60,000 Building Jobs, 400,000 empty houses.

MS.ing · 25-02-2014 06:24AM

there is actually a shortage of housing believe it or not in places where people actually WANT to live and that has the secure jobs, infastructure services and facilities which make it so, Dublin especially. A certain level of housing stock ( in suitable places) is needed in order to stop the herd mentality of "quick buy it quick before someone else does" there is not enough houses which are suitable in this way to reliably sustain the supply and demand needed to provide for peoples housing needs in a controlled sustainable way. The figure up until a few months ago was half of the figure needed to keep things in balance and in equalibrium. I cant remember the figure but its low to mid single digits, something like 3 to 5% and we are only at half that number to keep things ticking along with people buying houses who can actually afford them and who actually live in them as opposed to buy to let 'investments'......you know like in the olden days, 1980's and earlier.

Stavros Murphy · 25-02-2014 09:16AM

Valetta wrote: »

How do you propose to move the empty houses from Leitrim and Ballybofey to Dublin and Cork?

A big truck? Powered by unemployed people on a hamster-wheel?

Sounds as realistic as the govts proposals.

cournioni · 25-02-2014 09:47AM

I highly doubt there are 400,000 vacant houses in Ireland. I work in a town in East Cavan where a lot of the boom madness happened. There is barely anywhere to rent, according to daft there is three properties in the whole area up for rent. There is also very few houses vacant particularly in the town where there are 4 previously/currently occupied properties for sale.

The main reason for the high occupancy levels is employment in the area (several factories in the town and surrounding area with the largest employing 700 workers) in my opinion so I totally disagree with people who have been saying that the likes of Ballybofey and Leitrim wouldn't attract people to the area if jobs were available. That is absolute nonsense. If proper infrastructure was in place for these towns they would attract employers, no question.

Instead, all of the money spent on infrastructure is spent in Dublin. Surprise, surprise.

noodler · 25-02-2014 10:31AM

cournioni wrote: »

I highly doubt there are 400,000 vacant houses in Ireland.

There aren't.

http://www.thejournal.ie/14-5-per-cent-of-dwellings-in-ireland-vacant-in-census-2011-400231-Mar2012/

289,000 vacant according to the last census in 2011.

EDIT: 59,000 are holiday homes.

donegal__road · 25-02-2014 11:04AM

cournioni wrote: »

in my opinion so I totally disagree with people who have been saying that the likes of Ballybofey and Leitrim wouldn't attract people to the area if jobs were available. That is absolute nonsense. If proper infrastructure was in place for these towns they would attract employers, no question.

Instead, all of the money spent on infrastructure is spent in Dublin. Surprise, surprise.

I agree with you here. I live in Ballybofey.. the town is on the main Galway - Derry road and it is a very busy town for its size. I know a guy who is planning to set up an IT company here, and it will be the first of its kind in Ireland.

Mal-Adjusted · 25-02-2014 11:15AM

MadsL wrote: »

The irony of people wanting one off houses and then complaining about the lack of facilities is not lost on me.

I don't know anyone who considers 250 half built houses on an unfinished site in Lietrim "one off housing"

SpaceTime · 25-02-2014 11:54AM

In places like Leitrim the councils also forced 'mixed development' i.e. a mixture of small apartments and houses and town houses which are actually completely inappropriate to rural Ireland.

I know plenty of cases where small villages in Leitrim had developments built which consisted of townhouses with no gardens and basement flats under them.
While that might be appropriate in the centre of Dublin or Cork or even inner suburbs, who would want to live in a basement flat in a small village in Leitrim?

A lot of the houses they built too are also far too dense and have very little green space or garden space.

I know quite a lot of people who have bought houses in parts of Sligo and Leitrim but wouldn't even remotely consider some of those developments as they're going there for a more idyllic rural life, not to just transfer a suburban house to the countryside.
In many cases, the properties aren't even as spacious as some housing stock in Dublin or Cork in quite dense areas!

Surely the whole point of living there would be that you'd have a decent sized house with a bit of space, a garden, etc

The planners here were clueless and the banks and developers built projects that made absolutely no sense to begin with.

