Poor quality of rental properties in Ireland..

kneesox

No lol, I never said anything like that and I actually meant different house I think, sorry about confusion. There was shower on the wall, just almost above toilet without any basin or curtain at least.

Speedwell

My last apartment in America had an interesting arrangement in which the toilets and shower were separate. Think of three small rooms in a row. The first room was a small cubicle that contained the ensuite toilet. It connected with the bedroom by a door in front of the toilet (the handwashing sink was just outside the door in a small alcove). Beside the toilet, there was another door that led to an enclosure that contained the tub/shower and a press for towels. On the opposite side of the tub/shower enclosure, through another door, there was a larger room that contained another toilet and full double-sink cabinet. That room connected with the hallway. If you were taking a shower and didn't want to be interfered with from either side, you could lock either door. It's a somewhat unusual arrangement even in America, but it's not unheard of.

kneesox

Look up first house that comes up in Belfast search. This is reasonable standard to me, looks at least like something was done in the house in the last 10 years!

18 Rockmore Road, Falls, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT12 7PD

-and it costs less than 700€! That's reasonable

Stheno

kneesox wrote: »

No lol, I never said anything like that and I actually meant different house I think, sorry about confusion. There was shower on the wall, just almost above toilet without any basin or curtain at least.

That makes more sense

kneesox wrote: »

Look up first house that comes up in Belfast search. This is reasonable standard to me, looks at least like something was done in the house in the last 10 years!

18 Rockmore Road, Falls, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT12 7PD

-and it costs less than 700€! That's reasonable

Would be illegal to rent down here, there is no cooker!

Butters1979

kneesox wrote: »

No lol, I never said anything like that

Yes you did:

kneesox wrote: »

Ok sorry, but I think you have been living in a woods or haven't seen the world if you think there is nothing wrong with that. Not trying to insult anyone but this house was ok maybe 20 year ago or 30!

And you said it quite patronizingly as well. And then you said:

kneesox wrote: »

Ok so, if it was done nicely and was newer there maybe would be nothing wrong with toilet being close to bath..

The backtracking begins

kneesox wrote: »

and I actually meant different house I think, sorry about confusion..

Really? A different house in Swilly road, Cabra, Dublin 7 on daft.ie for €1500?

kneesox wrote: »

Was going to paste example from daft here, but wouldn't allow me.
Maybe have a look yourselfs at daft -house -Swilly road, Cabra, Dublin 7, 1500€!
FFS, those armchairs! boiler behind TV in sitting room! shower together with a toilet! CRINGE

Fair enough, except:

kneesox wrote: »

Thank You! Disgrace for 1500€ isn't it!

And then:

kneesox wrote: »

Look up first house that comes up in Belfast search.

OP quickly googles for something else to back up the argument. First thing he finds. Something in the North. On the Falls Road !

You're backtracking because its been pointed your standards are unreasonable. That's all.

dearg lady

I have to say, that place in Cabra is a bit grotty, I would tolerate it, but it's not great. However, expecting a separate toilet and shower just seems a bit bizarre!!!

kneesox

You would tolerate it for 1500€ lol. Well I would not tolerate place like that for 800 and reg. other post, you just must have too much time in your hands quoting me like that...
I really don't care if toilet is together or separate as long as its renovated and good quality, what I meant I have explained (saw one bathroom with shower being just on the wall beside toilet without any divider or basin.

dearg lady

kneesox wrote: »

You would tolerate it for 1500€ lol. Well I would not tolerate place like that for 800 and reg. other post, you just must have too much time in your hands quoting me like that...
I really don't care if toilet is together or separate as long as its renovated and good quality, what I meant I have explained (saw one bathroom with shower being just on the wall beside toilet without any divider or basin.

Unfortunately people don't always have a choice! The house itself looks fine, but that furniture is definitely a bit worse for wear.

Oh getcha now on the shower, yeah, I have seen some like that, wouldn't be into it!

12Phase

One simple reason : demand is huge and supply is very limited.

