Why a rental crisis now?

Wanderer78

hotpursuit wrote: »

The banks get bailed out....

The rich get bailed out......

wait for the bail ins!

Citroen2cv

CramCycle wrote: »

where i currently live. It doesn't bother me though, I don't want 3 or 4 houses in the country, I want to live where I live, .

Yes, all of us rural folk have 3 or 4 houses each.

Citroen2cv

Deleted User wrote: »

Those businesses prefer to locate themselves in cities for pretty obvious reasons. There are some exceptions, but there are all sorts of difficulties with locating outside well-connected larger cities. Young people want to live in cities, and older people with children are much less likely to uproot themselves and move to Waterford or wherever on the back of a job offer. So you have to attract them where they are, which is in cities.

Not wanting to sound too harsh but the average tech company has literally zero interest in the currently unemployed of waterford or wherever else (sorry, not picking on Waterford!) And it would be a huge longshot to set up there hoping to attract people down from Dublin.

Until things change regarding where companies set up in Ireland, Dublin will continue with a rental crisis, a housing shortage, horrible traffic, and high childcare costs.

CramCycle

Citroen2cv wrote: »

Yes, all of us rural folk have 3 or 4 houses each.

If you had read my post you would have seen that the post I was quoting told me I could buy 3 or 4 houses in the country. This makes no difference to me, with no interest in getting into that side of the property market.

As someone who spent a third of my life living in rural Ireland, I am not sure why you are taking offence to this. I love my home county, love visiting it but I would not love living there, being able to afford multiple houses or a cheaper way of life is not the be all and end all, in fact its very far down my list of priorities.

Quality of life is better for me here, for some people it is better in rural Ireland, not sure why people can't see that just because they don't like Dublin, that many others would or vice versa.

I know a few people in my home county with 2 or 3 houses, sucked into the market like many others but the majority have one or are renting or living at home. I know some who will never leave and others who regret never leaving. I know some in Dublin with plans to settle back home in a few years, others who wouldn't cross the county border if there lives depended on it.

I could afford a 5 bedroom mansion in my native area, but that makes no difference to me when I would have not enough money to heat it, at least an extra hour every day to the nearest town in terms of commuting, there is one company in my industry there. If I want to go out with my partner, its either to the local or a taxi fare at least 5 times what it would be here to get in and home. The last time a public bus ran through there was over 20 years ago and that only went one day a week. When I was young and working in a bar in the town, I often would cycle it, much to the dismay of my mother who was worried I would be run over by those speeding/drinking not expecting a cyclist. From visits home I imagine little has changed.

I have old friends who leave before their kids are awake, and are home, if they are lucky, minutes before they fall asleep. Its not my cuppa tea. Commuting by foot or bike in Dublin keeps the weight of for me, and I always have PT to fall back on in case I have a ****ty morning, back in my home place, I have the car, arrive into work tired, less productive and generally unhealthier over time.

That suits some people, some people enjoy it. Just not for me, if it is for you, then enjoy it.

Villa05

There is a rental crisis because the government is the largest owner of property in the world through NAMA and the banks.

They are suffocating supply to drive up price, so the people are paying twice for the bailout. Higher taxes and higher rents/house prices.

Having followed this thread, it's easy to see how they get away with it.

anothernight

It seems that there's a lack of adequate supporting infrastructure and services in many places outside of Dublin (not everywhere!), which can be off-putting to skilled workers and MNC. I don't think it's just that young people want to live in cities, but that they want to have particular services available to them.

I certainly always thought I'd live in a city, as I grew up in one and that's what I was used to. When I moved to Ireland I lived in Lucan, which, despite being within Dublin county, had much less to offer than I would have liked, in terms of shopping, ease and cost of transport, not being married to a car, etc. I ended up relocating to the UK for work reasons and now live in a small town in what is considered a rural area. Much more rural than Lucan, and yet I have most things I need within walking distance. If I can't walk to what I want, I can drive for 5-10 minutes to get there or take public transport. If I really want to go to a large city, I can be there in 30min by car, or a little longer by train. 20min to the airport. A train ticket to London from here is nearly always £6 each way.

The only thing I miss is having a metro, but it wouldn't be realistic to have one in an area as rural as this one.

