Ireland has the highest proportion of under occupied dwellings in the EU.

Lumen · 16-06-2019 11:39am

How is under occupation defined?

My last house was a 125sqm "4" bed but the box room was used as an office.

Does that count as under occupied?

Graham · 16-06-2019 11:42am

STB. wrote: »

I do understand how and why these figures are leaked into the media

they weren't 'leaked' anywhere. It's part of the publicly available Eurostat publications.

As part of the statistics there are pretty clear explanations for over-occupied/under-occupied.

Graham · 16-06-2019 11:43am

Lumen wrote: »

How is under occupation defined?

For statistical purposes, a dwelling is defined as under-occupied if the household living in it has at its disposal more than the minimum number of rooms considered adequate, and equal to:

one room for the household;
one room per couple in the household;
one room for each single person aged 18 or more;
one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17 years of age;
one room for each single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category;
one room per pair of children under 12 years of age.

seasidedub · 16-06-2019 11:44am

Are the so called "under occupied houses" deemed to be so by virtue of number of rooms or by square metres?

In Ireland a "bedroom" can be so small you can barely fit a small single bed into it never mind storage space of any description.

I live in a 4 bed house of 130 sqm, my previous home was a 2 bed flat of 110 sqm. The point being you might have 3 beds and be one person or a couple, but the other rooms would be needed for storage. Irish houses are still not being build with good storage. I'm in the process of moving and even brand new houses I view have little or no storage. Nowhere to put shoes or coats in the typical narrow halls. Master bedrooms with one wardrobe - most people have far more clothes than one half of a shared wardrobe these days.

Never mind adult kids/grandkids wanting to stay from time to time, never mind people not wanting to leave a community etc.

If you own the house and can pay the bills, it's nobody's business and certainly not the government's. If people really want to go down that road of government determining how many rooms you need is be wary. If it's a social house, then yeah, you haven't paid for it so you should be downsized.

overkill602 · 16-06-2019 11:46am

mortgage paid homes are not benefited by the state....
under occupied social housing should be of more prominence they are free most with rent paid by sw and close to service and supports it is here we should try to properly maximize for those who want more/bigger free homes that will need those same service supports.
gifts are harder to take back so the social gravy train will not be stopped only for those who manage to board.

STB. · 16-06-2019 11:49am

Graham wrote: »

I see no weighting

under-occupied dwellings meaning that the dwellings were deemed to be too large, in terms of excess rooms and more specifically bedrooms, for the needs of the occupant household.

I know that government policy has been to abdicate its social housing responsibilities and push more and more controls onto private dwelling owners.

Are we now at the stage whereby the government should dictate what size homes people should live in. Surely this are private decisions dictated by means and the property market.

Or should we adopt some form of urban housing strategy that you might find in a communist country ?

Or how about the Prague model ?

Graham wrote: »

they weren't 'leaked' anywhere. It's part of the publicly available Eurostat publications.

As part of the statistics there are pretty clear explanations for over-occupied/under-occupied.

Who provides the statistics to Eurostat and how are Irish figures compiled ?

The relevance of this story appearing in the press at a time when we have a housing crisis is suspect. There is no context to the article.

Statistically speaking what percentage of governmental advisory and press staff these days are ex journalists ?

Graham · 16-06-2019 11:50am

seasidedub wrote: »

If you own the house and can pay the bills, it's nobody's business and certainly not the government's.

Discussion isn't about government, government proposals or government policy.

There is something amiss with how we plan, build and utilise housing.

Crying about 'housing crisis' while pretending abnormally high under-occupancy (across housing tenures) are not part of the problem would be a bit daft.

seasidedub · 16-06-2019 11:52am

And by the way - this idea that the desire to own ones home is unique or special to Ireland is rubbish. I've lived in several European countries and never met a single person who did not express a desire to at some stage own their own home. They may rent for longer etc, but most eventually buy. You can look at eurostats home ownership statistics and see a number of EU countries with higher levels of home ownership than Ireland.

Vienna in the news recently a lot, about social housing there. Doesn't mention that loads of Viennese even the ones renting from the city own a house in the mountains or by a lake and often retire there, ditto Finland - they all have weekend homes, but may have a "city" apartment on cheap local authority rent.