Landlords simply do not have to put any effort in to rent a house. People will rent any old junk heap and pay high rents for it. It's similar or worse in parts of the U.K., particularly London

Why would you renovate when a vaguely hovered house with decor from 1986 will rent as quickly as a modern home ?

Germany and elsewhere have healthy rental markets, Ireland absolutely does not.

Renting here is still seen as something that's a huge compromise and you'll get people making snide comments about how "you're only renting".

All in all, Ireland has a diabolical situation with property shortages and it hugely diminishes quality of life for a lot of people.

It is likely to cause retention issues for the multinationals seeking to recruit continental Europeans too.

kneesox

Thanks for reasonable reply 12Phase.

-dearg lady -that's the point of the thread! Why people don't have choice and why it is so bad.
House from daft is only random example.

dearg lady

TBH, I don't think you'd ever get a 3 bed for 800 in Dublin, so yeah, your expectations are ridiculous

kneesox

I never said in Dublin. Unfortunately your standards of living are poor and ridiculous. Open your eyes and see how rest of civilised world is living people.

dearg lady

kneesox wrote: »

I never said in Dublin. Unfortunately your standards of living are poor and ridiculous. Open your eyes and see how rest of civilised world is living people.

Cabra is in Dublin.

kandr10

I think the comparisons to the states and Europe are silly considering long term leases are more common there. Buying furniture to suit different places every year (potentially) would get crazy expensive. That said, if you own a standard sized bed its be handy, assuming a landlord would be happy to put his own furniture in the bin/storage.

Speedwell

kandr10 wrote: »

I think the comparisons to the states and Europe are silly considering long term leases are more common there. Buying furniture to suit different places every year (potentially) would get crazy expensive. That said, if you own a standard sized bed its be handy, assuming a landlord would be happy to put his own furniture in the bin/storage.

The longest-term lease I've ever seen in the US is 18 months. It's more usual to see one-year renewable leases. I used to renegotiate my lease every single year. Also, nobody buys furniture to suit their new apartment every time they change apartments in the US unless they're rich AND crazy. Apartments mostly have minimum and standard room sizes, and are usually decorated in plain neutral colors that you need permission to change. And sometimes people do switch out a certain number of pieces of furniture, so there is a large trade in secondhand furniture; nobody looks down on you for it, either. You're most likely to hear, "wait till you see the awesome sleeper sofa I scored for 200 dollars".

handlemaster

kneesox wrote: »

Look up first house that comes up in Belfast search. This is reasonable standard to me, looks at least like something was done in the house in the last 10 years!

18 Rockmore Road, Falls, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT12 7PD

-and it costs less than 700€! That's reasonable

You might as well reference prices in liverpool and Dundee also... Dublin is where people want to live. Why dont you buy yourself a property in dublin and rent it out at 700€ ? Why not ? There you have your answer

12Phase

kneesox wrote: »

I never said in Dublin. Unfortunately your standards of living are poor and ridiculous. Open your eyes and see how rest of civilised world is living people.

The issue here is that historically very, very few people rented. It's a relatively new phenomenon and it's still not really functioning.

We still have one of the highest level of home ownership vs rental in the world. Irish people tend to absolutely obsessed with owning property compared to most of the rest of Europe.

That's basically created a two-tier experience of Ireland. You can buy something quite nice, but if you're forced into the rental sector because you're not here permanently or you cannot qualify for a mortgage, it puts your standard of living through the floor.

Also, you're in Ireland just after a massive property crash. There has been no construction of housing here since probably about 2009 due to the banking collapse so. That's resulted in very little property being available. At the peak of the boom 100,000 extra homes per year were being built. For the past few years almost none have.

On top of that, local 'first time buyers' (or would be firs time buyers) are no longer being granted mortgages as easily as they would have before the crash. The result of that is many people being pushed into the rental market that wouldn't normally be.

All of that is piling pressure onto an already totally dysfunctional rental market with very little supply, mostly run by individual amateur landlords rather than investment funds and so on and it's driven rents way too high.

It's also what's caused the homelessness crisis as the state hasn't built social housing in decades and the private rental sector is now out of reach for people at the bottom rung, in cities anyway.