A large proportion of the population in my area are young skilled workers, since much of the engineering industry in this country is located around here. And yet I doubt most of those people would've wanted to move here if we didn't have a decent road network, public transport, healthcare, schools and plenty of entertainment options. I definitely wouldn't have moved here in that case (but then, I wouldn't have stayed in Lucan either).


If there is enough available housing stock outside of Dublin to support an influx of workers, infrastructure and services should be improved to attract people to those areas. It's not good enough to say "sure, you can drive to what you need". It's no use living within a 30min drive of an urban area, if the traffic there is insane, the bus service is terrible (I'm looking at you, Dublin Bus), and you can't go to a decent restaurant/nightclub/shopping area/whatever unless you get to that urban area. That's the kind of thing that puts off MNC's from setting up away from the urban nuclei of the country, where houses are still available for rent.

anothernight

anothernight wrote: »

It seems that there's a lack of adequate supporting infrastructure and services in many places outside of Dublin (not everywhere!), which can be off-putting to skilled workers and MNC. I don't think it's just that young people want to live in cities, but that they want to have particular services available to them.

I certainly always thought I'd live in a city, as I grew up in one and that's what I was used to. When I moved to Ireland I lived in Lucan, which, despite being within Dublin county, had much less to offer than I would have liked, in terms of shopping, ease and cost of transport, not being married to a car, etc. I ended up relocating to the UK for work reasons and now live in a small town in what is considered a rural area. Much more rural than Lucan, and yet I have most things I need within walking distance. If I can't walk to what I want, I can drive for 5-10 minutes to get there or take public transport. If I really want to go to a large city, I can be there in 30min by car, or a little longer by train. 20min to the airport. A train ticket to London from here is nearly always £6 each way.

A £6 ticket to London puts you in the greater London area - probably even within the M25 - it is definitely not rural in the context of what is being discussed in this thread. Out of curiosity can you check the population of the town you are living in now to compare with an Irish equivalent.

Edit: I agree that there is an infrastructural deficit (housing, roads, public transport, amenities) across the whole country, but I don't think it is necessarily a case of build it and they will come.

anothernight

Deleted User wrote: »

A £6 ticket to London puts you in the greater London area - probably even within the M25 - it is definitely not rural in the context of what is being discussed in this thread. Out of curiosity can you check the population of the town you are living in now to compare with an Irish equivalent.

According to Google, we're 23,350 in this town. I'm nowhere near the greater London area. The nearest proper city is Birmingham.


EDIT: actually, Coventry is closer.

Joe Late Notch

Joe Late Notch wrote: »

More tax breaks and higher grants would be two obvious ways.

This is strange talk indeed from Mr "No job - live at home. Cant afford to rent - live at home. Want kids and don't own a house or are not renting your own place with your own money, then no you cant have kids."

Here's an idea, if it doesn't make economic sense for companies to base themselves in rural ireland, then tough. Life's not fair, etc etc

anothernight

anothernight wrote: »

According to Google, we're 23,350 in this town. I'm nowhere near the greater London area. The nearest proper city is Birmingham.


EDIT: actually, Coventry is closer.

Fair enough - the train price threw me.

Lucan is a fair comparison to where you live now - but I don't think many on this thread would consider Lucan rural.

Castlebar as an example is about half the size of the town you live in it is about an hour and a half from Galway (about three times the size of your town) and three hours from Dublin.

Mayo county has about 23 people per sq km - Solihull has 1,200 and the West Midlands about 3,000 per sq km.

markpb

Citroen2cv wrote: »

Until things change regarding where companies set up in Ireland, Dublin will continue with a rental crisis, a housing shortage, horrible traffic, and high childcare costs.

That's not true at all. There's no reason why companies cannot continue to locate in Dublin if the government (local or central) provided high quality public transport and planned for higher density and higher quality accommodation. The former doesn't happen because Irish people have this odd belief that Dublin is "too big" and needs to share the love with the rest of the country. The latter doesn't happen because the city council seem to think that people like 2 story buildings.

anothernight

Deleted User wrote: »

Fair enough - the train price threw me.

Lucan is a fair comparison to where you live now - but I don't think many on this thread would consider Lucan rural.

Castlebar as an example is about half the size of the town you live in it is about an hour and a half from Galway (about three times the size of your town) and three hours from Dublin.

Mayo county has about 23 people per sq km - Solihull has 1,200 and the West Midlands about 3,000 per sq km.

