Irish Property Market 2020 Part 3

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

That's slight head in sand stuff I think. Yes there is no breakdown by price or BER, but you breakdown by location in every Electoral Division in the country - https://data.cso.ie/table/EP009

Eg the vacancy rate in Dublin City South is 10.9% - It seems likely that the majority of these will be in demand.

If what you are saying is true that these properties cannot address shortage because there is no demand for them, then presumably that is why they are vacant. Then discussions should be ad about knocking them and building units there is demand for are.

But do we really believe anything even close to 10.9% of properties in Dublin City South need to be knocked because there is no demand for them?

You could argue that 10.9% of properties in South Dublin City are vacant because they are cold and draughty and need a better BER. If so then discussions should be had about whether they need to be refurbed.

Whatever way you look at it, the point remains that we need to be examining why 10.9% of propertied are vacant in Dublin City South in the middle of a housing crisis instead of telling ourselves it is not true.

From what it is know from existing research. Most of those properties in Dublin are not on long term vacancies. I don't think there are high benefits on spending lots of money, for detail investigation on why those properties left temporary vacant, weather its for sale, for rent, renovation, someone in hospital, staying with relatives or etc..

Hubertj

cnocbui wrote: »

The Irish Pubic Service is apalling, and although that was a typo, I realised it was actually more accurately descriptive.

I discovered that a house I own was likely mistakenly included in a SAC, pretty much erasing it's market value, without compensation and making it illegal for me to do basically the most routine maintainance.

Well done the Irish Pubic Service. You f*** up but ensure you draft the legislation so as to disallow any avenue of appeal to correct your mistakes. :mad:

So much for my hope of putting a property on the market.

Sorry for your trouble but what is a SAC?

cnocbui

Hubertj wrote: »

Sorry for your trouble but what is a SAC?

It's a Special Area of Conservation. Basically it means you can't touch any living thing on your poperty without first asking permission. I'm told you need to pay an environmental conservationist to compile a report on anything you propose to do, such as clear nettles in your yard, trim your rose bushes or remove a tree that has fallen across your access road. If a branch falls off a tree, you can't even collect it for firewood, even if your Great Grandfather planted the tree. Same goes for the whole tree falling over, obviously.

It's an extiction of normal property rights without compensation, basically. Your private property gets aquired as if it were a National Park, without the CPO and compensation that should go with it.

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

From what it is know from existing research. Most of those properties in Dublin are not on long term vacancies. I don't think there are high benefits on spending lots of money, for detail investigation on why those properties left temporary vacant, weather its for sale, for rent, renovation, someone in hospital, staying with relatives or etc..

The council is currently spending up to €3,000 per month or €36,000 a year or €900,000 over the 25 year lease term on each apartment in the Herbert Hill apartment complex in Dundrum. There's 87 units in that scheme alone they are leasing.

Given how much they could possibly save by investigating why housing units are vacant in their area and then devising a solution to bring them back to market, I personally wouldn't mind them spending upwards of €50 million on such an investigation as they would still save money and get every single cent back not only in the short term but over and over again in the medium to long term as well.

Hubertj

cnocbui wrote: »

It's a Special Area of Conservation. Basically it means you can't touch any living thing on your poperty without first asking permission. I'm told you need to pay an environmental conservationist to compile a report on anything you propose to do, such as clear nettles in your yard, trim your rose bushes or remove a tree that has fallen across your access road. If a branch falls off a tree, you can't even collect it for firewood, even if your Great Grandfather planted the tree. Same goes for the whole tree falling over, obviously.

It's an extiction of normal property rights without compensation, basically. Your private property gets aquired as if it were a National Park, without the CPO and compensation that should go with it.

I didn't realise those designations also impact peoples' property. Sorry for your trouble.

Marius34

PropQueries wrote: »

The council is currently spending up to €3,000 per month or €36,000 a year or €900,000 over the 25 year lease term on each apartment in the Herbert Hill apartment complex in Dundrum. There's 87 units in that scheme alone they are leasing.

