The accelerating fall in Sinn Féin support

So a scam is irrelevant.

SF and any other party in this country have any way to sort out housing so long as the welcome people from outside the country to come here.

They are talking about people buying homes at same time housing 1000s of people in homes irish could have bought and lived in.

I'm not sure what people are expecting? He is another politician with virtually no experience of the real world. He has about as much understanding of the issues with housing in Ireland as our esteemed Minister for Housing Darragh O Brien - which could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

But it has logic. We've all seen how FF & FG have presided over the privatisation of social housing stock built in the 1950s-70s etc. Allowing local authority tenants to buy out their social housing and gain substantially from future sales. Whilst diminishing the social housing stock. Most people regard this as regressive. At least the Shinners are looking to avoid that, so take off the blinkers and given them some credit.

Next move is in the FG / FF camps - let them come up with proposals that achieve the same. If FG can't or won't, then off the field with them.

Consider this.. I would have always said we were from a middle income family and that our adult children would be able to buy privately as we did. But they haven't a ***** hope at the moment. Even affording rent is a problem.

So it looks like their best bets are to 1) emigrate 2) go on social housing list 3) get HAP wile waiting 4) live at home or 5) wait till we die and inherit.

What sort of banana republic do we live in, that we can't even manage our own Irish citizens???????

But will piss away God knows what on every Tom & Dick who lands up here. Piss away God knows what on destroying parts of our tourism industry, whilst enriching a golden circle.

And look at the absolute scandal of what is going on in Wicklow at Kippure - major development of housing without any planning permission to avail of above.

Now understand why we demand change, any change from the current coalition.

With the First Home Scheme, the homeowner, at any point in time, has the facility to buy out the 30% government equity, that simply isn't available under the weird SF scheme. In fact, there is an even worse potential downside whereby at point of sale there could be a greater government share of the equity under the SF scheme, meaning it was a really really poor investment. Tied to the fact that there is a limited market of only people who qualify for the scheme, there are significant potential issues.

You would be mad to buy one of the weird SF houses, unless you have no other option, and you are prepared to live there for the rest of your life.

Well, here's a thing, imagine you had two heirs and the house was now valued at only 60% of the market value because the government owned the land. If one heir qualified under the weird SF scheme, and the other did not, the qualifying heir would get 50% of a house, because they could buy the other heir out, but the non-qualifying heir would only have 30% towards the market value of a house, which is all they could buy.

If you think all would be fine and dandy with that, you don't have potential heirs. Here are the financial details of how the SF weird scheme would affect those two heirs:

To put it in perspective, say both want to stay in the same area.

House 300k, market value in the area 500k, so both inherit 150k.

Qualifying heir: mortgage of 150k, and living in the family home.

Non-qualifying heir: mortgage of 350k, and having the stress of buying.

Oh yeah, that would make for really friendly Christmases.

In the First Home Scheme, using the same example and assume the equity was never bought out.

House 500k, Market Value 500k, Equity 350k.

Both heirs would have an inheritance of 175k, leaving them each with an equal mortgage of 325k.

You can live in a dreamland where siblings view it your way, but having seen many families around me go through these situations, it is a bit like the SF proposal - a weird fantasy.

Your post was more an argument against leaving anything in a will or even against the concept of social housing rather than any real relevance to the SF proposal though..

If was purely opposition for opposition sake Blanch.

God knows but i wish I didn't inherit anything, the baggage that came with it would break the melt of anyone but that's just an aside.

My argument was in favour of the current First Homes Scheme compared to the SF proposal. The SF proposal is a disimprovement on the existing arrangements. That will become clearer in the coming weeks as the proposal is examined.

Time for another bank guarantee?! 🙃

No one is going to privately pay through the nose for a house that they have no control over what it's worth or who they can sell it to, it's absurd. They won't be able to trade up because the private market will have moved beyond them so will be stuck there for life.

Its not the same at all.

First home scheme allows you to buy the govt equity and own the property at full market rate.

SF proposal does not.

Ergo, the SF house will always be worth considerably less than if you buy a home via the FHS.

Why is that so difficult to understand?

The FHS home will rise in value with the market, meaning you can sell at a higher price than you purchased at, whether you redeem the equity or not.

You can sell it to anyone that can afford it, so your pool of buyers is vast and includes investors.

The SF home is index linked, will not rise in real value, and is far more difficult to sell because it can only be sold to a small select group of qualifying buyers.

And if you do manage to sell it, you wont be able to access the private market anyway because the value of your property has been left behind by two-tier market economics.

The FHS scheme is a far better option for a buyer.