Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

Marius34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261767#Comment_118261767

Average household size can be a complex calculation, and depending how we calculate we would get a different results.

If family of 5, has 2 homes, one in Dublin, and one in Wexford, which are not rented out. By CSO that would likely result in average household size of 5, by others it maybe 2.5 . And both may be right.

Amadan Dubh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261650#Comment_118261650

3 years fixed isn't great when rates will almost certainly be higher in the next 3 years. Low for long would be my preference; especially if repayments are already at the comfort limit.

It's sickening how we get fleeced in this country. My partner's family and friends are all German and we have often had conversations about housing over there. One of the things that really gets my goat is how they can get 100% mortgages at mortgage rates fixed at comfortably less than 2% for the duration of the mortgage. They even go below 1% with their mortgage rates. Friends in their late 20s over there are all buying their homes, in complete contrast to Ireland.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261897#Comment_118261897

Well they also have the lowest long term fixed rates if you meet the criteria, how people can spin this as a bad thing is beyond me.

they also have lower than normal variable rates if you come off fixed.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261887#Comment_118261887

True throw in the different room capacity aswell. But we are talking about the average nationwide

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261316#Comment_118261316

The article is really about who should swallow the best part of 18 months of losses, and in this case the landlord's solicitors had the better luck combing over ambitious laws. If anything I would call the government anti-business for making zero preparations for these sorts of disputes, which are the inevitable consequence of such long lockdowns.

I suspect Foot Locker may well now go into receivership, but had the dispute gone the other way Percy Nominees would be facing so many similar claims from other tenants that they could well go under themselves.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261897#Comment_118261897

Avant are so heavily selective that they would not be lending to people who are at their comfort limit for payments.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261767#Comment_118261767

There's a lot in there, which I'll reply to later on when I have a bit more time. In the meantime, just wanted to say thanks for engaging in reasonable debate rather than some of the nonsense others tried. It makes for a much more interesting discussion and far less frustrating!

Marius34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261912#Comment_118261912

Right, but even Nationally applies the same logic, that families can have 2 properties, where both of them are used by the same family, but only one (principal) could be reflecting in CSO household statistics.

From what I see your focus is more towards housing stocks, which is different from what CSO consider household.

Timing belt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261556#Comment_118261556

You put words in my mouth twice because you want to engage and talk about vacant properties again. which have been done to death time and time again. Rather than go down this path yet again I said we will wait and see what the average household size is the new census because I believe it is dropping and don't want to get into a debate yet again about vacant property because that is "Totally pointless"

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261967#Comment_118261967

You put words in my mouth twice because you want to engage and talk about vacant properties again.

I put words in your mouth?! And yet, despite I mentioned nothing about vacant properties, here you are telling me what I want to talk about?!!

LOL indeed. 🙄

Timing belt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262033#Comment_118262033

You are angling to talk about vacant properties without using the words "Vacant property" and waiting for someone else to bring the topic up so you can talk about it again.

Totally pointless

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261964#Comment_118261964

I am taking the properties that are vacant and holiday homes out of my math. So I was working with the actually number of houses out there in circulation. As I pointed out we cant use holiday homes as they are not going to be available for sale or rent. Same goes with vacant houses. The only reason why someone would have a house lying vacant these days is if the property is inhabitable or if the house is in an area where there is little or poor supporting infrastructure. You only have to look at selling and rental prices to see it would be madness not to have a property up for sale or rent with the current returns. So I have taken your logic out of the math altogether as there is no point taking about properties that are not going to be used for housing our population.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262095#Comment_118262095

You were the one that brought up the topic. Far from using the opportunity so I could talk about it again, my immediate reply was:

That entire subject has been banned. Not just the reasons. So probably best to steer clear of it.

Stop misrepresenting me.

Timing belt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262140#Comment_118262140

We will stay clear of it then. 😀

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262140#Comment_118262140

Easy lads its Christmas :)

Marius34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262136#Comment_118262136

I see your point, and it's fair how you calculate household size. But it's different how CSO calculate it.