Given how much they could possibly save by investigating why housing units are vacant in their area and then devising a solution to bring them back to market, I personally wouldn't mind them spending upwards of €50 million on such an investigation as they would still save money and get every single cent back not only in the short term but over and over again in the medium to long term as well.

I don't support spending high rents on social housing.
Equally I don't think it's great idea spending millions on finding out why some properties left temporally vacant, may just be another waste of tax payers money, nothing would change.
You can add another bureaucracy to inform state what each resident doing with their properties, or when the property left vacant for longer than a week or etc...

Idbatterim

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/plans-to-be-submitted-for-dublin-city-s-first-cost-rental-scheme-1.4433286

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

From what it is know from existing research. Most of those properties in Dublin are not on long term vacancies. I don't think there are high benefits on spending lots of money, for detail investigation on why those properties left temporary vacant, weather its for sale, for rent, renovation, someone in hospital, staying with relatives or etc..

Sure it makes far more sense and is cheaper to build more houses and continue paying through the nose for social housing, meanwhile people are sleeping in cars.

Are you in the public sector by any chance?

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

I don't support spending high rents on social housing.
Equally I don't think it's great idea spending millions on finding out why some properties left temporally vacant, may just be another waste of tax payers money, nothing would change.
You can add another bureaucracy to inform state what each resident doing with their properties, or when the property left vacant for longer than a week or etc...

Or a cheaper way to do it would be to follow Washington D.C.'s example:

"Class 3, vacant property, is taxed at $5.00 per $100 of assessed value and Class 4, blighted property, is taxed at $10.00 per $100 of assessed value. The DC Code allows for exceptions that may allow a vacant property to receive the lower Class 1 or Class 2 tax rate, provided that certain conditions are met."

That would get the truly vacant properties back into the market fairly quickly and at no cost to the taxpayer IMO

Link here to Washington D.C. vacant homes tax: https://otr.cfo.dc.gov/page/otr-vacant-real-property

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Sure it makes far more sense and is cheaper to build more houses and continue paying through the nose for social housing, meanwhile people are sleeping in cars.

Are you in the public sector by any chance?

No I'm not.
I think it's better to spend money on cheaper social housing, then waste money on high social rents, or some very expensive reports on short term vacancy, which may have no use of it.

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

No I'm not.
I think it's better to spend money on cheaper social housing, then waste money on high social rents, or some very expensive reports on short term vacancy, which may have no use of it.

And it has never occurred to you that maybe the reason the rents are so high in South Dublin City is because nearly 11% of the housing stock is vacant?

Timing belt

schmittel wrote: »

That's slight head in sand stuff I think. Yes there is no breakdown by price or BER, but you breakdown by location in every Electoral Division in the country - https://data.cso.ie/table/EP009

Eg the vacancy rate in Dublin City South is 10.9% - It seems likely that the majority of these will be in demand.

If what you are saying is true that these properties cannot address shortage because there is no demand for them, then presumably that is why they are vacant. Then discussions should be ad about knocking them and building units there is demand for are.

But do we really believe anything even close to 10.9% of properties in Dublin City South need to be knocked because there is no demand for them?

You could argue that 10.9% of properties in South Dublin City are vacant because they are cold and draughty and need a better BER. If so then discussions should be had about whether they need to be refurbed.

Whatever way you look at it, the point remains that we need to be examining why 10.9% of propertied are vacant in Dublin City South in the middle of a housing crisis instead of telling ourselves it is not true.

1 in 10 properties is vacant in Dublin City south... that should be quite visible walking down the street unless a large apartment block being refurbished etc is distorting the data

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

No I'm not.
I think it's better to spend money on cheaper social housing, then waste money on high social rents, or some very expensive reports on short term vacancy, which may have no use of it.

According to the CSO:

"The budget allocation to conduct Census 2016 was €55 million over a 5 year period (2013-2017)"

How much could it conceiveably cost the councils in Dublin to find out and report on solutions to the true number of vacant units in Dublin and the true reasons on why they are vacant.

