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

I raised the same question recently, Of our 30k new homes annually, how many are being purchased or rented by the govt?

The Podcast suggests the vast majority of them, although there will be forward funded schemes with private investment funds also, but I agree that the state is likely the largest purchaser of private homes, which is unreal and is inflating prices further, as it is gobbles up the supply before it ever reaches the market.

The state needs to mobilise its own house building programme and should be barred from purchasing on the open/private market.

Recently arrived single men, or students, do live in shared accomodation sometimes yes but usually only for short periods of time. They fairly quickly move into their own households generally. Thats true of people living here of all backgrounds.

Households of multiple unrelated persons living together are very rare still in Ireland, they're under 5% of total households, or 100k or so total. Households of 3+ of such are even rarer again. They're really not a common thing at all on a national basis, despite the media focusing on some grim slumhouse highlights.

And the ratio of single people to families with children is much higher in immigrant groups than Irish born/resident, which means more living in one-person households, the second most common household type.

We're recieving 120k+ immigrants a year, or over 2% of the population of Ireland, so its absolutely enough to have statistical impact on things like household size quite quickly.

And, to tie it back into my original point, its enough to have an extremely negative impact on the housing market for people already here. Its an absolutely huge amount of extra demand for housing added, every year, at any household size.

Remember the good ole days of the Celtic tiger when 90% of new builds were for private buyers (predominantly ftb) with 10% for social

Even the developers could buy out the requirement of 10% social with a donation to the local council to make the entire estate private or more units in a separate development

The huge amounts the taxpayer is putting in is achieving nothing except changing the eventual occupier, pumping developer margins and significantly reducing developers costs and pricing out the vast majority of first time buyers

Remember on top of all the listed benefits in the podcast the developer also benefits from water and service charges waiver plus the grant for each individual apartment delivered. Nearly all of the soft costs are being covered by the state

It is possible that developers could reduce output as it would be next to impossible to deliver the same margins building for private buyers in comparison to what the state is paying for social housing. This can be seen in recent figures showing home builders PMI (a measure of home building activity) contracting for 3 consecutive summer months.

We had better outcomes in the days of Brown envelopes, now the robbery is embedded, widespread, systemic and legal

According to the S&P Global AIB Ireland Construction PMI report for July 2025, the residential construction sector experienced a contraction for the third consecutive month, with activity decreasing at an accelerated pace. While overall commercial activity continued to expand, the housing sector saw a slowdown in growth in the prior month's report, with the latest data showing a faster reduction in housing activity. 

I feel it's very important to distinguish between the developer/lobbyists and the actual people that build the homes

An out an out builder did not design this system

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpdjjp681p7o

Something similar in the Indo for Ireland but behind a paywall

The Trump factor causing uncertainty in the markets earlier this year is likely the main driver of this, but also if people can't afford their own houses they'll go elsewhere. Less people in the country paying taxes is not a good thing for the economy

The population is increasing by far more than 50k each year. The real world figures are that its been increasing by over 100k per year for the last 4 years running now.

If we went with a household size figure of 2.5 (which is still likely too high given the demographics of our population growth drivers) that would mean we would need 40,000 new housing units a year just to account for our population increase, at 100k per year (and nevermind the number is actually above that).

In addition to that the CIF and Housing Commission give an estimate of 10,000+ housing units a year needed to replace existing stock. That brings it up to 50,000 units a year required.

And then theres whats needed to actually make a dent in the housing crisis and bring supply levels closer to demand levels. Being very conservative here and allowing 10,000 units a year for that would bring us up to 60,000 units a year required. Which is the number the Housing Commission, the CIF, and Dublin Chamber have all recommended.

But instead we're building 30-35k a year, still. We built 30k in 2024, 5+ years into this housing crisis. And numbers for 2025 will likely be below 2024 now it seems. Its an utter failure of policy making.

I answered that in my post? But if you want more detail, sure.

At the current Irish household size of 2.73 100k yearly population increase would require 37k new housing units a year being built, just to house the yearly population growth. Thats the absolute lowest figure.

Because 1) Irish household has been declining steadily over the years due to lower family sizes and increased urbanisation (Dublin's average household size in 2022 was 2.48) and 2) most of our population growth is a result of immigration, which has been discussed at length above as resulting in lower household sizes. Therefore a middling estimate would be 2.5, which would require 40,000 housing units just to house the population.

If household sizes drop even faster, and approach the norm thats common with our neighbours in Europe (2.05 in Germany, 2.07 in Sweden, 2.21 in Switzerland, 2.22 in France), and land at 2.10 we'd need 48k new housing units a year just to house the yearly population growth. And with every year that goes by our society is getting more like theirs - lower birth rates, later marriage age, more immigration, more apartment living etc - and converging with the average.

So that gives a range of 37k-48k new housing units per year required just to house our population growth. Nevermind the obsolesence, housing crisis, or anything else. And we're only building 30k a year total. We're not building nearly enough to house the population growth, nevermind the rest.

(and bear in mind this is all based on an average 100k per year population growth rate, which we're surpassing frequently - the figure was 183k (!!) population growth in 2023)

Sooner rather than later it needs to get more discussion that our out of control population growth is now up there with too low building as the arguable number one factor in our housing crisis.

Estimates vary,

"The AMECO (annual macroeconomic database of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs) estimates that the Irish population reached 5,348,700 at the end of 2023, compared to 5,165,000 at the end of 2022. That is a rise of 183,000 in a single year."

The CSO figures are usually low and get revised upwards later, and aren't across a calendar year, but even they're consistent. Our population growth, and immigration levels, have been increasing yearly. Its absolutely not just the Ukrainian refugees in 2022 (not 2023).

And its not remotely sustainable given our housing output of 30k housing units per year.

CSO April 2024:

"In the 12 months to the end of April 2024:

• The population in Ireland rose by 98,700 people
• There were 149,200 immigrants which was a 17-year high. This was the third successive 12-month period where over 100,000 people immigrated to Ireland. "

CSO April 2023:

"In the 12 months to the end of April 2023:

• The population rose by 97,600 people
• There were 141,600 immigrants which was a 16-year high. "

CSO April 2022:

In the 12 months to the end of April 2022:

• The population increased by 88,800 persons
• There were 120,700 immigrants, a 15-year high."

Our population in August 2025 is estimated at 5,458,600 according to RTE and the CSO. That would require an additional ~125k housing units from your calculation for starters. And thats almost certainly a population underestimate given the way those figures usually get revised upwards subsequently these days, not downwards.

But more importantly we're in an estimated deficit of 200k housing units because a significant % of our housing stock at any moment is used up by holiday homes, long term vacant homes, homes in probate, short term vacant homes between buyers/renters, homes currently vacant while under reconstruction / development, airBNB properties, etc. Every house is not currently lived in by a household.

You make the strongest case for doing the exact opposite to government policy

Shift away from demand to supply side policies

Affordable rentals have to be a priority as that is where the most damage is being done to the economy. Continue as we are and the situation corrects the 08 way.

Rents as high as a net average wage artificially increases buyer demand, sub prime lending and daft government incentives that make the situation worse

The numbers of Irish leaving for Australia are at all time highs, you don't get into Oz unless you are well trained and qualified.

Where is the breakdown of state purchased homes in the article?

Of the 1731 new homes that were delivered since January this year, how many have been state purchased?

Thats sales from active selling sites only. This may not include all new build sales.