As you say: "as the average household size was 2.75 in 2016 and already as early as 2018 it had dropped to 2.6"

You would never get close to those numbers, if for 2016 and for 2018 would use the same methodology. In fact if it would be used the same methodology, it would likely show household size slight increase.

Amadan Dubh

The irony of the Newstalk presenters lamenting the anti-business sentiment growing in Ireland - ivory towers and all that. Maybe the reason there is a growing disillusionment, particularly in younger people, is in fact justified.

6th most expensive capital city in the world to rent - Dublin! To put this shambolic state of affairs in context, the top 5 list is made up of the following cities; London, Monaco, Washington, Hong Kong, Singapore. The IDA will likely spin this as being due to Ireland being the home of financial services, big pharma and big tech companies which puts us as a world leader able to hold our own against these other cities. Narrow-focused BS of course.

I said before that corporate Ireland will probably be the penny dropper which leads to real action being taken to materially decrease the cost of housing once companies put expansion plans on hold due to the housing crisis. It is tragic that the citizens cries weren't loud enough to take meaningful, corrective action to stop housing costs increasing so dramatically post-2013, but politicians will reap what they sow at the ballot box and with corporates voting with their feet when it comes to investing in the country.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/dublin-is-sixth-most-expensive-capital-city-in-world-for-renters-1.4745768

danfrancisco83

"but politicians will reap what they sow at the ballot box"

There are a large number of people who are alright Jack, thank you very much. You won't hear them complain that their house has doubled in value in the last number of years. I'm not saying it's right, but I wouldn't be so sure about FFG getting too much of a kicking. I think their handling of covid will have more of a bearing on it.

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263196#Comment_118263196

Ffg used to battle for an overall majority, we are now at a point that together they can't reach an overall majority.

Yes there are many happy, but increasingly there are many with children who are getting hammered by the status quo

The numbers game is changing fast

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261767#Comment_118261767

With the greatest of respect I don't think we can use 2.5 on the strength of your claim that you "can conservatively say 2.5 is a much more accurate measure for household size than 2.75", but fair enough you have quoted a credible source saying 2.6 so let's use that.

Total housing capacity = 2.6 x 2,052,429 = 5,336,315 people

Total current population = 5,011,500 

Capacity for 5,336,315 people minus 5,011,500 total people = 324,815 spare capacity or 124,928 spare houses (324,815/2.6).

It is important to note that these are all habitable houses, they're not counted as housing stock unless they are habitable.

You seem to be saying this entire 125k (and t of spare capacity should be disregarded because it is currently "unavailable to buy or rent for different reasons" and you proceed with some calculations to find the "total stock of housing available to buy or rent = 1921503 now" but that does not make any sense in the context of projecting housing supply over the next decade.

The only properties that should be discounted are those holiday homes that are Section 48, because legally they cannot be sold or rented as regular housing stock. I've no idea how many that is but there is no way it is 38,971. Even if it as high as 25,000 that still leaves us with 100,000 spare capacity.

The reasons that these properties are not available to buy or sell today are irrelevant, in relation to ten year supply and demand projections.

The fact is they exist and provide a represent a fairly substantial stock of potential supply.

Inarguably a property in the existing housing stock that is currently underutilised, irrespective of the reasons why, faces significantly fewer barriers to becoming active housing supply within the next ten years than a property that is yet to built.

Again this is repeating a mistake of 07/08 - forecasting future housing supply requirements without any reference or thought to how the current stock is being utilised and how that might change over the forecasting period.

JimmyVik

Timing belt

L1011

Eh, holiday home stock is not of any use in a housing crisis - someone with a family looking for a house near their employment etc is not going to find a 2 bed cottage with a kitchenette, in the middle of nowhere, and with no internet connectivity of any type suitable. And that's the bulk of holiday homes.

All holiday home stock has to be excluded from calculating available units; because they aren't and never will be active housing supply. Even if there was political will to force them on the open market, virtually nobody would want them as a full time residence

Ironically, the s48 ones are generally much more suitable to be used as regular housing and can't. Modern builds in bigger areas which would have fibre, public transport, etc etc.