Unless, of course, they already know and don't want the public to know the answer.

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

1 in 10 properties is vacant in Dublin City south... that should be quite visible walking down the street unless a large apartment block being refurbished etc is distorting the data

I suspect a fair chunk of them are airbnbs, hence unlikely to be looking unoccupied, quite the opposite in fact.

PropQueries

Timing belt wrote: »

1 in 10 properties is vacant in Dublin City south... that should be quite visible walking down the street unless a large apartment block being refurbished etc is distorting the data

It is actually very visible. Many people living in the city remark on the high number of apartments with no lights on at night.

hometruths

PropQueries wrote: »

According to the CSO:

"The budget allocation to conduct Census 2016 was €55 million over a 5 year period (2013-2017)"

How much could it conceiveably cost the councils in Dublin to find out and report on solutions to the true number of vacant units in Dublin and the true reasons on why they are vacant.

Unless, of course, they already know and don't want the public to know the answer.

I've wondered about this but struggle to come up with a good reason why councils or government would not want to find out or not want the public to know.

The potential political rewards are so massive i cant imagine theyre worried about the cost.

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

And it has never occurred to you that maybe the reason the rents are so high in South Dublin City is because nearly 11% of the housing stock is vacant?

1) First I don't know where you get 11%? even Census doesn't report. Are you selecting some particular areas, and defining as all South Dublin?
2) Balgriffin had 50% vacancy based on Census. They could not have been rented, reasons I explained. Currently Balgriffin Parkside Phase 4 has all of the houses "vacant", over 50 houses so far. You can't rent them out, as in coming months owners will be moving in their new homes.

There are many reasons, why it can be temporally "vacant", and nothing can be done about it.

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

1) First I don't know where you get 11%? even Census doesn't report. Are you selecting some particular areas, and defining as all South Dublin?
2) Balgriffin had 50% vacancy based on Census. They could not have been rented, reasons I explained. Currently Balgriffin Parkside Phase 4 has all of the houses "vacant", over 50 houses so far. You can't rent them out, as in coming months owners will be moving in their new homes.

There are many reasons, why it can be temporally "vacant", and nothing can be done about it.

Getting South Dublin City at 10.9% from the CSO as linked earlier in the thread.

PropQueries

Marius34 wrote: »

1) First I don't know where you get 11%? even Census doesn't report. Are you selecting some particular areas, and defining as all South Dublin?
2) Balgriffin had 50% vacancy based on Census. They could not have been rented, reasons I explained. Currently Balgriffin Parkside Phase 4 has all of the houses "vacant", over 50 houses so far. You can't rent them out, as in coming months owners will be moving in their new homes.

There are many reasons, why it can be temporally "vacant", and nothing can be done about it.

But there's only one way to find out for sure

amacca

Idbatterim wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/plans-to-be-submitted-for-dublin-city-s-first-cost-rental-scheme-1.4433286

Thats interesting...so after taking into account the cost of building, financing and managing these apartments in inchicore rents are still going to average 1300 a month

And people are complaining private landlords rents are too high.......when presumably they have additional costs and less economies of scale a local authority can access/waive etc.....youd imagine a private landlord woukd have a higher cost of borrowing + LPT +water charges + insurance + less enforcement + additional admin + tenants wrecking property morevfrequently not paying etc.


If thats the price a cost rental scheme is going to be it would make you wonder

amacca

schmittel wrote: »

The potential political rewards are so massive i cant imagine theyre worried about the cost.

You could be wrong about that. The potential rewards politically might not be as massive as you think.

Lots of potential votes that are property owners or paid through the nose for it might not be grateful for any scheme that impinges on property rights or brings down the even notional value of the asset they hold

They may not be vocal but lots of people act purely in their own interest and might prefer the property market as is be cause it suits hhem this way.

Dont also forget most of those that might implement a policy like you suggest are property ownets themselves and would potentially be devaluing their assets and the assets of many of the influential people around them

If it does happen watch all these people sell property off in advance if IF theres anything else that is a viable alyernative investment.

