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

The long term expenses of paying HAP, and signing long term leases, for social housing are far higher.

"The Government has agreed 9,000 social housing leasing deals with property funds that will cost €3.24 billion, last for 25 years and the funds will own the properties at the end of the lease, the Dáil has heard.

Houses costing €3,200 a month would cost €900,000 by the end of the lease, and ownership of the house would go back to the property fund."

And HAP and other rental supports are similar - approaching €1bn a year now in costs, and increasing rapidly, with no assets ever owned by the state.

Its an utter waste of tax payers money - building social housing is the long term, cheaper, solution.

Selling them to the occupants is an entirely different (and also bad policy), issue, that shouldn't be happening either.

All you are doing is stating how much it is costing this way but you don't have a comparison. So how much are you saying it would cost if the government built them and then administer them? You have to remember that any state employees gets a host of benefits and long running costs such as pensions as do the properties.

They actually do a cost benefit appraisals on such things. If the likes of the SIPTU got rid of the direct hire of cleaners and hired a private company instead to save money even though their cleaning bill went up you know the government aren't doing something crazy.

Now what you are saying makes sense but not when it comes to accounting and they calculate out running cost, liability, insurance, admin etc… While you say they should do away with tenant purchases that would be extremely unpopular and would effect many people that lived in properties a long time. Often what happens later in life the children give the money to a parent to buy.

You also have to note the councils own the most vacant property which in general is property they didn't maintain and can't get it together to fix them up. Look up the flats in Coolock to see an example, this has been a problem for decades with these properties. Those assets you think the council own are classed as liabilities. Coolock shows what the liabilities are. I have seen the flats on Sean McDermot street completely refurbished multiple times over the decades.

I worked in a place and they had a manual job to do which cost 2k a month to run I put together a proposal to automate it which would have cost 20k or 10 months of running costs. It was turned down because they didn't have the money in the improvement budget. They kept it the manual way for 6 years and they removed it because they process was no longer needed as they got the information a different way which just happened to have this side effect.

Things are a lot more complicated than people think if they never worked within such large organizations.

The main argument that has been used in recent years against the state ramping up its home building programme is that there is a lack of capacity in the construction market - that we simply can't get the builders. Which is somewhat valid.

Realistically the state has the financial capability right now to build tens of thousands of units of social housing per year, if the industry capacity was not being used by the private sector

The capital for the construction costs is available, the demand from people on HAP and similar is there, and the long term financial incentive for tax payers is there (get people off of HAP and similar rental supports, stop the state buying private sector homes for social housing, stop the state leasing private sector homes for social housing).

We absolutely need private sector investment longer term, but for the next few years at least the solution here is the government picking up any and all slack in the industry as it appears. Not throwing more tax payer euros at private developers to incentivize them, when we now have a decade of such schemes already being shown not to work.

What HAP pays out net would not cover adminstration, maintenance and refurbishment of that number of houses

So a collection of landlords belive HAP is the bees knees when compared to a dysfunctional FFG housing policy, where many of there party members are, you guessed it, landord/lady's feeding off the multiple taxpayer payments as well as being lobbyists for banking, developers and investment funds

Landlords will rightfully complain about the high tax they pay (despite the loopholes) but seem oblivious to the fact; a completely dysfuntional housing policy requires high taxes.

This system must continue because clearly, there is no better way and FFG are experts in Housing policy.

Historically We have had multiple tribunals and investigations, mishaps where lessons have been learned etc it would be a shame to throw away all that knowledge now

Edit: HAP and investment funds have a place in housing, our error is that they are far too dominant

Would appear 94% are private landlords as per the below.

https://www.google.ie/search?q=percentage+of+private+landlords+v+institutional+landlords+ireland&sca_esv=642680827a50424a&source=hp&ei=d3UwaOv7EoW9hbIP6K3RmQg&iflsig=AOw8s4IAAAAAaDCDh7tHaa3NECl3uCJ59_YsNLliIk8R&oq=percentage+of+private+landlords+v+institutional+la&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IjJwZXJjZW50YWdlIG9mIHByaXZhdGUgbGFuZGxvcmRzIHYgaW5zdGl0dXRpb25hbCBsYSoCCAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFIpdMBUABY270BcAJ4AJABAJgB_QGgAf8nqgEHMjQuMjMuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCMqACyCnCAggQLhiABBixA8ICERAuGIAEGLEDGNEDGMcBGIoFwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAhQQLhiABBixAxjRAxiDARjHARiKBcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAg4QLhiABBixAxiDARiKBcICBRAAGIAEwgIOEC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYxwHCAgsQABiABBixAxiKBcICCxAuGIAEGLEDGIMBwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAg4QABiABBixAxiDARiKBcICCxAuGIAEGLEDGNQCwgIGEAAYFhgewgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAgUQABjvBcICCBAAGKIEGIkFwgIIEAAYgAQYogTCAgQQIRgVwgIFECEYnwXCAgcQIRigARgKmAMAkgcHMjUuMjQuMaAH-64CsgcHMjMuMjQuMbgHwSnCBwk3LjIzLjE5LjHIB5YB&sclient=gws-wiz

I agree with almost all of that, perhaps just not the last paragraph.

Private sector and govt building sector should BOTH be firing on all cylinders.

If there arent enough buildlers, bring them into the country.

Have the govt set up a state building agency and actively recruit from overseas.

If we are increasing our population by 100k people every 12 months, I dont believe we cant increase the size of the construction workforce, with a targeted recruitment approach.

Sorry I did miss crucial information and meant to say the majority of HAP is with large institutes.

"Large landlords with 100 or more properties account for 91% of AHB tenancies, with medium landlords who have 3-99 properties making up 8.9% of AHB tenancies and small landlords with 1-2 homes making up just 0.04% of AHB tenancies."

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0808/1463905-landlord-figures/

So the government is not getting 50% back in tax on most rentals they pay

It would appear the attached suggests a different finding (albeit from two years ago). Also AHB are not the only supported housing EG HAP, RAS and Rent Allowance.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.rtb.ie/images/uploads/forms/RTB_Large_Landlord_Survey_2023_Report_13.12.23.V1_.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjIlNWy-LmNAxUnT0EAHfN9KEgQzsoNegQIBxAN&usg=AOvVaw1HEQPJtYllF4w0DR7EDIOE

Vacancy and dereliction tax should be punitive and far reaching.

The amnesty is a good idea, as long as it is followed up by heavy fines and ultimatley, a (heavily discounted) CPO.

I would still opt for a last resort CPO at a heavily discounted price, if the owner has not sold within X number of years, despite all of the fines.

State can then sell it back to the private market at profit, or develop the site itself.

Even the heavy fines would be a start though. I would take that if we could get it.

Some estimates of only 23k new homes now being delivered this year.

Surely the rent caps will go next week?

If we ever seen the owner of a derelict site forced to pay someone else (or the state) to take over ownership, due to the economics of cost to bring into use combined with crippling and compounding vacancy/dereliction taxes, then we will be moving in the right direction.

Don’t see it though. More rewarding the behaviour through higher derelict housing grants seems likely.

For me it’s a principle thing. For example, when the Vacant home grant was being lobbied for, the SCSI published a sort of ‘gap analysis’ roughly along lines of.

Cost to demolish: €50k

Cost to rebuild: €100k

Land ‘value’: €100k

Value of competed house: €200k

‘Viability gap’: €50k

I find that type of argument insane. A taxpayer subsidy needed to ensure some arbitrary land value not unpinned by economics must be maintained. If someone allows a property to fall into disrepair. I see it as economically and morally desirable for them to be punished for it.