Amadan Dubh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263324#Comment_118263324

And the key for me is that it is only going one way - support for FF and FG will just continue to plummet as more younger people reach voting age and older people die off. It would take a radical re-shaping of FF and FG to stem their decline to small parties. The status quo (or even more of what we have had the last 10 years) is going to decimate FF and FG. Housing is a massive contributor to this. I feel there's almost a refusal to accept that things could change in Ireland; that FF and/or FG would be in government in some form forever, so that our politics, society and economy would be approximately trending in the one direction, no matter if it's FF or FG in power.

But the voting demographic trends, largely reflecting home ownership versus renting demographics, indicate dramatic change is already building; remember there is a demographic that likes higher house prices and a demographic that wants the complete opposite. While we onboard the crash demographic into the system by enabling them to purchase their house and have a stake in society, this puts a new voter in the camp of those that want high house prices. This has been how things have worked the past few decades in Ireland, but the last 10 years has shifted this trend significantly which will have ramifications, significant ones, in our politics going forward. With housing costs soaring even further during the pandemic, this has brought the changes forward for me by quite a few years, to the point where I think if we had an election tomorrow we would see FF and FG almost wiped out. Emigration won't be there to save the establishment parties this time, given the pandemic has upended any trends in this area.

Amadan Dubh

It will take a few more years for the Chinese property market to fully crash and its impact on the Chinese (and wider global) economy to manifest, this isn't something that will bear fruit in the next 6 months. I mean; who can claim to be a credible observer and think that a communist state can thrive with capitalist policies? It is a total sham and is going to be devastating for the Chinese; I just hope we don't get shafted in some way from the fallout.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263409#Comment_118263409

Not sure what your point is? I am assuming that you are pointing out that proportionally, the highest holiday homes are found in the most popular tourist locations, but that's kind of blindingly obvious. Is there some sort of gotcha I'm missing in the fact these counties represent 60.4% of all holiday homes?

I wouldn't like to misrepresent you, so can you spell it out?

Timing belt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263721#Comment_118263721

🤣

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263969#Comment_118263969

Again, a totally expected refusal to engage in a sensible discussion.

the last graphic you threw up hastily to prove a point, left you looking rather stupid, after you had to concede that you didn’t mean what you said, or what the graph said either.

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263416#Comment_118263416

Would they be of any use in a WFH environment. Some great towns with lots of housing close to Cork, Limerick and Galway

Timing belt

😘

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118264443#Comment_118264443

Not with no internet they won't.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118264472#Comment_118264472

Sensible replies only please.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118258032#Comment_118258032

The government has already deliberately run two foreign banks out of the country - Rabo and Ulster - so a bit late with the trying to signal it's a good place to do business.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118258661#Comment_118258661

I can't recall if it was this thread, or another, but somone posted a link claiming one-off house prices has risen about 21%, which would be something like 5.5 times as much as the national average as per CSO in May, so very stupid assumptions if real. Half a brain would tell you limiting supply of something a lot of people value highly will lead to prices rising.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262136#Comment_118262136

Clearly you don't live in Dublin, where there are massive amounts of vacant properties lying empty, worth a fortune

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118264977#Comment_118264977

Probably the mica affected homes thread if you get where I'm going

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263416#Comment_118263416

This comes up time and time again, but it is nonsense. The idea that every single holiday home is some basic summerhouse down some boreen and as such should be excluded from the housing stock is absurd and demonstrably so.

Take a look at the 2016 report, at which time nationally there were 61,204 holiday homes, compared to the most recent figure of 38,971. So the total holiday home stock has reduced by 22,233 in 5 years. How did that happen?

Sure there will have been some obsolescence but not 22,000. Obviously the majority of these buildings have been reclassified in some other way, most likely because they have been sold or rented as family homes. i.e became active housing supply.

That's exactly what you would expect in a time there has been a reversal in the long term trend, and now there is net internal migration away from Dublin due to being priced out of that market. This was observed long before COVID and WFH. 

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265453#Comment_118265453

I'd hazard a guess they've been misclassified in to the "unoccupied" category. There's no reason that many would have been sold in that short a period of time. It has to be a data error of some kind

The Geodirectory figures are far, far, far less useful and valid than you think they are.