We had the whole thing backwards - you don't build housing with the hope of attracting businesses! You do the complete opposite.

chopper6 · 25-02-2014 12:04PM

SpaceTime wrote: »

In places like Leitrim the councils also forced 'mixed development' i.e. a mixture of small apartments and houses and town houses which are actually completely inappropriate to rural Ireland.

I know plenty of cases where small villages in Leitrim had developments built which consisted of townhouses with no gardens and basement flats under them.
While that might be appropriate in the centre of Dublin or Cork or even inner suburbs, who would want to live in a basement flat in a small village in Leitrim?

A lot of the houses they built too are also far too dense and have very little green space or garden space.

I know quite a lot of people who have bought houses in parts of Sligo and Leitrim but wouldn't even remotely consider some of those developments as they're going there for a more idyllic rural life, not to just transfer a suburban house to the countryside.
In many cases, the properties aren't even as spacious as some housing stock in Dublin or Cork in quite dense areas!

Surely the whole point of living there would be that you'd have a decent sized house with a bit of space, a garden, etc

The planners here were clueless and the banks and developers built projects that made absolutely no sense to begin with.

We had the whole thing backwards - you don't build housing with the hope of attracting businesses! You do the complete opposite.

I was in Dromad,Co Leitrim over the summer and there's an estate of completeely empty houses on the main street.

Two of them were broken into,knocked into one and used as a commercial cannabis factory.

Whoever says these empty houses fulfill no purpose is incorrect.

KyussBishop · 25-02-2014 12:05PM

Good comment on this Guardian article:

I think this shows that just building more houses will not solve the issue as the wealthy will just buy them up as investments.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice

Unless the banks start lending again, pretty good chance new houses in good locations, are just going to get snapped up by cash-rich wealthy folk - of which there are probably a good number, as a result of the economic crisis.

Ray Palmer · 25-02-2014 12:27PM

Trigger Happy wrote: »

There is still a need for class a office accommodation in Dublin.
.

There is a lot of brand new empty office space in Dublin and it's cheap to rent. It is also in city centre locations.

cournioni · 25-02-2014 12:34PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

There is a lot of brand new empty office space in Dublin and it's cheap to rent. It is also in city centre locations.

There's a few in the IFSC for sure.

Ray Palmer · 25-02-2014 01:20PM

everdead.ie wrote: »

I don't think that is the major problem if the jobs are there they will be filled the major issue is that companies come to Dublin a lot because it's fashionable. Every tech company wants to be a part of the "Silicon Docks" similarily in Finance they want to be part of the IFSC.

No quite. There are two IT companies I know of in Donegal. They are constantly looking for people to work in them. The reason being is they can't get people to work there. They now try to get people to telecommute and still have difficulty.

This is not an encouragement to other companies to try the same.

As for fashionable office locations, you are having a laugh. There are vacant places all around the IFSC and docklands.

The reason the businesses are in central locations is the available work force not fashion.

I for one am not going to move to Donegal in the hopes an IT company that made a poor choice in location is going to be a success. You need experienced people and if you can't get them your company is going to suffer. Experienced people are going to stay where the work is. A job is not for life especially in IT. You also need people from other companies/parent companies visiting. A quick trip to Donegal is not possible from the US but possible in Dublin and if you are going to other European locations it is handy too.

You put jobs where the infrastructure exists and the infrastructure is put where it can be best utilised, that means the cities

SpaceTime · 25-02-2014 01:29PM

That's the thing too.
You're made dependent on one or two companies. So wages aren't competitive and if they pull out or you're made redundant you've a lovely house in the middle of nowhere.

Cities have many alternative employers, suppliers, the ability to work contacts with multiple companies and ease of access to big markets abroad.

I can realistically be in London, Paris, Amsterdam etc for the day from Cork. It takes 12 - 15 minutes to be in the airport! I'm often on a flight in 35 mins from leaving the house if I've only hand luggage.

I've 200mbit/s broadband easily available etc etc etc

syklops · 25-02-2014 01:41PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

There is a lot of brand new empty office space in Dublin and it's cheap to rent. It is also in city centre locations.