The vision in the 1990s and 2000s was that instead of building social housing, property developers would be incentivised to build 'social and affordable' homes as part of mixed developments. Due to intensive lobbying and snobbery, they were allowed to simply pay local councils a levy to get out of this. The result of that was little or no social housing was built and the money got absorbed into council budgets for other services.

I would also add that about 69.7% of households in 2011 were owned by their occupiers / mortgaged. (That had been 76% a few years earlier).
Because the people who were renting were either people in temporary setups : students, short term lets etc or people who had recently moved here and didn't have a vote, politicians simply didn't care about that at all. Those in long-term private rental scenarios tended to be people who simply didn't have any political voice.

Result is that the system is entirely balanced towards small landlords, not towards creating a solid rental system.
To make it really work, you'd need to bring in funds to invest in serious property and quality of build and so on for long term leasing. None of that's happened.

It has the potential to make Ireland a very unattractive place when it comes to companies trying to recruit talent from elsewhere in Europe as there simply isn't any option to live here for 2,3,4+ years in comfort and stability without buying a house.

Busier parts of the UK, especially SE England / Greater London are as bad or worse. It's also creating a fairly horrible lifestyle as you can be on pretty good money and living in a hovel.

I think what you're seeing reflected in our elections here is partly the fact that the formerly quiet or 'voiceless' rental sector is suddenly full of 20/30-somethings who can't get onto the traditional property ladder and they're angry and voting for alternative parties.

FF and FG are very much catering towards a large, middle-class, middle-of-the-road, established voter. They've never really given a toss about people who are 'only renting' as is evidenced by all of their policies for decades and decades.

Even now, in the middle of a housing crisis, I am seeing no solid proposals from any of the major parties at all. It's all about tweaking things at the edges and trying to encourage yet more small time, low-funded speculators to flip property.
We really need to bring in some kind of serious alternatives.

--

I would add that Ireland and Britain also come from a history of high inflation. So, the usual approach her to accommodation was to get the biggest mortgage you could possibly afford, struggle for a few years and due to high inflation, it would reduce in size relative to your income far more rapidly and a notion that prices could only go up.

The Euro brought price stability and the crash saw property prices drop dramatically. So, you'd a total disaster of financial cultural clashes between Anglosphere inflation-growth capitalism and Germanic stability at all costs. The two don't fit together very well at all.

kneesox

dearg lady wrote: »

Cabra is in Dublin.

Ok go look for a fight some place else. I have nothing to argue about. Situation is very bad and every person who used to rent anywhere else in Europe knows what I'm talking about so your posts are bit pointless.

Toots

I've reviewed this and agreed with athrasna that we'll copy 12Phase's post so that it's both here, and the Property Market thread.

I'm going to re-open this thread on the condition that everyone behaves and posts in a civil manner. No sweeping generalisations about landlords or tenants please.

For future reference, if anyone has a problem with a moderator action, the correct way to approach it is to discuss it with the mod via Private Message, rather than on-thread.

If you're new to the forum (or maybe need a refresher) please make sure to read the Charter before posting.

dearg lady

kneesox wrote: »

Ok go look for a fight some place else. I have nothing to argue about. Situation is very bad and every person who used to rent anywhere else in Europe knows what I'm talking about so your posts are bit pointless.

genuinely not looking for a fight!! I actually agree with the general thrust of the thread, it's merely the details we disagree on!

kneesox

12Phase wrote: »

The issue here is that historically very, very few people rented. It's a relatively new phenomenon and it's still not really functioning.

We still have one of the highest level of home ownership vs rental in the world. Irish people tend to absolutely obsessed with owning property compared to most of the rest of Europe.

That's basically created a two-tier experience of Ireland. You can buy something quite nice, but if you're forced into the rental sector because you're not here permanently or you cannot qualify for a mortgage, it puts your standard of living through the floor.

Also, you're in Ireland just after a massive property crash. There has been no construction of housing here since probably about 2009 due to the banking collapse so. That's resulted in very little property being available. At the peak of the boom 100,000 extra homes per year were being built. For the past few years almost none have.

