104,000 investment properties sitting vacant

FillSpectre

Sponge Bob wrote:

The UK runs at a vacancy level of c 3% , and thats also taken from a census.



But feck it anyway, we Irish are different

Actually we are, look at the report this thread is about as it shows 10% is our average.

miju wrote:

this isn't the gated properties that the CSO are talking about ( according to one of my ex-colleagues in CSO )

this preliminary figure was arrived at from the enumerators speaking to postmen , management companies , neighbours OR in otherwords people who would actually know a property is vacant and obviously to get to a neighbour they can get into the estates

I know that I am just pointing out the article is making a claim when there were massive problems collecting data this time. The figures aren't CSO figures but anicdotal evidence from the collectors. I am not going think it is reliable sources of information. I think it is very misleading

miju

i agree it is misleading as the number of vacant properties could possibly be even higher if the gated estates that the enumerators couldn't access were included

anecdotal evidence it may be , but i'd be willing to bet that when the census figures are released it won't be too far off that mark (possibly slightly lower / possibly slightly higher but wouldn't be more than about 10-20k either way IMHO )

whizzbang

miju wrote:

anecdotal evidence it may be , but i'd be willing to bet that when the census figures are released it won't be too far off that mark (possibly slightly lower / possibly slightly higher but wouldn't be more than about 10-20k either way IMHO )

yep, I agree, it would tally with the number of properties been built and the lack of increase in rents.

Sponge Bob

10k or 20k off which figure, the anecdotal 300k empty one or the 104k investor one ?? . One in 6 is mainly empty where I live (based on observation) and would have been in mid april for sure.

miju

off the anecdotal one

FillSpectre

What is it as an acutal percentage of the overall housing stock?

Not a single house empty near me. The only place I have heard of is in newly built (0-3 years) and it is no bigger than 20% vacant. So where are all these vacant properties?

They aren't within the m50. If we are going anecdotal where are the empty places? Is anybody saying that in Dublin we have even close to 10% vacant?

Sponge Bob

FillSpectre wrote:

What is it as an acutal percentage of the overall housing stock?

Overall is min 1.5 - or max 1.8 m of which 300,000 is 20% empty or 16.7% empty . In that range anyway.

What the Indo Said

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1636317&issue_id=14226

Following inquiries the vast majority of those dwellings - some 275,000 - were identified as being vacant.

In a further 30,000 cases, there was nobody at home when census officials called on various occasions.

Almost two months after the census forms were filled in, 1.5 million forms have been completed and collected, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The CSO sent out some 1.8 million forms to addresses around the country in April.

Some of the 300,000 do not exist, eg a house in Rathmines that was once 10 flats and is now converted to one house but with the old doorbell still there . We can probably state with certainty that 250k are empty and habitable . 25k are empty and grotty and the other 30k (persons in no contact) often have Romanians and Albanian and Serb residents who dont answer the door to officialdom

250k out of 1.8m is about 14% . Thats 14% empty and habitable

Victor

!

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/8294126?view=Eircomnet

No-one there, so 300,000 homes not counted in census figures
From:The Irish Independent
Monday, 19th June, 2006

MORE than 300,000 homes across the country will not be included in the latest census - because there was no-one at home.

Enumerators delivering and collecting the census forms were unable to contact the inhabitants.

Following inquiries among neighbours, postmen and women and apartment block management companies, the vast majority of those dwellings - some 275,000 - were identified as being vacant.

In a further 30,000 cases, there was nobody at home when census officials called on various occasions.

Almost two months after the census forms were filled in, 1.5 million forms have been completed and collected, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

But those who have not had their forms collected still have time to get them in and be counted.

The laborious processing operation is now underway, compiling data such as how many rooms there are in our houses, types of household, job descriptions and the distance of our journey to work.

The CSO sent out some 1.8 million forms to addresses around the country in April.

During this process, an army of more than 4,400 enumerators pounded the pavements the length and breadth of the state, delivering the forms to homes and then collecting them a month later.

Their task finally ended on May 22.

Householders whose forms have not been collected are asked to post the completed document to Central Statistics Office, PO Box 2006, Freepost 3985, Swords, Co Dublin.

The CSO will now spend the next six months processing the forms, and a spokesperson assured those who have yet to post in their form that it will still be included.

While the definitive population results will not be made known until next year, preliminary figures, setting out the number of males and females in each electoral division, will be published on July 19 next.

These preliminary figures are based on population summaries prepared by enumerators.

