solve the housing problem easily...some solutions?

MayoSalmon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654343#Comment_119654343

There is no decrease to pass on.. The price of stamp has nothing to do with the cost to build and its irrelevant to a builder.

StrawbsM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119669097#Comment_119669097

why would it be a bad thing if tourism suffered? Isn’t it essentially staffed by low paid non Irish who are in themselves adding to the housing pressures?

I can’t speak for all of the country but I live a few kms outside a popular seaside resort. The housekeeping staff, restaurant staff, bar staff, attraction staff, etc are still mostly Irish natives of all ages living in the locality.

It’s a complete myth that Irish natives won’t do the menial low paid jobs.

lalababa

I was looking at houses not apartments. Look up leboncoin.fr ..its like daft/donedeal. One example is 30km south of Tours called St. Flovier.

80m2 with a 1/2 acre garden for 110k.

lalababa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119669046#Comment_119669046

As above

lalababa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119669195#Comment_119669195

Cost o

lalababa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119672125#Comment_119672125

Typo above. Cost of build in ireland ( doesn't include site cost) is roughly twice that of france. So there's something wrong there.

Geuze

Here is an 81 sqm new 3-bedroom house in a town in France for 123,400:

https://www.leboncoin.fr/ventes_immobilieres/2228221539.htm

How is that possible?

knipex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119658638#Comment_119658638

I would be very very surprised is any property investment funds are buying up housing estates.

Shocked even particualry if it was more than a one off

knipex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119659043#Comment_119659043

As long as people want to live in a specific area.

The reality is there is only so much space so you either move to a different area or densify,. If you want a sprawl of housing estates from dublin to portlaois then fine.. But then don't complain about lack of public transport, traffic congestion, cost of servies. lack of cycle lanes etc etc,

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119672852#Comment_119672852

They have been buying up significant proportions of new build developments.

Funds bought 57% of new homes in 2019

Investment funds bought over 5,800 homes in Dublin in 2019 at a cost of €2.4bn, with 57% of all new builds in the capital snapped up.

While focus has been drawn to the purchase of 135 homes at an estate in Maynooth, the scale of that spending is seen in a report on the Dublin property market, which was published by estate agents Hooke & MacDonald in February." https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40296650.html

Global property investment firm buys most of 170-home estate in KildareRound Hill Capital to put 135 houses at Mullen Park in Maynooth on rental market after deal believed to be worth €54 million

Michael Brennan

May 2, 2021

And more: https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2021/0504/1213801-mullen-park-investors-first-time-buyers-property-housing-estate/

..and https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/we-could-be-here-for-50-years-we-are-not-selling-says-the-fund-that-bought-300-homes-41361754.html

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119669721#Comment_119669721

This is true. The further you get from Dublin the more likely you are to see Irish people doing "undesireable" low-paid work.

Dublin being Dublin, generally it's mostly people willing to take these jobs and try to make a fist at making it work financially are non-EEA workers. Because it's that or retreat back to where they're from.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119672865#Comment_119672865

Your point that we need density as there is only so much space if people want to live in a specific area would only make sense if people all wanted to live in the one specific area. If people want to pay through the nose to live in one high density area then good luck to them but this is not a solution to the housing problem. I have lived in Dublin and I would not want to live there again and have a job elsewhere that rarely requires me to travel to Dublin. Where I now work is in another city centre and I would not want to live there either and many people I have talked to are not interested in high density living with a preference with some to even live in another country rather than have to pay the current costs of urban housing here. I already posted a link explaining how hi-rise apartments in Dublin have been calculated recently to cost 619,000euro so saying the only way to solve the housing problem is with more density does not make sense to me.

To say it is high density living or a sea of housing estates stretching from Dublin to Portlaoise also seems like nonsense to me in light of developments in remote working and the fact that planning authorities would no longer allow this type of residential only type development. There are metropolitan areas in the world much bigger than Dublin that facilitate public transport, provide for cycle lanes where they are appropriate, don't need to have huge costs attributed to services and are not known for traffic congestion being a major problem so why would this need to be the case if developments that were not high density were properly planned and developed in Ireland? Just saying that development that does not suit your view on the way people should live will automatically have these problems is not offering a solution and just pointing out the well known issues that need to be addressed when sensible residential development takes place.

lawrencesummers

Il tell you what doesnt help the housing crisis.

