduce them were they spent a bit more wisely. A party that represents people who get up early should recognise that

If it meant that the nurse was doing the overtime in Ireland and not Qatar, would that be progress?

FFG should be representative of these people instead they are muppets to high finance with funds, land hoarders, and developers the benificaries of there policies, not the people or the economy.

All these entities have former FFG politicians as there lobbyists and the country and it's people will again pay a very high price.

Top rate of tax in Ireland is 40%.

Yes nothing to see.

People renting on an informal basis where likely to be paying 30pc less rent than those with a formal agreement in place.

And these houses rental without a formal rental agreement being in place were more likely to be located in a rural area.

Just massive and endemic tax fraud 👍

and the leg up for FTBs is only after they have borrow the absolute max mortgage the bank will give them - the government is effectively propping up prices for builders and adding a second interest only mortgage onto buyers

No not really. Housing spend was less than 6% of government spending in 2023. It’s less than the GROWTH in Health spending in the last 5 years alone.
In terms of your comment on ‘washing its face’, the figure you’re quoting is purely the budget allocated to spending. You don’t have the numbers on what it’s generating on the other side as all of the income is allocated centrally. The €6bn is not a ‘net spend’ because the DoH don’t receive the stamp duty, income tax, VAT etc. that housing generates.

I’m pretty right wing but even I accept there’s going to always need to be some spend on social and affordable housing. So if you could even optimistically halve that €6bn it really makes no difference to the overall finances of the country.

On FG not being centre left. Of course there is a spectrum, and I agree property taxes are far far too low in this country (again, the biggest opposition party want to abolish this altogether) but they’ve been in government for 16 years which has seen us

• have the most progressive income tax system in the world, which redistributes wealth inequality more than any other country
• Introduce RPZ zones
• Increases in HAP, Social Hosuing, Affordable purchase etc.
• Eviction bans
• Unprecedented growth in state spending on health and welfare

There will definitely be some counter examples (e.g. upcoming inheritance tax nonsense) but on the big areas issues of taxation and welfare it’s very difficult to say Ireland is not being governed as a predominantly left wing country.

Much of the things you have given out about in your posts, all opposition parties want to do, but in a more extreme way. You’re giving out about left wing policies and saying you’ll protest that by voting more left. I don’t see any logic.

Agree you can complain but what are you actually going to do? Vote for one of the even more anti landlord/higher tax parties?

Thats why it makes sense. You only need to be slightly less anti landlord than all the others to maximize your votes.

Id have some hopes that with their new 5 year mandate under Harris that FG will go back to what they really think rather than pandering to pick up some centre left votes. Time will tell.

Doesn't matter, they're breaking the law. People have been sent to jail for not having a tv licence.

€20k per year fine up to and including confiscation of the illegally rented property 👍

They're CSO statistics, and quoted from an Irish Times article, so the truth of them isn't really questionable.

Some more probably relevant quotes

"First, despite all the noise in the market the vast majority of landlords (86 per cent) own only one or two properties. Most of them own one.

For sure the 1.2 per cent of commercial landlords at the other end of the scale with net rental income of more than €100,000"

According to the same CSO figures 22.8% of landlords have only their rental income as income, and 16.5% of landlords have only pensions or welfare as any other income on top of the rental income.

So the idea that "most" landlords are earning in excess of €100k a year (even from all income sources combined) and so would be hit by income tax increases on that demographic seems very unlikely given all those figures.

No not really. Housing spend was less than 6% of government spending in 2023. It’s less than the GROWTH in Health spending in the last 5 years alone

Your post ignores that the Department of Housing spend is increasing house prices and rents not making them more affordable. As a result homeowners and renters can't afford health insurance, pensions, and childcare.

This means that the state has to subsidise these areas more. I've given the example of a family earning more than mine who qualify for medical cards due to there rent spend. Is this a phenomenon that is increasing or decreasing? We are talking median to average salaried couples with children. Childcare costs in Dublin were double the cost of Limerick, what's the difference? Property prices. How many families qualify for family income supplement as a result of extortionate rents/ high mortgages.

I could go on and on but much of the increasing spend in other departments is directly linked to high property prices and extortionate rents. The direct beneficiary of this spending are the friends of Fine Gael: Land hoarders/owners, developers, investment funds

Do you still belive that FFG are left wing?

How much tax and economic activity is foregone by untaxed extortionate rents leaving the country to foreign investment/private equity funds. No contribution to the services that allow those properties exist and now the state is paying upto 130,000 per unit to build these. When are taxpayers going to wake up and take note of this state sponsored theft

Higher property prices mean higher insurance and maintenance costs

We all want lower taxes, we are not going to achieve this by using those taxes to pump property prices, you might get the illusion of lower taxes for a while, but continuation of FFG policies and you'll be back at 2010 levels of taxation if not 1980's levels

If you think about it, the current policy of affordable housing being built/financed by the state then sold off for good is as stupid as the policy of selling off social housing to tenants.

The govt needs a pool of social and affordable homes in the country. But once you sell on an affordable home today it is gone from the affordable market and instead exists in the private market.

Having affordable housing sold on within the scheme actually makes sense. Otherwise you are just transferring state assets to private speculators who will later profit.

Current affordable home buyers could make a mint in 10 years time with the price differential between affordable purchase and private market that they can then sell through.