On top of that, local 'first time buyers' (or would be firs time buyers) are no longer being granted mortgages as easily as they would have before the crash. The result of that is many people being pushed into the rental market that wouldn't normally be.

All of that is piling pressure onto an already totally dysfunctional rental market with very little supply, mostly run by individual amateur landlords rather than investment funds and so on and it's driven rents way too high.

It's also what's caused the homelessness crisis as the state hasn't built social housing in decades and the private rental sector is now out of reach for people at the bottom rung, in cities anyway.

The vision in the 1990s and 2000s was that instead of building social housing, property developers would be incentivised to build 'social and affordable' homes as part of mixed developments. Due to intensive lobbying and snobbery, they were allowed to simply pay local councils a levy to get out of this. The result of that was little or no social housing was built and the money got absorbed into council budgets for other services.

I would also add that about 69.7% of households in 2011 were owned by their occupiers / mortgaged. (That had been 76% a few years earlier).
Because the people who were renting were either people in temporary setups : students, short term lets etc or people who had recently moved here and didn't have a vote, politicians simply didn't care about that at all. Those in long-term private rental scenarios tended to be people who simply didn't have any political voice.

Result is that the system is entirely balanced towards small landlords, not towards creating a solid rental system.
To make it really work, you'd need to bring in funds to invest in serious property and quality of build and so on for long term leasing. None of that's happened.

It has the potential to make Ireland a very unattractive place when it comes to companies trying to recruit talent from elsewhere in Europe as there simply isn't any option to live here for 2,3,4+ years in comfort and stability without buying a house.

Busier parts of the UK, especially SE England / Greater London are as bad or worse. It's also creating a fairly horrible lifestyle as you can be on pretty good money and living in a hovel.

I think what you're seeing reflected in our elections here is partly the fact that the formerly quiet or 'voiceless' rental sector is suddenly full of 20/30-somethings who can't get onto the traditional property ladder and they're angry and voting for alternative parties.

FF and FG are very much catering towards a large, middle-class, middle-of-the-road, established voter. They've never really given a toss about people who are 'only renting' as is evidenced by all of their policies for decades and decades.

Even now, in the middle of a housing crisis, I am seeing no solid proposals from any of the major parties at all. It's all about tweaking things at the edges and trying to encourage yet more small time, low-funded speculators to flip property.
We really need to bring in some kind of serious alternatives.

--

I would add that Ireland and Britain also come from a history of high inflation. So, the usual approach her to accommodation was to get the biggest mortgage you could possibly afford, struggle for a few years and due to high inflation, it would reduce in size relative to your income far more rapidly and a notion that prices could only go up.

The Euro brought price stability and the crash saw property prices drop dramatically. So, you'd a total disaster of financial cultural clashes between Anglosphere inflation-growth capitalism and Germanic stability at all costs. The two don't fit together very well at all.

12Phase, thanks a lot for making efford to write all this. It explains a lot and from what I have experience and seen you are 100% right.
Would only ad, it would be nice people being decent and simply nice to other people by making tiny efford at least with how they let their houses/apartments to others. I can't imagine letting people in the house that is dirty and not maintained properly, but that's entirely different story..

kneesox

kneesox wrote: »

Hello, I rent houses in Ireland since 2006 and even being able to rent once on a more expensive side I was never able to find quality, modern house or apartment.
Please could anyone explain to me why it is so bed?
It seems landlords don't put any money whatsoever to make houses more attractive.
I feel nearly sick when I see the same tacky tiles and furnitures from 70's even in every single time. My choices where somehow limited because of the dog, but even apartments and places that wouldn't allow pets are just as bad, its close to ridiculous and one would wonder if those ads and prices are not a jokes only!

FYI I didn't read everything between the first post and this one.

1. There is a massive shortage of rental properties on the market, when one with a good standard becomes available it's gone very quickley.
2. There is no incentive for landlords to update/refurbish/renovate any property, they can do nothing and get high rent easily.
3. The Irish govenrment tax rental income very high so again there is no financial incentive to update/refurbish/renovate.
4. The majority (not all) buy property here and not rent property, I don't think us Irish really get the concept of renting. In mainland Europe it's the norm, in Ireland it's not.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

, I don't think us Irish really get the concept of renting. In mainland Europe it's the norm, in Ireland it's not.
[/LIST]

I don't think there is any concept to "get" when it come renting, a majority of people want to own their home in Ireland and across all European counties as they don't like the concept of renting and would rather be putting their money towards owning a home which they can do what they want with in terms of decoration, extension etc rather than paying off a LLs mortgage.