Putting up the cost of bricks and mortar

twowheelsonly

The biggest problem IMO is councils no longer building by direct labour.

All Councils stopped this in the late 80s' /early 90s' and it was after this that prices started to sky rocket. I'm 100% in favour of going back to this model and forgetting about public/private partnerships or buying houses on the general market for council tenants. Some will say that it leads to slums developing but in my experience all of these areas, with a few notable exceptions, 'grow up' and become very settled. Build them in pockets of 20 /30/ 40 rather than the sprawling estates that became the norm and a lot of the problems associated with these estates will dwindle. Give priority to those working and to young families who can't afford to get a mortgage.

BTW, I'm also in favour of selling off old council stock, in particular to sitting tenants. I wouldn't sell them until they were 10/15/20 years old though. This has the benefit of giving the councils more money whilst reducing their maintenance costs on old buildings. It also helps areas to develop and become more settled.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119674248#Comment_119674248

Absolutely. I thought this sort of stunt was left back in the last century. Levying people making serviceable blocks to pay for people making shite bocks is completely wrong. The problems were because of inadequate regulation and every voter, rich and poor, should pay towards fixing it because they allowed it happen.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654370#Comment_119654370

So build poor quality both in terms of building quality and design ?

there are some absolute monstrosities being built and enabled with planning as it is.

CPO peoples property ? In 100 years sure when there are about 12 million people living here just make it illegal to have gardens 😉

Bit cynical

Basic idea of these steps is to increase the number of housing units generally in the country.

1. Streamline planning permission. Speed up process of obtaining it and change the bias towards enabling new builds rather than preventing them.
2. Increase the amount of zoned land.
3. Encourage more medium rise developments in urban areas.
4. In the rental sector, channel investment into fund based schemes rather than private amateur landlords. Regulate for long-term secure rental such as has worked well in Germany.
5. Allow alternative temporary structures (tiny homes) on owned agricultural land subject to appropriate regulation.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119674356#Comment_119674356

People are not saying build poor quality, just more basic homes to bare minimum requirements. We need thousands of new homes asap. The people currently looking for homes on daft are going through hell, they don't have the luxury of worrying about a stupid garden

DelaneyIn

We could build a million houses tomorrow. And still we would have a homeless problem down the road. We are a tiny island on the periphery of Europe. We invited the world to come here , and we promised to house them all. It's absolutely crazy that no-one will even discuss this.

Strumms

the counter argument to the above is only starting, when it’s too late.. the cap won’t be put back on the bottle until it’s too late and realistically the cap being put back on so to speak can only happen with Ireland following the British out of the EU…the EU won’t change… this will happen btw… just not yet.

Just need to get back controlling our borders.

topmanamillion

Flat pack timber frame housing. Germany have factories that are churning out 1,000s of them. Build a similar factory here. Forget about bespoke one off housing. The building industry here is a cottage industry when it needs to operate on an industrial level. If its simply not up to it employ a foreign firm(s) and give them a contract to build x amount of housing units inside 5 years.

Also enact legislation to counteract NIMBYISM and career objectors. Start compulsory purchasing swathes of land around Dublin and nationally and start building.

mohawk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119674837#Comment_119674837

The bare minimum still has to ensure a home that is easy and efficient to heat and the best insulation, quality building materials. They do have to be a decent enough size with a good mix of number of bedrooms ( obviously not mansions but not matchboxes either). The bare minimum is still an expensive house in the cities in Ireland. Wood, blocks, windows, steels are not cheap. Land is another huge factor. Any developers that have paid a fortune for land will sit on if needed to maximise their profits.

The state owns a lot of land and instead of selling to the highest bidder could give some to County Councils to build on. Straight away cheaper then buying houses on open market. Some for council tenants and some for actual affordable housing keep the developments small and include housing for elderly that want to downsize from a three bed council house and also disabled people living in assisted living in the community. Careful planning would ensure we don’t repeat past mistakes (aka huge council estates where antisocial behaviour got out of hand)

feelings

A 10% levy on concrete blocks. That'll help sort out the housing crisis. 😒 Morons.

agoodusername

Solving the supply issue is half the battle. The cost of building is sadly too high to allow for people in less well paid but critical jobs to ever realistically own. So I think that we need to focus on bringing a lot of affordable options to allow these people to stop paying crazy private rental prices. Has to be state funded but it's a price I think many are willing to pay.

