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

To be fair wages are up on average 28% in 5 years. Property prices up on average 38%.

Granted it’s not great. But <2% p.a. real growth isn’t that off the charts. Still not sustainable long term of course.

I think if you raise wages in line with house or rental prices you could very easily be caught in an infinite loop of rising prices and we need the exact opposite to happen to prices

House prices/rents that go up with wages are essentially staying the same in real terms. This is perfectly normal and healthy.

The problem is the starting point is arguably too high (especially for rents). The optimal outcome would be 4-5 years of continued 4/5% wage growth with only 0/1/2% price growth to help affordability. Then have the two move together in tandem. For too long house price growth > wage growth when they’d ideally be equal.

Ireland was very different then as was Temple Bar. It was still pretty run down at that point and you could still drink outside the pubs. Not many people wanted to live there and it was still full of derelict buildings. There were tons of bedsits that were very cheap to rent around the city with coin operated electric meters, sat in many with no lights drinking beer as we had no money for the metre. You could work in a bar part time and afford a place and lots of people were paid cash in hand and got the dole.

We have a much higher standard of living now with practically full employment and many more people were leaving the country because there was no work here. Within a few years things had changed dramatically and property was jumping in price which I think is way higher than now. Not sure how house price figures are gathered but I remember houses going up 10% in a month in some areas. It was really noticeable as areas became out of reach within a few months. Some local variation disappeared in an instance. Houses on one part of a road may be 20% higher then the cheaper houses were suddenly the same price.

Housing was being built pretty rapidly and many sites were found and built on. That expansion filled in a lot of space that isn't there now. Go along the Howth road and see how much of Clontarf was filled in. There is simply less land to build on this time around

But because of the shortage of housing if you give more money to the people looking for housing the price of it just goes up for everybody

There's about 23,500 people in Nursing homes on the fair deal scheme in Ireland. If they sold their property today they'd pay 7% of whatever they made on it every year until they pass away. If they rent it out then they have to pay up to 50% on income tax from the rental (as everybody does) and a % of the balance for the rest of their lives as it's now seen as an asset

If, however, they hold on to the home and do nothing with it but let it rot away they pay 7% the value of it every year, as if they had sold it, but, crucially, only for 3 years. This situation alone isn't causing the crisis but it definitely isn't helping.

If we built affordable old-persons retirement housing villages, the kind of places where they have everything they need on their doorstep, shops, pubs, medical centre, small hospital etc. I think there would be good takeup and their own homes would become part of the housing mix again

The houses of people in nursing homes houses used to be rented and people didn't maintain them in the past. It was common enough for people to rent these properties out in very poor condition. They were left to rot then. New rules for rentals meant many people won't rent them out as it is a nightmare to deal with. They changed the Fair Deal for rentals but the rental rules still make I not worth it for many.

Another thing to note is many people in nursing homes still have spouses living in the home or other family members.

I know plenty. An 80 year old finds it difficult to take care of somebody with dementia. At least 5 of my child hood street are in this situation out of 40 houses at the moment and at least another 10 were in that situation. I don't know why you think the majority have nobody else living in the house it is not my experience at all. I am even at the point my FIL will likely go into care with MIL staying in the house.

because your anecdotes trump the actual data of course

To me the time would have been 15 to 10 years ago. It would make sense to have these places within the community where the people want to stay rather than moving them away from their communities the lived in for 50+ years.

If you look at the equity taken it isn't that much but actual costs are way higher. It is likely that those with property will end up paying for retirement costs of those without property. Good thing we have massive inward migration to pay for the retirement of the generations getting older. Irish pension system is a great ponzi scheme

A third of all workers, one million people, are not earning enough to pay income tax or USC so i wont count on them paying for their own retirement or anybody else.

Massive inward migration is not sustainable. It is the main cause of the housing shortage and increases in prices. Whether you're a refugee or a tech worker, you need somewhere to live and its all adding to demand.

The main cause of the housing shortage is a housing shortage. Not tech workers who pay all our income tax and PRSI so that we have services in this country.

If enough properties are built to sell, the prices come down and we still keep the good jobs here in Ireland, along with the tax take and Corporation Tax that the MNC sector brings & which pays for the majority of our services.

Not to mention all the great employment opportunities for young irish graduates.

The solution is to ramp up housing, not dumb down employment and force our well educated irish workforce abroad to find good jobs.

Or just remove the three-year cap on the PPR…

We are building 30-35k homes this year. Thats as good as it gets anytime soon. We dont have the electricity or water services for anymore. Add in a backlog of data centres waiting to come on stream. Infrastructure takes a long time to build so the situation is not going to improve this decade.

The UK could only build 185k new homes last year. A country of nearly 70 million.

Despite all that MNC tax you keep talking about, services are not improving. Shortages of health staff, 1600 teacher vacancies and unless someone is dead, dont think the Gardai will do anything for you.

MNC employment is a small percentage of the workforce, around 15%.

They are not the people consuming all the housing, because they are a relativley small population group and they also include a lot of irish born workers.

Yet that 15% contributes more in tax than the rest of the national workforce combined...

The MNC sector is the last sector we should be restricting.

If we have 1600 teaching vacancies, doesnt that suggest we need more teachers?

The services you say are not improving would be in an absolute state of regression, if it were not for the MNCs paying for them.