What will happen to all the new/empty houses after another 5 years?

Zamboni

jackiebaron wrote: »

Also Mountjoy should be shutdown and you could put all the inmates in one of these ghost estates with a big concentration camp-style fence around it. Not ideal but at least it would address the overcrowding and "slopping out" problem.

Aye.
Perfect for non violent offenders like unpaid fines etc and people who don't let the ESB access their property...

sh1tstirrer

jackiebaron wrote: »

I was just thinking. The biggest problem with most of these ghost estates is that they are in the arsehole of nowhere, i.e. they are not near any amenities. Instead of them being nowhere near infrastructure, why not "bring infrastructure to them"?

What I mean is take the largest of these ghost estates and then build a regional technical college right beside them with a few shops, laundromat and playing field. That way then all the empty houses can be facelifted as student accomodation. Obviously there's only so many colleges a country can have but if the likes of the universities that we already have are turning away foreign students in their droves because of a shortage of places then surely a few more institutes of high learning dotted around the country wouldn't go amiss with an already ready supply of lodgings.

Just a thought.

Also Mountjoy should be shutdown and you could put all the inmates in one of these ghost estates with a big concentration camp-style fence around it. Not ideal but at least it would address the overcrowding and "slopping out" problem.

Where exactly are these estates in the middle of nowhere? Any I see are in towns and villages with schools, shops and pubs nearby. Using housing estates as substitutes for a prisons now that is a silly idea. Do you realize what it would cost to run them :rolleyes: It costs 70k/year to keep each prisoner as it is, your brainwave would double that figure

miss no stars

johndaman66 wrote: »

Just as the wholesale building of these houses was shortsighted so too is shortsighted to go on an all out frenzy of knocking them. Granted it probably will be necessary in certain cases but these will be limited I think.

There is no doubt in my mind that they will shift at a certain price. ...

...Some of these houses may have the odd smashed window here and there, the odd one with rodent problems, some where the hot water cylinder will have being nicked...such issues can be easliy rectified... doesn't necessairly warrant knocking the house.

The odd smashed window? Making it not weather tight. Rain gets in and wets all the timber elements - bye bye timber elements - all need replacing. Roof is then comprimised, water gets in all down walls and gets into the mortar. Winter hits and water in mortar freezes, cracking everywhere. CBA is right - it'd probably cost less to knock them than to carry out remedial works!

johndaman66 wrote: »

I would suggest that there are more than you might imagine in the countryside that could be saved. There are still jobs and househunters in the countryside too you know despite everything. Some people rather country living regardless of their job locations.

Doubt it. They've been left out to rot for quite a long time now already.

johndaman66 wrote: »

Having said that there is no doubt in my mind that a large wallop of poorly constructed and half constructed property, some of which may have being compromised as a result of being exposed to the elements, should and will eventually be demolished, both in the countryside and in cities/ urban areas. Remember there is an absolute glut of vacant properties in towns and cities too..perhaps its a more serious problem than in the countryside, where vacant properties really stand out. You will not convince everybody to move into the cities and towns and you are never too severly far from an urban area in this country regardless of your countryside location

Precisely. Any that aren't weather tight are at this stage a long way from habitable or safe.

By the way, it's not just the next few years we're talking about here. People should be able to buy a house and expect to be able to live in it for 50 years with only minor upgrades -no big structural work in that time unless they want to change it up a bit. Those houses might stand now - there's no guarantee that they'll still stand 20 years down the line without major rehabilitation works done now.

johndaman66 wrote: »

Just to use an unfinished estate in a countryside town not too far away from me as an example. To my untrained eye it would seem that the structure of the houses are complete apart from windows. I would imagine services are already in place only to be connected. Footpaths are laid. Other than that it would seem that roadways around the estate need to be tarred and minimal landscaping to bring the houses to turnkey condition. I'm by no means a quantity surveyor but would imagine it would cost as much if not more to demolish the houses and return to green fields than it would to complete them. Again I'm no expert but would question if this land would be suitable for agriculture after as would imagine watertables would be upset and what not...I'm open to correction/ being properly informed on that one though.

So they aren't weather tight. Structure being complete doesn't mean that the structure is safe after being left to the elements. We're not talking about fixing up the plaster work here, we're talking about repair to the structure itself. That WILL cost, but yeah a CBA would need to be carried out to determine whether pumping 40k into demolishing it is better than pumping 80k into fixing it and selling it at a price at which it WILL sell.

johndaman66 wrote: »

I know there are many people who commute a hell of a lot further to and from Limerick city on a daily basis than the distance this town is from Limerick. As such I feel that there is absolutely no doubt that these houses will clear at a certain price.