I don't consider Lucan rural either; that was the point. Where I am is proper rural (if I walk for 5 minutes from my house I get to see sheep roaming on a field) and I have better services here than I ever did in Lucan, because over there I was expected to either drive everywhere, or use the terrible bus service to get into Dublin city centre. That's despite the fact that Lucan has a bigger population (45,861, according to Wikipedia) and it's closer to a city.


It's a bit of an endless cycle; no one wants to move somewhere without services and conveniences, but those won't appear unless people move there. However, having decent public transport and road networks would certainly help. I don't think there's been very good planning in the greater Dublin area (with my Lucan example: you have houses upon houses with not much more than houses in between). If that's how it is near the capital of the country, how bad is it in the countryside?

It seems to me that planning is somehow done reactively, not proactively. There's a 'fix the problem' approach, as if new infrastructure is only ever considered once the current systems are overstrained, instead of planning for the future. In fact, most of the probable culprits for the current rent crisis seem to be caused by different ways of trying to fix problems on an ad-hoc basis (example: rent allowances not paid on time due to bad admin, making landlords not accept RA recipients? Sure, banning the "rent allowance not accepted" line from ads will *definitely* solve the issue! :rolleyes:).

And what you're left with is a system where tenants aren't happy and landlords are also not happy, which causes them to simply leave the market if they can, further decreasing rental housing stock, etc etc etc.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

This is strange talk indeed from Mr "No job - live at home. Cant afford to rent - live at home. Want kids and don't own a house or are not renting your own place with your own money, then no you cant have kids."

Strange talk? In what way?

CramCycle

anothernight wrote: »

It seems to me that planning is somehow done reactively, not proactively. There's a 'fix the problem' approach, as if new infrastructure is only ever considered once the current systems are overstrained, instead of planning for the future.

Its always been the way here. Road works need to be done, someone says better not in case we need money for an emergency, then its a month before the end of the fiscal year and you have crews out all night getting triple time painting roads to waste up the budget.

Similar to what our water services are like, where piping wasn't upgraded, they just waited to see where the really bad breaks happen and then change that tiny section out instead of tackling the system and if an emergency occurs, have faith that the money will be found eg an emergency relief fund.

Admittedly Irish water should solve this but with all the messing who knows.

@anothernight

@anothernight I misread the tone of your posts entirely.

FrStone

David Mc Williams posted an article today calling for rent controls.

He also admitted that the 75% mortgage interest deduction is a tax break to landlords, as most here seem to disagree with.

riclad

A landlord is entitled to claim for expense,s like any other business,
loan interest is an expense ,
IF the government was to reduce the loan interest tax credit ,
they would put 100,s of landlords out of the rental business .
IS that a good idea in the middle of a rental crisis .
There,s 1000,s of landlords
who have never made one euro profit ,
as the mortgage is larger than the rental income plus tax,s .
OR people who bought apartments in the boom ,in negative equity ,
and have no choice but to continue as landlords even though the profit
per year is close to zero.
And they cannot afford to sell up the rental unit.

4ensic15

In 1998 tax relief for landlords on new purchases was abolished. This followed the first Bacon report. Rents doubled within a short time. Williams proposals sound like a great idea. Make money for those landlords who have no debt, impoverish the others and screw the tenants!

riclad

I think there should be rent controls ,
you can raise rent ,by say x per cent ,per year .maybe 10 per cent max.
You must give at least 3 months notice.
Some type of controls are needed ,
at least in citys ,dublin,cork, etc

4ensic15

riclad wrote: »

I think there should be rent controls ,
you can raise rent ,by say x per cent ,per year .maybe 10 per cent max.
You must give at least 3 months notice.
Some type of controls are needed ,
at least in citys ,dublin,cork, etc

A complete waste of time. A lot of resources would be tied up in trying to police it, attempts would be made to eject tenants so the new rent could be set higher next time round, less investment in accommodation, tenants having to put up with increases every year instead of benefiting from the cyclical falls.
More supply is all that is needed.