As we have seen with residential proprety, brand new does not equal Class A.

SpaceTime · 25-02-2014 02:04PM

syklops wrote: »

As we have seen with residential proprety, brand new does not equal Class A.

A lot of stuff was just built with no idea who the customer was going to be. Without understanding what they need, you're potentially going to be unable to sell it.

A lot of what's built isn't great tbh. Companies have very specific needs much like home owners.

A lot of the apartment developments were lousy too. Many of the units have no storage and are ridiculously small.

Property isn't a commodity item really. A lot of stuff built here was built with speculative investors in mind and not end users' needs. You had speculators buying off plans and many of them really just wanted to make a fast buck and sell for more than they bought.
They could have been trading any commodity item and very few seem to have understood the market or the product.

So a lot of the empty units were all about getting lowest build cost per sq meter.

Victor · 25-02-2014 07:46PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

There is a lot of brand new empty office space in Dublin and it's cheap to rent. It is also in city centre locations.

The IDA and others have pointed to a shortage of certain types of office accommodation.

cournioni wrote: »

Instead, all of the money spent on infrastructure is spent in Dublin. Surprise, surprise.

So why does Tipperary have two motorways?

SpaceTime wrote: »

In places like Leitrim the councils also forced 'mixed development' i.e. a mixture of small apartments and houses and town houses which are actually completely inappropriate to rural Ireland.

I know plenty of cases where small villages in Leitrim had developments built which consisted of townhouses with no gardens and basement flats under them.
While that might be appropriate in the centre of Dublin or Cork or even inner suburbs, who would want to live in a basement flat in a small village in Leitrim?

Presuming it doesn't flood, lots of people are interested in living in apartments.

A lot of the houses they built too are also far too dense and have very little green space or garden space.

Not every one wants or needs a garden or has the skills to maintain one.

I know quite a lot of people who have bought houses in parts of Sligo and Leitrim but wouldn't even remotely consider some of those developments as they're going there for a more idyllic rural life, not to just transfer a suburban house to the countryside.
In many cases, the properties aren't even as spacious as some housing stock in Dublin or Cork in quite dense areas!

Well, blame your councillors. Could I get a copy for your submission to the county development plan?

Surely the whole point of living there would be that you'd have a decent sized house with a bit of space, a garden, etc

Average household size is about 3 people. Not everyone needs a 4-bed, 3-bath semi-d.

SpaceTime · 25-02-2014 07:50PM

Victor wrote: »

So why does Tipperary have two motorways?

Presuming it doesn't flood, lots of people are interested in living in apartments.

Not every one wants or needs a garden or has the skills to maintain one.

Well, blame your councillors. Could I get a copy for your submission to the county development plan?

Average household size is about 3 people. Not everyone needs a 4-bed, 3-bath semi-d.

None of that actually holds up in the market.
Vast majority of apartments in rural spots are empty or even decaying at this stage from what I've seen and the % of Irish people living in apartments is by far the lowest in the EU. Which would tend to equate to a cultural difference rather than a lack of apartments.

The quality of apartments on offer here is also quite poor compared to other Northern European countries.

It's the same in the UK too, there's a notion that they're 'transitionary' things that you might live in in your 20s and the whole idea of a 'flat' is still quite loaded with stigma in a lot of cases.

What people absolutely need vs what they're willing to live in are two very different things.

Not everyone absolutely needs a 4-bed, 3-bath semi-d. However, many of them aspire to a 5-bed, 4-bath detached house on an a large site and will compromise somewhere slightly less than that.

The obsession with bedroom count is also a weird Irish and British thing. In most countries they want to know the area of the house or apartment in Square Feet or Square Meters.

I often find that you end up with unrealistically small bedrooms here to increase the count to push up the price. Anyone can re-jig internal space with partition walls so it's the area of the floors that actually matters.

We've a lot of cases where what would comfortably be a 2-bedroom house ends up as 3-bedroom house by the addition of a pokey little box room.