I do appreciate that the government will need to act fast enough in certain cases where half finished housing units are being compromised by the elements. But that does not mean any less credible results assuming the exercise is independantly carried out in a professional and unbiased manner...just a case of prioritising certain estates over others...

You said it yourself.

Breise Breise wrote: »

Here is an opinion piece that I wrote for an Irish magazine in Australia. The map illustrates exactly what one member has already posted, that houses were being built in very remote parts of Ireland. The builders, banks and the government all made money out of the housing boom in Ireland, the builders on sales, the banks on loans and the government on stamp duty for each house sold. It was essentially an artifical housing boom.

Please read the article and feel free to leave a comment,
http://breisebreiseleighgoleire1969.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/that-is-no-country-for-old-men/

Thanks

More here: http://www.cif.ie/news-events/current-news/new-housing-supply-data-for-every-county/


Personally I think the best thing to do is offer entire unfinished estates up for sale at minimal price. In the countryside say put them up for sale at 20 euro an acre under the provision that they must be returned to farmable land (or prior use if it wasn't a farm beforehand, say forested area). In built up areas you could sell for maybe 50 euro an acre with the provision that the land be returned to former (or similar) useage. So if it used to have 5 inhabited houses on it and now has 40, return it to 4-8 decent sized, well finished, habitable houses. If its use had been industrial but there are now lots of inhabited housing areas around, change use to small scale commercial or small scale industrial. That way the new owner bears the brunt of the demolition cost, communities benefit from the bloody things being gone and something appropriate back in their place, the state benefits as it's no longer their problem, they've recouped SOME costs.

BostonB

They should should be strip some of them, to finish other ones, it has to be cheaper than building new. Use them for social housing where appropriate. Then demolish whats left.

Monty Burnz

Interesting that we've gone from a situation where people thought they'd be priced out of the market and panic-bought places miles away from their work for crazy prices, to the current situation where many of these properties actually have negative value - it would be cheaper for the authorities to give you some money plus the deeds to the house for free than have to destroy them.

BostonB

True.

gozunda

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Interesting that we've gone from a situation where people thought they'd be priced out of the market and panic-bought places miles away from their work for crazy prices, to the current situation where many of these properties actually have negative value - it would be cheaper for the authorities to give you some money plus the deeds to the house for free than have to destroy them.

The problem with this scenario is that thses houses dont exist in isolation. They are in estates. Its mot just the houses that are unfinished and deteriorating, the roads, pathways, sewage systems, piping, lighting etc of the esates as w hole lie in various stages of completion varying from significant health and safety concerns to estates that simply cant be lived in because there is no sewage system to connect to...roads that cant be driven on....green areas that look like the battle of the somme and that many of the units are rapidly deteriorating. Leave a house (esp a new built one) not weatherproofed or completed and without heating to dry new plaster etc and these houses become unlivable in very very quickly.

Monty Burnz

gozunda wrote: »

The problem with this scenario is that thses houses dont exist in isolation. They are in estates. Its mot just the houses that are unfinished and deteriorating, the roads, pathways, sewage systems, piping, lighting etc of the esates as w hole lie in various stages of completion varying from significant health and safety concerns to estates that simply cant be lived in because there is no sewage system to connect to...roads that cant be driven on....green areas that look like the battle of the somme and that many of the units are rapidly deteriorating. Leave a house (esp a new built one) not weatherproofed or completed and without heating to dry new plaster etc and these houses become unlivable in very very quickly.

I'm not even referring to the unfinished houses - I think there are built houses with negative value out there!

gozunda

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I'm not even referring to the unfinished houses - I think there are built houses with negative value out there!

I think that most individuals who bouht houses in the last couple of years are in negative equity -- I am refering to "cheaper for the authorities to give you some money plus the deeds to the house for free than have to destroy them"

Even where some of the the houses may be finished the infastructure of the estate is often not and the houses unlived in and unheated start to detiorate quickly.