How often is this statement about mainland Europe and renting being the norm going to be debunked before peope stop saying it. Ireland is very much middle of the road with it comes to home ownership numbers many European countries have higher ownership numbers such as Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Italy and other are pretty much on a par such as Holland and Sweden and some are slightly lower such as France and uk. The country which is the exception and the only one with significant lower ownership is Germany despite people talking like Germany is the norm. The only reason for this is Germany's very chequered history it's not some grand plan to get people renting

On the point the op makes, if people are willing to rent a place I don't really see why a LL would invest thousands in renovating it thus getting increasing costs significantly when he can get the same money by just spending enough to keep the place reasonable. There will always be high quality places available also they just cost more to rent.

Valentina Unimportant Food

Valentina Unimportant Food wrote: »

I don't think there is any concept to "get" when it come renting.

There is, in mainland Europe it's a way of living, the renter has rights.

In Ireland it's a means to an end, people rent because they can't afford to buy at the moment. Nearly everybody I know renting in Ireland is looking for a way to buy property. Nearly everybody I know renting in the mainland, the concept of buying a property doesn't register.

Again I'm generalising but this is in my experience.

Two completely different ways of looking at property.

*EDIT*

Just the first link I found with some statistics

http://qz.com/167887/germany-has-one-of-the-worlds-lowest-homeownership-rates/

Pawwed Rig

Deleted User wrote: »

There is, in mainland Europe it's a way of living, the renter has rights.

Renters have lots of rights in Ireland. Are there additional rights that are needed? Other than extend the 4 year rule I can't think of any other than rent controls which would be a disaster.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

There is, in mainland Europe it's a way of living, the renter has rights.

Renters in Ireland have rights, many would say they have too much rights in that they can get away for long periods of time without paying rent and can't be kicked out.

Again Germany is the exception to the rule and still has over 50% of home ownership so it's a bad example to be giving. There are up to date stats on Wikipedia for 2014 and you will see Ireland is very much average for ownership.

KomradeBishop

Germany, being the best mainland example of a rental market, has good rent control regulation in place - lets start there.

Sleeper12

I have to agree with you op. I'm in several different rental properties in Dublin every day as part of my job. The average standard is really terrible. Some as bad as I wouldn't let my dog live there.
While there are some good properties these are in the minority. Most landlords want you to but a band aid repair on a 15 or 20 year old shower. Ah negative equity & this place is costing me a fortune I hear on a daily basis & yet when the same landlord has me working in his / her own home. It new shower & the best of everything.
We have some great, caring landlords but most are tight with money for property repair & seems to look at their Tennant as a second class citizen no matter what nationally they are including Irish.
If you are a landlord reading this please don't take offence. Again I say that there are some really great landlords. There just aren't too many

Pawwed Rig

Sleeper12 wrote: »

& yet when the same landlord has me working in his / her own home. It new shower & the best of everything.

Is it really surprising that someone would want nice stuff in their house? Are tenants not able to buy nice stuff too if they desire it?
Or are you seriously suggesting that a rental house should be decorated with the best decor that a landlord can afford??

Trending

as someone posted above landlords that go out of their way to have a property like somewhere they would like to live themselves are in the minority. And only right too !!
We refurbed our beautiful property - oak shaker doors, coving, new stove, new appliances, curtains and carpets and got ourselves tenants that didn't pay rent .... For two fecking years !!! They didn't as much as open a window or Hoover so last month after a long battle they left ! We in the meantime fell into arrears on a substantial mortgage so our property is up for sale this week
As we cannot continue. So only right as it's the landlords who are unprotected when things go wrong or when people without morals cross paths with decent folk !!! Not always the case that tenants are so bad but sadly there are many who are. We met them all !!!