Breda Heffernan

FillSpectre

Sponge Bob wrote:

250k out of 1.8m is about 14% . Thats 14% empty and habitable

Where are these empty properties? 1.8 million was the number of forms sent out not the number of habitable buildings in Ireland.

We are talking over 1 in 10 being empty. IN my area of say 100 houses there isn't one that is empty. There should be 15 so to make the average work out that 15 has to be some where else. Where? Are there massive areas where there are empty places is it all outside Dublin?

Gurgle

Sponge Bob wrote:

We can probably state with certainty that 250k are empty and habitable.

Thats an absolutely shocking number & contrary to all common sence tbh.
Why leave a property vacant?

I don't get it.

FillSpectre

Gurgle wrote:

Thats an absolutely shocking number & contrary to all common sence tbh.
Why leave a property vacant?

I don't get it.

Think about it for a minute. Do you know where there are tons of vacant property? It appear to me at least to be contrary to anything I see.

It is a valid question to say why are they being left empty?

There certainly is investors sitting on property and there always has been. Just walk off Grafton Street into the shopping arcades that are empty. Rather than rent it out cheaply they aren't rented at all. This makes sense for big businesses but small investors and residential property don't normally suit this. THere could be a bunch of idiots but I think the numbers are unrealistic.

Sponge Bob

Gurgle wrote:

Thats an absolutely shocking number & contrary to all common sence tbh.
Why leave a property vacant?

Tax writeoffs. Rural Renewal and Seaside Resorts (who goes to Bundoran for Census weekend in April ) ? See page 54 of 68 of this PDF . In April the seaside resorts are empty...pretty much. Thats 5300 tax designated units dotted around the coast sucking tax .

There are old houses in rural Mayo or rural Carlow where nobody lives and nobody has modernised them.

There are areas where investors buy and do not bother renting out because of capital appreciation, Tuam in Galway is one such .

Add them up.

Fillspectre could also be right, the empties are not where HE is but do go to Bundoran in April sometime Fill !

miju

and to meakstown / lanesborough in dublin while yer at it.

on a side note , did anyone hear a report on Newstalk this morning that senior members of the ECB are aggressively seeking a .25% rise NEXT month plus another .25% in August and if no rises are made they'll be seeking to rise the base rate by .50% in August as they are struggling to control inflation

FillSpectre

Sponge Bob wrote:

Fillspectre could also be right, the empties are not where HE is but do go to Bundoran in April sometime Fill !

If you are including hoilday homes they are not considered vacant property. All the tax breaks are not for full time homes some are for hoilday homes.

Vacancies before completion is standard and in new developments also take time to bed down.

It is not a case where I am but how the figures would need to match up. If you are saying 16-20% of all housing is vacant it is a wild statemnt. As there isn't anything noticable in my area or any area I see regularly where is this percentage from these areas. Say I know roughly 500 houses and only 5% are vacant, 25 yet it is suggested it is 100 vacant properties. It would be very noticeable. Now the offset of the 75 vacant properties that should be near me has to be somewhere. So another area of 500 places needs to have 175 to make up the 20% country wide average suggested. Now that is a 35% vacancy rate. Now there isn't 5% vacancy in my area IMHO not even close.

Now Dublin is the highest density in this country so if 20% is the norm for vacancies it would be very noticable. AS it is not very noticable you would have to have massive areas vacant around the country.

Any area you name could you please estimate how vacant it is and how large?

I just want to discuss how accurate this estiamte is. People are suggesting 1 in 5 places is vacant don't you think this would be easily seeable ether in the heavily populated areas or in mass under populated areas.

miju

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1636569&issue_id=14227 is the article that seems to be what Newstalk were talking about this morning

re vacancy, as i said when earlier in a thread when i walk out my front door in citygate / cityside i see 4 vacant properties , out the back i see another four , i walk down to the bins i see another 2 , i drive up st margerats road i can see 7 more (this is in an estate thats been completed for approx 1 year now) , when i walk to the spar i can see another 9-10 , all these properties are blindingly empty due to no furniture / blinds / dust covering windows etc (these are all apartments by the way , not so sure how many houses are unoccupied as i dont frequest that part of the estate too much)

in lanesborough (an estate about 2-3 years old) when i call into a friend the 2 ground floor apartments next too him are empty (have been since he's lived there which is about a year) across the road there's 2 houses empty as well (for about 4-5 months or so)

that's all within a 3 minute walk of where i live , obviously when you talk averages some places with have much higher vacancies than other area's hence it being an average

FillSpectre

miju wrote:

that's all within a 3 minute walk of where i live , obviously when you talk averages some places with have much higher vacancies than other area's hence it being an average

if I tell you I see 100 empty houses it sounds like a lot. If I say it is out of 100000000000 it doesn't sound like much! I have no idea how many appartments are in the complexes you are saying. It might be 1% or 90% saying the amount you see as vacant means nothing without context. I trying to understand what you are saying but you are only giving part of the picture any chance of giving the total number of houses there? I see in my area and friends etc... in Dublin urban areas built from 40s-90s are below 3% vacancies.