To do this we need more people in the construction trades. I suggest a combination of two things:

1. Create incentives to fix the labour shortage through migration from other countries. Fixed term visas with some sort of tax rebate upon return to their home country. Would allow for a large increase in the near future.
2. Some sort of large scale apprenticeship scheme operated by a national authority or councils. It would be a huge undertaking but I think that it would benefit the country so much. Make it well paid, try to turn it into something prestigious and sought after like becoming a teacher or a Garda. Once the supply issue is solved then this group could focus on other major national projects.

It's obviously not as simplistic as this, but I think that it would be a start. There's little we can do about supply chain issues, and the CIF would go mental, but the alternative is much worse.

Sweet.Science

https://www.irishtimes.com/abroad/2022/09/29/my-doctor-wife-and-i-had-no-chance-of-buying-a-house-so-weve-moved-abroad-and-life-is-much-better/

Change of headline needed . I couldn't get the house I wanted in Dublin 4 so would rather move abroad .

Topgear on Dave

Strange one alright if he's in the bank and she's a doctor, you'd think they'd get a mortgage here with no issues.

House prices in the Netherlands are fairly spicy, maybe a bit higher than here as far as I can see but I think they seemed lend money more easily than here.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119678906#Comment_119678906

Lived in Holland for a short while and it is run far more efficiently than what I have seen here. Punctual reliable public transport and well designed roads where congestion is not a problem that I could see. The article mentions getting a large house 30Km southwest of Amsterdam in tulip country and the way transport infrastructure is organised there it is likely to not be much of a problem to travel from there to their places of work. If you listened to some of the urbanisation fanatics directing government housing policy they should have only been given the option to live in an apartment within cycling distance of their jobs if he was to stay in Dublin and since thats not affordable for them tough luck. The increase in the cost of concrete with an extra levy in the recent budget says it all about what FFFG and the Greens want to do to address the excessive price of housing in this country. Not a strange decision to move at all in my opinion.

knipex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119673742#Comment_119673742

Are you saying that the demand for houses in Dublin isn't multiple orders of magnitude higher than the west and midlands ??

That housing shortages are most acute in urban areas particularly Dublin, Cork, and to a lesser extent Galway and Limerick ?? We have people turning down council houses in Dublin because they want to live in a specific area with their families.

Just because you dont want to live in an urban centre doesnt mean that most dont

People are demanding access to services. Servies require population mass to justify. A wildly dsispersed population in thousands of one of housing is just stupidity.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119689789#Comment_119689789

The average house price in Dublin is higher than in the west and midlands of the country indicating to me the demand for houses there must be higher and I am not saying there is no need for more housing in Dublin.

The existing urban centres have concentrations of population so it makes sense that there are more people living in these areas that could benefit from more housing.

I don't know what your issue is with people choosing not to live in some areas when they are offered to live in a council house but I did live for a couple of years in my grandmothers house where there was a significant amount of social housing concentrated nearby and there was far more antisocial behavior in the area than I would like to live with in the longterm anyway. From what I have read the actual numbers of social housing units built in this country has been far fewer than has been needed and the large numbers in emergency accomodation in hotels would indicate to me that social housing here has been failing for a number of years now and those being offered a free house is a very small number compared to those in housing need.

I haven't done a survey to find out what percentage of people want to live in an urban setting but among people I have been talking with rural living if it was possible is something they have often mentioned being in favour of. With the locals only planning laws in many rural areas this is often not an option.

I never said everyone should live in one off housing and think if we are to solve the housing problem improved supply of a variety of housing options needs to be implemented. Services for rural dwellers would be much better served if these areas where allowed to have some housing development so they would have sufficient density to keep businesses there open and with lower land prices these houses could be cheaper to develop. I already said if someone wants to live in a high rise development then good luck to them but its just not where I would want to live. If we claim to have a free and open economy then people should be able to have choices.

Ficheall

Stop handing out degrees like skittles and insisting everyone go to college and then do a postgrad to stand out from the myriad others with the same degree. Would certainly be a step towards solving many of the accommodation issues in student towns.