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

To Leitrim levels? Come off it.


2008 is a depression level era (or that Mod with the graph on sentiment, a “black swan” event) where many sectors saw significant contraction. Indeed construction was virtually was wiped out. Aside from the employment statistics I mentioned, we had wage cuts and suppressed wages for a decade. There were high paid jobs then too.

Nobody said Accessory Dwelling Units would “solve” housing either yet that was the claimed narrative being pushed by people who often seem to overlap with Air BnB obsessives.

The impact can be literally quantified, Ronan Lyons did work on this. 2-3k units was estimated out of a shortage of 130k nationally, that’s more like 2%. I appreciate your point on small solutions (I think that’s fair in the round) but such a solution does need to be considered in the context of what it is providing in terms of utility to the overall economy. If those Air BnBs are facilitating the economic activity and tax that builds social houses and other state services, the equation changes.

My issue with Air BnB goes beyond the myopic debate surrounding it, it is the noise it gets. It’s a glamour topic- why does it get more airtime than say the fact that the Minister for Housing has often sat on their hands for simple things that would give you the small improvement you mention. For example the State didn’t have enough planners which held back both housing and infrastructure. The State could have in a stroke of a pen added Planners to the Critical Skills list. Tech companies can get absolute nonsense jobs added, but we can’t get something like that added.

Similarly, why no focus on how the Minister for Housing could have clarified (and facilitated building straightaway) what they intended when talking about high capacity transport within SDZs? Nah they left that to some Judge to decide after someone living a couple of KMs away took a judicial review. I suppose the people who give out about Air BnBs were in celebration mode then as a developer couldn’t build something.

No there isn’t. This was clear by 2014 really (similarly it was with housing too, but people ignored it). We had 78% occupancy in Dublin which (if you want to Google it), is still higher than the likes of our European peers. It has gotten worse since then at 83%, with the glut of new developments absolutely impacted by IPAS and the homeless. But to be absolutely clear, predating these issues (and the massive capacity increase) there was an issue in the Dublin market with a lack of beds.

I had access to a couple of the big hotels books a decade ago and the STR rates were off the wall. That’s what prompted the development, which people then moaned about.

Quote from Head of Eli lilly

We can't breach those agreements so we have to eat the cost of the tariffs and make trade offs within our own companies. Typically that will be in reduction of staff or research and development (R&D) and I predict R&D will come first. That's a disappointing outcome

Understandable, but if I were sale agreed on a house that I liked for a price that I could afford, I would not pull out.

The latest figures I can see for hotel occupancy for 2024 overall have Dublin at 80%, and the rest of the country at 76%. But thats with about 1/3rd of hotel beds countrywide used for IPAS.

If we stop wasting billions of tax payer euros on this, and actually control our borders, and stop this usage theres absolutely no shortage of hotels in the country. Its not a justification for letting AirBNBs exist in RPZ at all.

If you read it, what he is saying is the job losses will be in the US first and foremost as that's where most of their R&D is.

Your post makes no sense. Elaborate on the 60-80k jobs. Autos have nothing to do with Ireland.

If you are just being generic here on reshoring activity, fine, but please tie that to 60-80k jobs. It's almost as if you are suggesting that is not an insignificant number. That's a huge number of well paid jobs. Those jobs would likely support 2-3% of our population directly. Indirectly the tax will pay the welfare of another chunk. It is a material number and a material problem, if you are suggesting the Government are underselling it then you don't understand what you are talking about.

So please elaborate on your post - you said "someone is wrong here". Tie together the Irish government statement to your links to Auto reshoring.

A release published by Failte Ireland in June 2023 noted that the group had previously estimated that “28% of all Failte Ireland registered tourism bed stock was contracted to the State” and that “excluding Dublin, the figure was provided as 34%”

This was almost two years, and approx 40,000 new asylum seekers ago. The figure is likely even higher now.

Beds not being rooms is semantics, the figures are very clear that a huge percentage of our tourist accomodation stock is being expensively used for the IPAS system, at tax payers cost. If that capacity was added back into our tourist system occupancy rates would be far lower.

Preventing the return of AirBNBs to the rental market because tourists need accomodation is far less logical (and far more expensive for the state, and renters) than the state simply returning a huge percentage of our hotels back to their intended use.

Hmm. More than one commentator remarked that a major reset to the global economy was only avoided in 2020 by nuclear levels of money printing. I don't know enough to comment , but you have to wonder how much of the growth seen in the last 5 years was just down to that?

Ah are you hung up on the old Air BnB as well? Have a bit of integrity when representing them, what I said was that Air BnB was not a panacea to our housing issues and that it receives undue media attention.

2-3% directly supported and then the tax revenues supporting probably another couple of percent on a run rate basis is of far more impact than a once off Air BnB impact.