You have to understand what really happens in other countries before believing the lefty hype on the radio..

Graham · 16-06-2019 11:53am

STB. wrote: »

government policy has been to abdicate its social housing responsibilities

Social housing is less than 10% of all housing. It's not a social housing issue.

seasidedub · 16-06-2019 12:01pm

<MONSTER QUOTE SNIP>

And again - is under occupancy on the basis of rooms or square metres? Makes a big difference. A bedroom I Ireland can be smaller than the legal definition of a room in, say, Germany.

Lumen · 16-06-2019 12:02pm

Graham wrote: »

For statistical purposes, a dwelling is defined as under-occupied if the household living in it has at its disposal more than the minimum number of rooms considered adequate, and equal to:

one room for the household;
one room per couple in the household;
one room for each single person aged 18 or more;
one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17 years of age;
one room for each single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category;
one room per pair of children under 12 years of age.

Ok, so I think that means a 4 bed with kids under 12 requires 6 children to escape the underoccupancy tag.

Which is impossible since almost nobody is having families that size.

And even if it were possible, as soon as the kids hit 12 you need another three bedrooms.

I'm not surprised at the 70%.

Charles Babbage · 16-06-2019 12:07pm

seasidedub wrote: »

And again - is under occupancy on the basis of rooms or square metres? Makes a big difference. A bedroom I Ireland can be smaller than the legal definition of a room in, say, Germany.

This is the point exactly.

My house, like many others, has a "box" bedroom. I use this as an office, so that I don't have to travel to work everyday in rush hour. I am making good use of this space, but because it is a "bedroom" am I supposed to have an additional person in the house so that it is not under occupied?

These box bedrooms are the size of the walk-in closet in many developed countries.

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:07pm

Lumen wrote: »

Which is impossible since almost nobody is having families that size.

Good point.

From which you might infer we don't need as many houses with that many bedrooms.

STB. · 16-06-2019 12:10pm

Graham wrote: »

Social housing is less than 10% of all housing. It's not a social housing issue.

No but you are trying to make a direct link between housing density and occupation and a housing problem.

We don't have the same historical populations, housing culture - wants vs needs (rent vs buy). As a result the large housing monstrosities like say in Prague etc do not exist in Ireland.

Housing density figures in Ireland would be skewed by rural population centres and the associated low housing densities. That is skewing the figures for Ireland. How does Dublin compare ? What are we comparing the densities with ? Is it Prague like planning ? Is that more desirable ?

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:13pm

STB. wrote: »

As a result the large monstrosities you say in Prague etc do not exist in Ireland.

You can't be suggesting the two options are; under-occupied semis for everyone or Prague style tower blocks?

Lumen · 16-06-2019 12:16pm

Graham wrote: »

Good point.

From which you might infer we don't need as many houses with that many bedrooms.

Not for rent, because moving tenancy is relatively cheap and simple.

But owner occupied housing is inevitably stickier, and in any case 125sqm is not excessive for a family of four or five.

A measure based on floor area (say 30sqm + 30sqm per person) would make much more sense.

And obvs underoccupancy is only a problem where it's a problem. Do we care about half empty houses in Leitrim?

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:20pm

Lumen wrote: »

Do we care about half empty houses in Leitrim?

Is under-occupancy causing particular problems in Leitrim?

16-06-2019 12:20pm

Lumen wrote: »

Ok, so I think that means a 4 bed with kids under 12 requires 6 children to escape the underoccupancy tag.

Which is impossible since almost nobody is having families that size.

And even if it were possible, as soon as the kids hit 12 you need another three bedrooms.

.....

Graham wrote: »

Good point.

From which you might infer we don't need as many houses with that many bedrooms.

Or you might infer the under occupancy thing is a tad mad.

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:21pm

Augeo wrote: »

Or you might infer the under occupancy thing is a tad mad.

Because we have the whole housing thing so well sorted?

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:23pm

Graham wrote: »

You can't be suggesting the two options are; under-occupied semis for everyone or Prague style tower blocks?

What's with the strawmen in this thread....

He's saying theres a lot of factors at play historical and other things to cause housing to be different. Some of which we don't want to copy.