New appartment complexs still take time to bed in and 1 year isn't particularly long or exceptional. There are investors involved for sure but lets get a gauge on it rather than take two pieces of sepearate anecdotal evidence and blend them into a fact.

City Gate/ City Side is s lightly ill concieved IMHO anyway. I didn't know it by the name but the location. Once you get out of it all the areas close by would be running lower than 5% vacancy if you ask me.

miju

re: citygate there's 75-80 ish apts and about 30-40 houses so all in all a 23.3% vacancy rate

re: lanesborough - have no idea how many houses but the vacancy rate would be low enough in lanesborough i'd reckon about 2-3% at most

by the way , i wasn't using my post as an example for high vacancy rates , i was merely using it has an example that vacancies exist in Dublin and that not all of the 270,000 vacancies would be outside the pale

FillSpectre

miju wrote:

by the way , i wasn't using my post as an example for high vacancy rates , i was merely using it has an example that vacancies exist in Dublin and that not all of the 270,000 vacancies would be outside the pale

I never denied vacancies existed just that for the 20% vacancy rate to be true around the country it would be very very noticeable. Dublin would have to have a massive vacancy rate is certain areas and parts of teh country would need to be abandoned. Overall in Dublin I can't see the rate being above 10% I would say the same applies to the other cities and large towns in Ireland. Given this as a logical assumption there would need to be massive areas of empty properties. The media would be all over this if it was true, they are more likely to blow up certain information to make a story. That's what I think of indos article and how I think it is not true reflection of vacant properties.

If you are being told something is true yet you can see it isn't why would you beleive it?

Gurgle

Sponge Bob wrote:

Tax writeoffs. Rural Renewal and Seaside Resorts (who goes to Bundoran for Census weekend in April ) ? See page 54 of 68 of this PDF . In April the seaside resorts are empty...pretty much. Thats 5300 tax designated units dotted around the coast sucking tax .

Ah, so (for example) every chalet in Mosney (pre its current use) would have been counted as an empty residence under this definition.

Sponge Bob

Gurgle wrote:

Ah, so (for example) every chalet in Mosney (pre its current use) would have been counted as an empty residence under this definition.

Mosney is one unit a la a hotel I would have thought.

FillSpectre

Gurgle wrote:

Ah, so (for example) every chalet in Mosney (pre its current use) would have been counted as an empty residence under this definition.

It certainly would by the enumerators hence me saying it is not a very reliable number. We would notice a 20% vacancy was my other point.

jdivision

I live there too. Not all of them have been launched onto the market yet which is why they're vacant - the developer believes they will appreciate further the longer he waits to sell them. Two-beds there were making around e270,000 in January, Now they're e345,000 plus. There was a release of two-bed apartments in citygate two weeks ago. That's a huge capital appreciation in less than six months.

miju wrote:

re: citygate there's 75-80 ish apts and about 30-40 houses so all in all a 23.3% vacancy rate

re: lanesborough - have no idea how many houses but the vacancy rate would be low enough in lanesborough i'd reckon about 2-3% at most

by the way , i wasn't using my post as an example for high vacancy rates , i was merely using it has an example that vacancies exist in Dublin and that not all of the 270,000 vacancies would be outside the pale

jdivision

By the way has anybody mentioned second homes. Not holiday homes in the tax incentive way but homes that people live in themselves at times during the year. They would technically be vacant

miju

jdivision wrote:

I live there too. Not all of them have been launched onto the market yet which is why they're vacant - the developer believes they will appreciate further the longer he waits to sell them. Two-beds there were making around e270,000 in January, Now they're e345,000 plus. There was a release of two-bed apartments in citygate two weeks ago. That's a huge capital appreciation in less than six months.

according to my landloard who's palsy with the developer they've all been sold but hey chinese whispers and all that jazz