Idbatterim

The entire thing becomes more of an incomprehensible disgrace the more you think about! E1300 a month for a cost rental for the working poor s versus the identical social housing unit next door for E50 a week, if even!

The free or optional rents, should be the first thing tackled, on the housing stock that must be worth tens of billions... as if that will ever happen here though, you couldnt touch the sacred cows, that dont vote and dont contribute anything...

If they wont touch the existing "rents" all new builds should come with appropriate rents, like they would in any other non banana republic and that should provide more housing stock for everyone and lower taxes on residential builds...

Timing belt

schmittel wrote: »

I've wondered about this but struggle to come up with a good reason why councils or government would not want to find out or not want the public to know.

The potential political rewards are so massive i cant imagine theyre worried about the cost.

They have already started looking at this. The following is a link to their progress report in May 2020

https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/20200602_nvhrs_progress_report_final_0.pdf

brisan

Idbatterim wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/plans-to-be-submitted-for-dublin-city-s-first-cost-rental-scheme-1.4433286

If this takes off there will be a lot of unhappy lads out there

Balluba

Huge blow to Baldoyle as Viatris is to close plant with the loss of 440 jobs.

brisan

Balluba wrote: »

Huge blow to Baldoyle as Viatris is to close plant with the loss of 440 jobs.

That factory has changed hands numerous times over the years
I could hear the loudspeakers from my house growing up
I would say there is a good chance another Pharma manufacturer will buy it

hometruths

amacca wrote: »

You could be wrong about that. The potential rewards politically might not be as massive as you think.

Lots of potential votes that are property owners or paid through the nose for it might not be grateful for any scheme that impinges on property rights or brings down the even notional value of the asset they hold

They may not be vocal but lots of people act purely in their own interest and might prefer the property market as is be cause it suits hhem this way.

Dont also forget most of those that might implement a policy like you suggest are property ownets themselves and would potentially be devaluing their assets and the assets of many of the influential people around them

If it does happen watch all these people sell property off in advance if IF theres anything else that is a viable alyernative investment.

I get exactly what you're saying, and I do suspect it accounts for past actions and a lot of the reason we ended up in this situation, (think Noonan!), but I am not so sure it stacks up as a future political strategy.

If the property market situation continues as is, demographics dictate that a rising number of voters will be the ones angry about it, and they're the ones who will turn away from FF/FG to SF etc.

SF showed at the last election they are not far away from knocking that door down, and you can be sure they will field a full team of candidates next time.

From FF/FG's point of view it is inevitable if they don't make some sort of progress on this issue SF will be calling the shots at the next election.

If they're stalling on taking tough measures because they're worried about alienating their existing voters they are being very short sighted.

There big danger is not the property owning class turning their back on FF/FG to vote PBP/SF because they taken the humph. Who else are they going to vote for?

The election will be won by implementing effective housing policies to attract the younger voters away from the left. If FF/FG don't do it, and things continue as is for another four years, SF will win the next election.

A 25 year old who can't afford to rent a house never mind buy one doesn't give a damn who wnet to Bobby Sands' funeral.

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

They have already started looking at this. The following is a link to their progress report in May 2020

https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/20200602_nvhrs_progress_report_final_0.pdf

Not sure I'd call that progress. Though interestingly Section 4 gives some credence to Prop's fund theory that so many are skeptical of (myself included!)

Etc

brisan wrote: »

That factory has changed hands numerous times over the years
I could hear the loudspeakers from my house growing up
I would say there is a good chance another Pharma manufacturer will buy it

I doubt it, there would be too much work involved in refitting it. Very dodgy GMP practices there over the years. It's not a very attractive proposition.

brisan

Etc wrote: »

I doubt it, there would be too much work involved in refitting it. Very dodgy GMP practices there over the years. It's not a very attractive proposition.

have you worked there
Its been in operation for close on 50 yrs at this stage under different owners