Stavros Murphy · 25-02-2014 10:29PM

Lols at the "60,000 new construction jobs" anyway. Here's the news Duckies, anyone who was in construction and was worth a damn is still in construction, except they're getting paid in £ or $ of one sort or another. Newsflash Govvie boys - the UK construction industry is booming, a grand a week is the going rate already for ordinary joes and Canada, the USA and Australia got the rest. Not to mention the lifers who are working away here and never stopped, me included. I doubt there's 10,000 left, let alone 60,000.

noodler · 26-02-2014 10:48AM

Stavros Murphy wrote: »

Lols at the "60,000 new construction jobs" anyway. Here's the news Duckies, anyone who was in construction and was worth a damn is still in construction, except they're getting paid in £ or $ of one sort or another. Newsflash Govvie boys - the UK construction industry is booming, a grand a week is the going rate already for ordinary joes and Canada, the USA and Australia got the rest. Not to mention the lifers who are working away here and never stopped, me included. I doubt there's 10,000 left, let alone 60,000.

You should look at the breakdown of those currently on the Live Register with regards to their last held occupation.

77,000 men claim their last occuaption was "Craft and Related".

MadsL · 26-02-2014 10:51AM

noodler wrote: »

You should look at the breakdown of those currently on the Live Register with regards to their last held occupation.

77,000 men claim their last occuaption was "Craft and Related".

Perhaps there wasn't a category for Labourer.

noodler · 26-02-2014 10:55AM

MadsL wrote: »

Perhaps there wasn't a category for Labourer.

Alot of the emigration seems to have been people with third level degrees.

Despite popular belief, it seems that a smaller proportion of the emigrants were construction workers.

Long-term unemployment a bigger problem than emigration

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/long-term-unemployment-a-bigger-problem-than-emigration-1.1704360

donegal__road · 26-02-2014 12:21PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

No quite. There are two IT companies I know of in Donegal. They are constantly looking for people to work in them. The reason being is they can't get people to work there. They now try to get people to telecommute and still have difficulty.

This is not an encouragement to other companies to try the same.

As for fashionable office locations, you are having a laugh. There are vacant places all around the IFSC and docklands.

The reason the businesses are in central locations is the available work force not fashion.

I for one am not going to move to Donegal in the hopes an IT company that made a poor choice in location is going to be a success. You need experienced people and if you can't get them your company is going to suffer. Experienced people are going to stay where the work is. A job is not for life especially in IT. You also need people from other companies/parent companies visiting. A quick trip to Donegal is not possible from the US but possible in Dublin and if you are going to other European locations it is handy too.

You put jobs where the infrastructure exists and the infrastructure is put where it can be best utilised, that means the cities

the hard-drive manufacturer Seagate, have been in Derry for over 20 years and employ 1,400. They are situated approx 1 mile from the Donegal border on the Buncrana road.

If the IT company in Donegal you mentioned begins with the letter P, then I know a good few of their contract staff. Some of them come and go, one guy has just returned to Donegal after relocating to the US. He intends to stay here for the forseeable. At least four I can think of left because they were offered better paying positions in Dublin, it had nothing to do with Donegal as a location or a place to live.

Stavros Murphy · 26-02-2014 07:12PM

noodler wrote: »

You should look at the breakdown of those currently on the Live Register with regards to their last held occupation.

77,000 men claim their last occuaption was "Craft and Related".

They're all basket makers out on the islands. The ar5e fell out of the woven basket trade there a few years ago - economists linked the collapse to the decline in sales of christmas hampers. That and lads who were milking cows the week before the boom, heard the news and bought a b&q hammer and started calling themselves chippies.

sillyoulfool · 25-04-2014 11:55AM

Akrasia wrote: »

It's stupid really.

On one hand we have NAMA sitting on tens of thousands of vacant properties trying to artificially prop up property values, and on the other hand we have the government saying we need to build more houses because rents are too high

NAMA should be forced to publish a full list of every property that they own

When have the government given that as a reason? Link please.

Celly Smunt · 25-04-2014 11:56AM

There is no emigration apart from those going within the E.U, it's a two year cycle of holiday visas.

The high high high majority of people who left to Canada or Austrailia will be back or are back. Emigration isn't a problem,if anything it's helping.

60,000 Building Jobs, 400,000 empty houses.

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