Nobelium · 16-06-2019 12:23pm

seasidedub wrote: »

And by the way - this idea that the desire to own ones home is unique or special to Ireland is rubbish. I've lived in several European countries and never met a single person who did not express a desire to at some stage own their own home. They may rent for longer etc, but most eventually buy. You can look at eurostats home ownership statistics and see a number of EU countries with higher levels of home ownership than Ireland.

Vienna in the news recently a lot, about social housing there. Doesn't mention that loads of Viennese even the ones renting from the city own a house in the mountains or by a lake and often retire there, ditto Finland - they all have weekend homes, but may have a "city" apartment on cheap local authority rent.

Any human being that doesn't fully own their own private property is going to be screwed over sooner or later.

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:25pm

beauf wrote: »

What's with the strawmen in this thread....

He's saying theres a lot of factors at play historical and other things to cause housing to be different. Some of which we don't want to copy.

I'd agree there is much about parts of other Nations housing/housing policy that we don't want to copy.

I don't recall anyone suggesting we should copy anything.

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:25pm

Graham wrote: »

Because we have the whole housing thing so well sorted?

Because people need understand to not to accept click bait headlines without questioning the validity and context.

STB. · 16-06-2019 12:29pm

Graham wrote: »

You can't be suggesting the two options are; under-occupied semis for everyone or Prague style tower blocks?

The population density in Dublin is 4,811 km2/sq. Comparatively Prague is 2,611 km2/sq. How does that stack up with the published Eurostat figures ? Is it lost in the dilution of housing densities in Ireland in including rural areas ?

I am suggesting that the needs and wants of different Ireland vs Europe are vastly different. We are not a rent culture. I have also suggested the other environmental reasons why the stats are meaningless.

Under occupied stats are meaningless. Markets and ones means dictate housing density. Unless you are suggesting that the government dictate what size house one lives in ?

Some might say that planning for this already exists through low and high density planning areas in LAPs ?????

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:29pm

Graham wrote: »

I'd agree there is much about parts of other Nations housing/housing policy that we don't want to copy.

I don't recall anyone suggesting we should copy anything.

Why else are we talking about Europe.

BarryD2 · 16-06-2019 12:30pm

lalababa wrote: »

Down in West cork & Kerry I was doing abit of canvassing type work a few winter's ago and the amount of unocuupied holiday homes was an eye-opener. I'm sure things are similar all along the coast.
What's to be done. ??

Parts of the Dingle peninsula are spectacularly overbuilt with holiday homes - how on earth did Kerry CoCo give them all planning - a national scandal IMHO. Ditto to some extent in coastal parts of Wexford.

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:31pm

beauf wrote: »

Why else are we talking about Europe.

because it's a meaningful comparison.

You will find comparisons with our European partners occur over an enormous range of sectors/activities.

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:34pm

STB. wrote: »

Markets and ones means dictate housing density. Unless you are suggesting that the government dictate what size house one lives in ?

Some might say that planning for this already exists through low and high density planning areas in LAPs ?????

Government absolutely does influence property sizes/occupancy through a multitude of avenues.

Planning, development, taxation........

It's those areas that need 'adjustment' to fix the other areas.

BarryD2 · 16-06-2019 12:34pm

STB. wrote: »

Or how about the Prague model ?

Yes for Dublin and Cork etc. If urban living is the future, that's the way to go.

Franz Von Peppercorn II · 16-06-2019 12:39pm

seasidedub wrote: »

And by the way - this idea that the desire to own ones home is unique or special to Ireland is rubbish. I've lived in several European countries and never met a single person who did not express a desire to at some stage own their own home. They may rent for longer etc, but most eventually buy. You can look at eurostats home ownership statistics and see a number of EU countries with higher levels of home ownership than Ireland.

Vienna in the news recently a lot, about social housing there. Doesn't mention that loads of Viennese even the ones renting from the city own a house in the mountains or by a lake and often retire there, ditto Finland - they all have weekend homes, but may have a "city" apartment on cheap local authority rent.

You have to understand what really happens in other countries before believing the lefty hype on the radio..

Actually that is true. Neither Ireland nor Britain have high ownership rates by European standards. Not anymore.

It’s a bit different from under occupied though.

STB. · 16-06-2019 12:40pm

Graham wrote: »

because it's a meaningful comparison.