Villa05

Could it be a tax fiddle, reclassify as family home and rent out at holiday periods.

Most holiday homes could be let out without ever advertising on a public platform

L1011

There's also plenty of people who decamped to their holiday homes - if they had proper internet that is - in March 2020 and are still there.

Anyway, what is the proposal to get holiday homes sold as normal residential houses? Punitive tax? Not going to go down well. SFs former leader was notable for having a holiday home in Donegal; its not just a posh voter problem.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265466#Comment_118265466

The Geodirectory figures are far, far, far less useful and valid than you think they are.

Oh I certainly realise that. I'd go even further and say they seem to be deliberately misleading, particularly at a headline level.

Personally I only ever started quoting GeoDirectory figures because I was repeatedly told on here that the CSO/census figures were less useful and valid than I think they are.

So it's often tricky to argue a point.

Quote the census and the point is dismissed by one group of posters because the figures are wrong or out of date. Quote Geodirectory and the point is dismissed by another group because the figures are wrong.

Less often a problem if I am agreeing with a point with either group it must be said.

On your guess as to them be reclassified to the "unoccupied' category, I think that's unlikely as that category has dropped by about 100k also in the same time frame.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118264637#Comment_118264637

There is a Starlink thread with users getting ±170 Mbps. I own what is probably one of the remotest properties in the country and even though you can not get a useful mobile signal, you could in theory get faster internet than my current 150 Mbps FTH.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265669#Comment_118265669

I don't expect that type of performance when there's more than just pre-sale customers on. My first-gen Wimax product was fantastic when I was the only person on the tower - it was absolute junk by the time I got ADSL.

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262771#Comment_118262771

Jaysus I knew we were bad but sixth highest in the world is desperate. The government has had an absolute bonanza the last 10 years with corporation tax n MNC wages. They knew it couldn't last forever but instead of using it to make us competitive they squandered it n made us even less so.

Marius34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265466#Comment_118265466

All statistics are useful. The problem how it is presented, and what that mean.

It's like with inflation, one report may speak about CPI, another about property price inflation. Although both tells Inflation, but shows different results. Same about property, just that there is less clarity, and less precision of what each numbers mean.

jay0109

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118263328#Comment_118263328

You need to revise your numbers! CSO put out a population update yesterday which the media have largely ignored, that says they've found an extra 250k people in Ireland. We're now at at least 5.2m.

And that's not counting all the illegals who go a whopper of an amnesty today with the Govt admitting they have no real idea of how many of them are here and there'll be no cap on the numbers processed through the amnesty. Family reunification to follow to swell the numbers further.

Supply cannot possibly keep up with the population growth. And all of the political parties are fully in favour on continued immigration with essentially no limits.

House and rent prices can only keep going in one way. Same for scarcity of supply.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265853#Comment_118265853

This is not a thread to discuss immigration.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265669#Comment_118265669

Yeah, I’ve posted on that thread. Starlink (consistently 250+mbps for me) has turned what could only previously be a holiday home into my primary residence

spalpeen

Not wanting to offend anyone here, but question about areas in Dublin

sandymount

I grew up in Ireland and spent a lot of time in sandymount due to family living there. I moved away and am now looking at moving back and buying. Sandymount is very expensive, as it always has been. But I've noticed on daft and myhome that homes in sandymount get FAR less views than places in portobello or even around the north city centre. Is this just a reflection of changing demographics? Do young home buyers in their 20s and 30s no longer want to live in sandymount? It can't just be a price thing, as these places are nearly as expensive, but none of my friends are looking at the coast or dublin 4, even the very wealthy ones

ballsbridge

I know it's a perfect location, near the sea, walkable to town, but I dont understand the appeal here. Like there is no real centralised village centre, only a few shops along the side, and then to get to town you walk along what is essentially a motorway. Am I missing something here?

PS no offence meant

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118265547#Comment_118265547

No proposal, simply that if people are decamping to holiday homes does that leave an extra unit in what is probably a high demand area