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

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.

It certainly has potential. There is scope here to have a positive private sector involvement. Many employers are frustrated with the governments inaction to the point that they are providing housing for employees themselves.

With this scheme there could be the opportunity for those employers to source land for the Scheme. My employer does this in the USA, does wonders for there ESG score.

High probability that homes would be built where they are needed bringing environmental and efficiency gains rather than long commutes of current policy

Would make a refreshing change from the private sector FFG are mingling with whose sole objective appears to be milk the taxpayer for everything they can get

Should be a token rent payment for the Land imo 1k per year rising with inflation. Servicing sites is not cheap and as these are aimed at median to average income, they can afford it.

Notable that they appear to be confining the scheme to 2 bed units. It kind of encourages turnover thereby potentially maximising the number of couples families that may benefit as well as addressing the shortage of 2 bed units in the market. 1/2 beds are needed at a life stage where your income may be lower (career start/finish)

Apologies if this comes across as a party political broadcast. My concern is that why are they coming out with this now when they have been mouthing on about housing for years and we have to wait till September for there full housing policy.

Shades of political football

Maybe they need a new leader then, I heard that interview she did before the local elections and she was all over the place on an issue they were gathering most support

I saw something interesting the in UK regarding council tax. A proposal for a 0.5% tax on the value of your property to replace the current system. I would be amazed if they followed through on this but from an observational point of view it would be great to see how successful the implementation is.

I know several people have talked about tax being unfair in Ireland and I am guessing this is close to what you would want here too.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/new-council-tax-band-system-29659478

S&P 500 has fallen to levels not seen in….40 days.

Reform of Council Tax comes up every now and then since the current bands are based on notional 1991 valuations and there are a whole host of anomalies (e.g guess where has the lowest charges). My hunch is they will leave it alone since Council Tax revenue goes to local government rather than central.

any thoughts - is the government's first home scheme which is essentially an interest only loan to be repaid in full at some point in time a blatant attempt by the government to break central bank lending limits - and if so how come the central bank are not more vocal about it

I’d have said the same 6 months ago, but with how SF have fallen it’s hard to see anything but another FF/FG coalition now. FF would be crazy to go in with SF also, it would decimate them.

FG move to the right economically is already evident under Harris.

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2024/0801/1463035-ireland-politics/

Im very hopeful of a stronger FG led government with Harris leading out with what Varadkar said he’d stand for but never really did, knowing he has 5 years to make some changes

There would also be civil unrest should it come to pass

It doesn't. But a bankrupt council or two will piss off fewer people than another tax rise.

Years of mismanagement by conservatives with our own crew copying the worst of there housing initiatives