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

Hoarding land is usually done in hopes of rezoning.

My genuine belief is most (not all) people hoarding vacant properties are just on average, financially illiterate (I consider 95%+ of the population financially illiterate).

Their reasons are ultimately not that interesting or relevant in the scheme of things though.

If most people hoarding vacant properties are average financially illiterate then convincing them to rent out their vacant properties would go a good way towards bringing the 160k vacant properties being bandied about.

Do you think threatening them with a large vacant property tax will encourage them to act if they are financially illiterate? Would an incentive not yield better results?

OK so the majority of those who voted in the poll saying the RPZ are not working are wrong? Again capping rent was a punitive measure and it appears they have not worked as per the poll results.

If you force something on someone they react. People don't like to be controlled no matter how much you think they should be.

If I told you that you had to take a wage cut and you could not leave your job even though there was another identical job paying twice your wage how would you feel?

Well then remove the RPZ cap and enforce timely evictions and make the sector less toxic and some vacant properties may return to the sector.

Until the above is done placing punitive taxes on vacant properties is forcing people against their will.

Some posters first port of call is the implementation of punitive taxes rather than addressing the RPZ issues and slow eviction process.

Definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

I think local councils are being pragmatic rather than idealistic regarding personal car use.

Seems the number of passenger cars is on the rise
https://www.statista.com/statistics/452305/ireland-number-of-registered-passenger-cars/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20number%20of,approximately%202.33%20million%20registered%20units.

No. No they will not.

Yes, I suggest at least 60 sqm as the minimum for one-bedroom apts.

If we are to convince people to live in apts long-term, they must be spacious.

After all, we have plenty of land.

Two-bedrooms = 80 sqm minimum

I 100% agree. The stick can be removing private car parking spaces, but there needs to be a carrot of faster public transport that brings people from the suburbs to work.

If a bus journey is more than 50% longer than the equivalent car journey then no one will change. Same if public transport is any way unreliable.

Journey from Blanch to Sandyford is 1hr 20min on PT, with two transfers.

23 minutes in a car on the M50, just over an hour on a bike.

Clontarf to Dolphins barn, a hour on the bus, 27 mins in a car, 31 on a bicycle.

Finglas to Stoneybatter, 15 mins in a car, 23 on a bike, 40 on a bus.

So on and so on. I'm just picking random locations, but when even long journeys are faster on a bike than paid public transport then something is not right. I can see why people don't want to give up private cars, and why councils mandate parking.

The flip side of that is you cannot improve public transport beyond a certain point unless you de-prioritise cars. Too many cars and congestion negatively impacts on bus times, unless you build bus lanes the whole way which people also are up in arms about because they also claim it's all stick no carrot.

Yep. Councils being pragmatic is irrelevant.

If the national planning guidelines are to reduce parking spaces in new apartments, then local councils shouldnt be able to reject the schemes for lack of parking spaces, especially in areas with good (by irish standards) PT.

If you cant build apartments with a low ratio of parking spaces in the capital city and next to a QBC, where can you build them?

I agree that car use is only going upwards, that isnt going to change, but the govt need to either scrap the minimal car parking policy on new builds or scrap the ability of councils to object to same.

The roads will never be fully prioritised for buses. We need to accept that.

As long as the population continues to grow and there is no proper PT network across the city that does not rely on buses, car drivership will continue to increase.

It's a multi-line metro or bust for Dublin.

Despite all the grants and subsidies, it would appear that less than 5k new homes were sold to private buyers last year

“Today, out of 30,000 units, if we take out the ‘one-off’ houses, if we take out social and affordable housing, take out cost rental and all of these things, there are less than 10,000 houses being built in the country.

“And, as we are all aware today, the amount of new Irish buying houses now, price rental, is keeping us all in a job, so that the actual real numbers of Irish citizens buying houses at the moment is less than 5,000 houses in the whole country. It’s very frustrating for young buyers