Vacancy Figures Megathread

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120957321#Comment_120957321

If you built 100k houses in the morning, they would be absorbed, but it would reduce the pressure. If the probability of capital appreciation was lower, and the probability of capital depreciation was higher, less people would hoard houses.

If I gave you and one other person 400k each in the morning and you have no experience in investing, and you put your money into a 1-year deposit and the other person puts it into a house and leaves it vacant, who will likely be in a better position in a year? How about in 10 years? Some people take it for granted that the only way is up. So they will feel better off buying the house as a commodity.

That's for someone to go and buy a house. Not for someone who already has one and has that extra inertia.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120957503#Comment_120957503

If you built 100k houses in the morning, they would be absorbed, but it would reduce the pressure. If the probability of capital appreciation was lower, and the probability of capital depreciation was higher, less people would hoard houses.

I get this - i.e 100k extra houses on the market, likely to change market sentiment, less likely for prices to go up, less likely to hoard.

What am I wondering about is - if you put 100k houses available in the morning, which would be filled immediately, at say 2.5 people per house (current avg household size is 2.75) that's 250k people who are relocating. 12k of them are homeless, but that still leaves 238,000 people relocating from an existing property.

Are there really that many people still living with their parents etc - i.e not already housed with some independence? If so are there any stats available on this?

For 100k new houses to make a dent in the vacancies there needs to be significantly in excess of 250,000 people whose current housing meets are unmet and keen to relocate.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120957527#Comment_120957527

What you are failing to understand is demand. The number of young people doing the leaving cert every year is about 65k. The number of deaths is 33k. That adds a latent demand of 32k requiring housing every year.

I know you will come back and say that not all young adults leaving school require housing at that stage, however you have the same metrics for the last 10-20 years and if the do nut require it at 18/19 they are looking for a housing units at some stage in the following ten years. Latent domestic demand is 32k adults needing new houses.

This assumes that all the houses of the deceased are completely habitable and are available for housing. However they probably are not.

Net migration into the country was 61k last year, 11k 2021 and 29k in 2020. I think it's expected to hit 80k this year. If inward migration even averages at 50-60k yearly, it means along with young adults we are looking at about minimum 80k people requiring housing.

However while the present occupancy rate is slightly over 2/ unit the indication is that this number is dropping as more people live by themselves. Even at 2/ unit the demand looks like it's in the 50k units per year for the foreseeable future.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958385#Comment_120958385

Of course I understand that if the population is growing, housing demand is also growing. That's blatantly obvious.

But that doesn't answer the query I had in the post you quoted about the effect of 100k new build houses in the morning.

For all the talk of possible future average net inward migration, births, deaths, estimated of household formations and demand forecasts, do you have any idea of how many new units we need right now, to deal with the demand we have right now and fix the problems to get back into a supplu/demand equilibrium?

is it 50k, 100k, 150k? Or what

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958442#Comment_120958442

Probably in the region of 70-100k houses and then a continuous build of 40-50k/year

The problem is achieving that. In reality you are looking at a build requirement of 50-60k per year for about 7-10 years if the parameters remain the same. It unlikely even with modular housing we could hit that figure.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958510#Comment_120958510

And the 70k to 100k estimate to satisfy immediate demand deficit, what are you basing that on, i.e what figures?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958523#Comment_120958523

It's an educated guess. We are building nearly 30k units this year and it's nowhere near demand. LL's are renting houses by word of mouth. Even with interest rates increasing its not reducing house prices significantly.

Ya maybe if we could free up supply by getting people to downgrade and by giving people who own a second units the encouragement to rent it.

87% of rental supply is owned by small LL's according to Darragh O Brien this week. But there is no magic bullet.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958586#Comment_120958586

The reason I ask is that for all the talk about how many units might be needed in the future to solve the housing crisis, which obviously is always based on subjective forecasts and estimates yet nobody seems to able to calculate what we need right now - i.e what is the deficit we starting tomorrow from?

If we had that figure then of course all future estimates are more meaningful, because we know what the starting point is.

It does seem odd that it is so difficult to calculate given we have existing population data, demographics, housing stock etc,