FrStone

riclad wrote: »

A landlord is entitled to claim for expense,s like any other business,
loan interest is an expense ,

Well this is the first myth, a business can not claim loan interest as an expense for a capital item. i.e. Loan Interest to buy an office would not be allowed.

riclad wrote: »

IF the government was to reduce the loan interest tax credit ,
they would put 100,s of landlords out of the rental business .
IS that a good idea in the middle of a rental crisis .
There,s 1000,s of landlords
who have never made one euro profit ,
as the mortgage is larger than the rental income plus tax,s . .

The next myth... as a landlord it should be considered rare that your rental income convers your mortgage, because in 25 years you will be mortgage free and will own a property that you paid very little towards. This is why for tax reasons your whole mortgage is not allowed as a deductible expense.

riclad wrote: »

OR people who bought apartments in the boom ,in negative equity ,
and have no choice but to continue as landlords even though the profit
per year is close to zero.
And they cannot afford to sell up the rental unit.

These are people who bought thinking that property prices would rise, they are often considered to be 'accidental' landlords. What would happen if theses landlords decided not to continue renting? They couldn't afford the mortgage and the property would be repossessed, further reducing property prices for those who wish to buy.

How many BTL mortgages are in arrears again?

FrStone

4ensic15 wrote: »

A complete waste of time. A lot of resources would be tied up in trying to police it, attempts would be made to eject tenants so the new rent could be set higher next time round, less investment in accommodation, tenants having to put up with increases every year instead of benefiting from the cyclical falls.
More supply is all that is needed.

That wouldn't be the experience of Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, Paris or Stockholm.

Obviosuly further building needs to take place too, but people's homes need to be protected too.

Shelga

I work in manufacturing in the midlands of England and agree with a lot of what anothernight says. At the moment I live in a lovely town that has lots to offer in terms of shopping, nightlife, scenery, transport links and work.

Now obviously England is far more densely populated than Ireland when it comes to providing decent infrastructure, but I do find it hard to justify moving back.

The options are basically: struggle to have a decent standard of living in Dublin due to cost, or be bored silly in the countryside. I even used a recent weekend trip to Galway to try suss out if I would enjoy living there. I really tried to like the idea of it being my home, and it does have a lot going for it, but I just couldn't do it.

Dublin or nothing for me. And seeing as property and living costs in Dublin are prohibitively expensive, I'll stay where I am for now.

The_Conductor

riclad wrote: »

A landlord is entitled to claim for expense,s like any other business,
loan interest is an expense ,
IF the government was to reduce the loan interest tax credit ,
they would put 100,s of landlords out of the rental business .
IS that a good idea in the middle of a rental crisis .
There,s 1000,s of landlords
who have never made one euro profit ,
as the mortgage is larger than the rental income plus tax,s .
OR people who bought apartments in the boom ,in negative equity ,
and have no choice but to continue as landlords even though the profit
per year is close to zero.
And they cannot afford to sell up the rental unit.

Riclad- as the others have so helpfully pointed out- this simply is not the case. Landlords have some specific expenses they can claim against their rental income- but not nearly to the same extent as any other business.

As for mortgage interest the 75% of interest landlords can claim- is wholly at odds with other businesses- who can claim 100% of mortgage or borrowing interest.

Property tax- is deductible for a regular business- not for a landlord.

Capital expenses- are deductible in the year of occurrence for other businesses- not for a landlord.

I can go on and on.........

You are not comparing like with like.

ibstar

lots of talk about security for the tenants this morning

https://www.newstalk.com/Reports-of-a-compromise-deal-on-rent-controls

I wonder if this will be followed up past the election time?

FrStone

FrStone wrote: »

Well this is the first myth, a business can not claim loan interest as an expense for a capital item. i.e. Loan Interest to buy an office would not be allowed.

Yes they can and 100% of it too.

Thargor

ibstar wrote: »

lots of talk about security for the tenants this morning

https://www.newstalk.com/Reports-of-a-compromise-deal-on-rent-controls

I wonder if this will be followed up past the election time?

It will all evaporate and go back to the rudderless status quo the minute the next election is over.

FrStone

Joe Late Notch wrote: »

Yes they can and 100% of it too.

No they can't....

FrStone

FrStone wrote: »

No they can't....

Yes you can.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/business/running/allowable-expenses.html

5th bullet point: Interest paid on any monies borrowed to finance business expenses/items

There is also capital allowances. A significant amount can be written off against tax with capital allowances.

L1011

FrStone wrote: »

No they can't....

I sincerely hope you don't have any involvement in the finances of a business...