You will find comparisons with out European partners occur over an enormous range of sectors/activities.

It is not meaningful Graham.

What you are saying is that our culture needs to change. The culture of wanting to own a home rather than living in a built to rent culture, some of those countries have drastic overcrowding as a result.

As already pointed out the figures are also skewed by rural Ireland and our landscape.

Eitherway, I don't think we are ready just yet to allow government policy to dictate what we can and cannot live in. Private ownership is dictated by means.

BarryD2 wrote: »

Yes for Dublin and Cork etc. If urban living is the future, that's the way to go.

Best of luck selling them Barry. They tried that for Social Housing in Dublin. It worked out well didn't it ? What we need is more Ballymuns.

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:41pm

BarryD2 wrote: »

Parts of the Dingle peninsula are spectacularly overbuilt with holiday homes - how on earth did Kerry CoCo give them all planning - a national scandal IMHO. Ditto to some extent in coastal parts of Wexford.

I've seen it in Wexford. Sligo, Leitrim is the same. It's like someone sprinkled 100s and 1000s of housing all over the country. Looks awful. We are seeing the same in Dublin now they allow any building no matter how jarring or out of place with its surroundings.

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:42pm

Graham wrote: »

Ireland has the highest proportion of under occupied dwellings in the EU.

70% of the population in Ireland were living in under-occupied dwellings in 2016.
In contrast, fewer than 15% of the population in Europe were living in dwellings deemed to be too large.

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/majority-of-underoccupied-dwellings-in-europe-found-in-ireland-37011949.html / Eurostat

So what was your point in posting this anyway. .

Graham · 16-06-2019 12:45pm

STB. wrote: »

It is not meaningful Graham.

What you are saying is that our culture needs to change. The culture of wanting to own a home rather than living in a built to rent culture, some of those countries have drastic overcrowding as a result.

That's not what I think, said or implied.

FYI I am absolutely, unequivocally supportive of home ownership.

beauf · 16-06-2019 12:53pm

Graham wrote: »

because it's a meaningful comparison.

You will find comparisons with our European partners occur over an enormous range of sectors/activities.

Maybe we should compare skiing....

It's a simplistic comparison perhaps even inane.

BarryD2 · 16-06-2019 12:56pm

beauf wrote: »

I've seen it in Wexford. Sligo, Leitrim is the same. It's like someone sprinkled 100s and 1000s of housing all over the country. Looks awful. We are seeing the same in Dublin now they allow any building no matter how jarring or out of place with its surroundings.

Presumably the houses in/ near Dublin are permanently occupied though, which is different. The holiday house/ holiday estate blight is a different matter. And perversely for people who want to actually live and work in these attractive areas, pushes the costs of housing up.

beauf · 16-06-2019 1:00pm

It's the same in that it's poor planning. That's all

STB. · 16-06-2019 1:07pm

Graham wrote: »

That's not what I think, said or implied.

FYI I am absolutely, unequivocally supportive of home ownership.

Yet you take a meaningless and unqualified stat as gospel.

Graham wrote: »

under-occupied dwellings meaning that the dwellings were deemed to be too large, in terms of excess rooms and more specifically bedrooms, for the needs of the occupant household.

Like I said throughout this thread, the article is poorly written and quantified, takes no account of ownership culture in Ireland, our island status, rural landscape, and most importantly economic centric planning on the east coast.

beauf · 16-06-2019 1:08pm

Or even the size of population. I'm sure that has an effect on the size of projects and what is viable.

Graham · 16-06-2019 1:10pm

STB. wrote: »

Yet you take a meaningless and unpublished stat as gospel.

It is published.

STB. wrote: »

Like I said throughout this thread, the article is poorly quantified and takes no account of ownership culture in Ireland, our island status, rural landscape, and most importantly economic centric planning on the east coast.

Struggling to see why owned houses built on the east coast would automatically make them more likely to be under occupied.

beauf · 16-06-2019 1:25pm

Well I'm out. Too much focusing on single issues and no analytical thinking here.

STB. · 16-06-2019 1:27pm

Graham wrote: »

Struggling to see why owned houses built on the east coast would automatically make them more likely to be under occupied.

And there I was thinking that you were reading my responses in detail!