The completly finished estates with finished houses generally are not the ones with the problem...these can be easily leased / sold / local authority use etc. Its the other unfinished houses in unfinished estates that make up the bulk of the problem

Monty Burnz

When I say 'negative value', I mean that you couldn't even give them away and expect people to maintain them. I'm suggesting that you might have to say to somebody, 'we'll give you 10k plus the house if you undertake to maintain if for the next 10 years' or whatever. Without agreeing a contract for the underlined part, people would take the freebie houses and many would just let them rot, causing others to abandon and let theirs rot and so on...

gozunda

Monty Burnz wrote: »

When I say 'negative value', I mean that you couldn't even give them away and expect people to maintain them. I'm suggesting that you might have to say to somebody, 'we'll give you 10k plus the house if you undertake to maintain if for the next 10 years' or whatever. Without agreeing a contract for the underlined part, people would take the freebie houses and many would just let them rot, causing others to abandon and let theirs rot and so on...

OK understand however the point I was making that many of these houses cant be lived in because the lack of completed infastructure of the estates eg sewage, roads, lighting makes inhabiting such houses finished or otherwise often impossible

Or are you refering to individual houses NOT built in estate type developments?

Monty Burnz

gozunda wrote: »

OK understand however the point I was making that many of these houses cant be lived in because the lack of completed infastructure of the estates eg sewage, roads, lighting makes inhabiting such houses finished or otherwise often impossible

Yup, I take your point.

gozunda wrote: »

Or are you refering to individual houses NOT built in estate type developments?

I'm just referring to houses that are complete and ready to live in, regardless of their situation. We may not be there yet, but I can see a time where owning one of these poorly situated houses is seen as much as a nuisance as an asset.

johndaman66

miss no stars wrote: »

The odd smashed window? Making it not weather tight. Rain gets in and wets all the timber elements - bye bye timber elements - all need replacing. Roof is then comprimised, water gets in all down walls and gets into the mortar. Winter hits and water in mortar freezes, cracking everywhere. CBA is right - it'd probably cost less to knock them than to carry out remedial works!




Doubt it. They've been left out to rot for quite a long time now already.


Precisely. Any that aren't weather tight are at this stage a long way from habitable or safe.

There is no doubt you are right in that the odd smashed window and houses which are not completely weather tight will have a knock on affect and more serious issues will materialise in time. But I do feel your points are somewhat overly pesamistic tbh. Remember that although the house may be built and sitting there for a number of years the window may have being smashed in recent times. I think it is a bit extreme in the least to automatically assume a house will need to be knocked because theres one or 2 smashed panes of glass in it. Yes in certain cases such houses would be gone past the point of saving them but I would suggest such would be the exception rather than the rule.

I'm sure timeberframe houses would be particularly suspectable to rot and deterioration over time if not made completely watertight. I would suggest it would take much longer than you might seem to imagine for the structure of a concrete built house to be compromised if not completely watertight. There may of course be cases where if second fix was already completed the house may need to be gutted inside and redone.

Of course each of these houses should be subjected to a structural survey, regardless. I think its madness to assume you will need to go helter skelter with a knocking ball because there is the odd smashed window here and there.

miss no stars wrote: »

By the way, it's not just the next few years we're talking about here. People should be able to buy a house and expect to be able to live in it for 50 years with only minor upgrades -no big structural work in that time unless they want to change it up a bit. Those houses might stand now - there's no guarantee that they'll still stand 20 years down the line without major rehabilitation works done now.

You say 50 years, I say 80 as that would generally seem to be the ballbpark figure for life expectancy of a concrete structure in a climate such as ours. Of course as I afore mentioned structural engineers reports are vital on these houses (as with any new house of course) before they are pammed of on unsuspecting members of the public. That would be your best guarantee that no major remedial work is needed 20 years down the line.

celticcrash

As for knocking the houses for 35 thousand euro, Houses are hardcore,
There are a lot of landfill sites that take this hardcore for 0 euro,
0 euro
0 euro
0 euro
Yes, you dont pay to fill someones site,
If someone has a landfill site and has permission to fill it,than they need it
filled. The builders landscapers and truckers know this.
Give the owner the price of a few drinks, as its known in the business.

So out of this 35 thousand euro, how much is spent knocking a house?
1 plumber
1 sparks
2 labourers
15 ton digger and driver
1 tipper truck and driver
2 big skips for non hardcore
Cost all in 5k tops, thats a handy 30 thousand for one house
One days work for the demolisher.
He could backhand half of this, say 15 thousand a house a day and
He would only be making 75 thousand a week.
Oh I for got the landscaping, four tons of top soil, grass seed
The digger would spread this in 15 mins tops, the boys meaning labours
would rake it in another 15 mins tops,
County council or city council, thats where the Tds of this country
Learn their trade, sharpen their claws,