I never said "houses built on the east coast would automatically make them more likely to be under occupied" Quite the opposite.

What I said was that so called "Under occupation" figures are diluted and skewed for Ireland due to the fact that rural Ireland is low density.

The demands for housing continue to be on the east coast, due to the economic demands and the vast population economic centre that is the greater Dublin Area.

Even so, the actual stats are meaningless as they do not account for a vast amount of cultural differences, landscape and environmental factors that make us differ from our European neighbors.

16-06-2019 1:39pm

Lumen wrote: »

Not for rent, because moving tenancy is relatively cheap and simple.

But owner occupied housing is inevitably stickier, and in any case 125sqm is not excessive for a family of four or five.

A measure based on floor area (say 30sqm + 30sqm per person) would make much more sense.

And obvs underoccupancy is only a problem where it's a problem. Do we care about half empty houses in Leitrim?

125 sq metres is very small, my build will be around 280sq metres excluding garage and will be just 3 of us living in it to begin with anyway.

16-06-2019 2:24pm

Graham wrote: »

Discussion isn't about government, government proposals or government policy.

There is something amiss with how we plan, build and utilise housing.

Crying about 'housing crisis' while pretending abnormally high under-occupancy (across housing tenures) are not part of the problem would be a bit daft.

Owner occupied properties are no ones business but their owners.
Social housing is another thing and under occupancy should be planned for with smaller units available once children reach a certain age. Or maybe all social housing in high demand areas limited to 2 bed properties. If the tenant wants a bigger property then they accept one in a less populated area.

Lumen · 16-06-2019 2:27pm

Howard Refined Salt wrote: »

125 sq metres is very small, my build will be around 280sq metres excluding garage and will be just 3 of us living in it to begin with anyway.

Plenty of space for many leather bound books, and I trust it will smell of rich mahogany.

Lackadaisical · 16-06-2019 2:32pm

I'd suspect one of the issues is we weirdly sell homes based on the number of bedrooms, rather than usable space.

So you'll see a 5 bedroom house being marketed rather than a particular floor space.

I find a lot of Irish homes have pokey bedrooms that were clearly designed to maximize the number for marketing reasons.

Also family sizes are smaller. If you went back to the 70s contraception was illegal or difficult to get and huge families were normal. So your a demand for large numbers of bedrooms in mid 20th century homes.

I also think we generally take an anglophone view of housing that's more like North America and Australia/NZ than most of continental Europe. Scandinavian countries can be a little more like that too.

If you look at that map the smaller dwellings seem to be largely in countries to the east, but so is the overcrowded dwelling issue.

bertsmom · 16-06-2019 2:38pm

I'm 37 and live in a four bedroom semi detached house on my own. I am not in any way sorry for this. I work full time sacrifice buying a lot of things ie electronic devices and iPhones etc.
I pay my mortgage and take no money from the state. I really feel the state should mind it's own business as long as I'm not asking for state assistance to pay for my home.
If the state wants to get single people living in one bedroom places perhaps it should start by looking at council homes with single occupancy.

16-06-2019 2:59pm

Graham wrote: »

Because we have the whole housing thing so well sorted?

10 years ago there wasn't a housing issue....occupancy rates would have been lower.

16-06-2019 3:02pm

Howard Refined Salt wrote: »

125 sq metres is very small, my build will be around 280sq metres excluding garage and will be just 3 of us living in it to begin with anyway.

You never got the landlord gig going Nox?
I hope the build goes better for you :pac:

brightspark · 16-06-2019 3:41pm

If someone has earned enough money to pay for large house who cares how many people live in it?

The taxes on both their income and on the property when it was bought etc have probably made it possible to subsidise those who haven't earned a cent yet still want to live where ever they want.

People often need a "spare room" or even a couple of spare rooms for when family members visit (e.g. a grandparent who stays over a few nights to help babysit etc) or even just for occasions such as Christmas etc.
If they can afford to purchase a large enough house whose business is it that it isn't fully occupied 24/7/365.

Even the widowed grandparent is entitled to have sufficient rooms to allow their family stay when they can.

However if someone cannot afford to own or even pay the full market rent on a property, then they should either move to a location where they can or accept that they cannot have a large house to themselves.

Ireland has the highest proportion of under occupied dwellings in the EU.

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