"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

abozzz

As long as the elephant remains in the room of mass migration and its direct effect on housing, we are guaranteeing a deepening housing crisis forever. That isn't hyperbole, it is forever.

That the constant arrival of extra people into the country just so happens to coincide with housing shortfall, year after year, is asking yourself to discard your brain. Coincidence, it is not.

Arguing over the cost of bricks against such a reality is practical insanity.

There are many crooked schemes afoot in all shapes and sizes, from international vulture funds to shady hotel deals, but the one thing they are all predicated upon is the bed rock of misaligned demand.

Take that demand away and all of it collapses. No need to talk about the impact on the neoliberalism fantasy of the Irish economy, because that economy is doing sweet eff all to improve the infrastructural shortfall. The mindless pursuit of that magic economy is, in actual fact, the driving force of infrastructural collapse.

If you want to solve the housing crisis and reduce overall cost, tackle the artificial demand. Anything and everything else is worthless without it.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655047#Comment_121655047

There was a housing crisis here long before the recent migration crisis.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655057#Comment_121655057

There was a separate housing crisis created on ridiculous credit lending.

There is a very distinct timeline of events that separate that housing crisis versus this one.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655047#Comment_121655047

The ecomony has to continue to grow, otherwise we enter recession and our living standards go backwards.

We need to build more homes and better manage the inflow of people into the state, but we also need the economy to grow and we need a flow of migrants to make it happen/fill skilled labour jobs etc.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655080#Comment_121655080

It's a fools errand to pursue an economy that cures none of the increasing infrastructural deficit, yet relies on migration that increases infrastructural deficit.

Or if you rather, our living standards are going down the drain in many important and impactful ways as the system works, so warning that not pursuing that system will decrease those standards is moot.

As I said, a neoliberalism fantasy.

For proof, all one needs to do is observe as a matter of fact.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655047#Comment_121655047

No it doesn't, housing issues started long before the arrival of "extra people"

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655110#Comment_121655110

Without a growing economy, there are no funds to improve infrastructure.

There is a balance to be struck.

We do need immigration to fill jobs, but the level of immigration is a different question.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655126#Comment_121655126

As I stated above, there is a very, very distinct timeline of events between both housing crises.

The previous one was built on ridiculous credit lending, this one is built on artificial demand.

Nobody who cares to spend 10 seconds thinking upon it could be confused.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655130#Comment_121655130

If there is a balance to be struck, the sheer imbalance of the system right now is so lopsided it demands that migration be halted immediately.

The economy, as is, solves none of the infrastructural problems. Not a one.

Ever more demand arriving into the country is therefore having an even worse impact.

0 good versus all bad, it's easy to see how rebalancing starts.

Speculation though, is that I suspect that this system of economy is doomed from inception. It won't work without mass migration. And mass migration is net negative. Where does that leave us?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655175#Comment_121655175

It isn't net nagative.

Migration is what every succesful global economy the world over requires, in order to remain succesful.

Closing migration completley into Ireland would be a total disaster. We would soon complain when there were no doctors, nurses, hospitality workers, carers etc and our services grind to a halt.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655228#Comment_121655228

It is net negative. Obviously so. Painfully so.

An economy that relies on mass migration to function, while that mass migration quickly whittles away necessary social infrastructure, which the economy does not fix, is sheer madness.

Look into economies worldwide that rely on mass migration and you'll see the precise same fallout. Housing, healthcare, education and more swindling, while the economy does nothing to compensate. Australia, USA, Canada, UK, all the usual suspects.

It's a fools notion of success.

Lamenting that we have undermined our entire worsening health system to be reliant on transient, cheaper workforce (without faring to draw causation) and then pointing out that without mass migration it will be yet worse off...again, madness. The very definition of unsustainable.

By all means, people can continue to cheer for the very thing that's eating us alive, but don't come back shocked when it's worse again next year. And the year after. And the year after. And the year after that.

Housing, same. Healthcare, same. Education, same. Necessary staff, same.

At some point the penny will drop that despite the promise of the boons of mass migration, now that we are many years into mass migration and so many things are measurably worse....

It is very much like heroin. The stronger the dose you receive, the more you need despite your health going down the toilet.

Whereas we were all better off without heroin in the first place. So yeah, get ready for the painful withdrawals, or insist upon ever stronger doses until youre dead. Easy choice.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655074#Comment_121655074

Would an Irish 'no migrants' policy 10 years ago have led to there being no housing crisis now?

Would you have been able to afford that 3 bed in south Dublin?

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655126#Comment_121655126

You don't think large numbers of people entering the country put a strain on housing?

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655319#Comment_121655319

Impossible to say.

But I don't need to point out what might have happened 10 years when all I need to do is point out what is factually happening now.

An interesting way to look at it here. We are all used to these vulture funds and adjacents putting big money down on irish housing.

These types of people don't invest 100 million euro into random events.

They look at predictability. They look at causation. They want explanation, they want clarity. They want guarantees as much as possible.

When you see the likes of these funds queuing up to invest in Irish housing, it isn't actually irish housing they're investing in.

They are investing in the crisis.

They are investing in the crisis because it is easily understood, it is clear as to cause, it is predictable, they have as close to a guarantee as possible from government policies on mass migration that the crisis will continue uninterrupted.

These people are investing in the crisis with eyes wide open. They are investing in the crisis with a long term view.

Meanwhile, the irish population is arguing about everything under the sun except the clear cut facts. Which, not without irony, is yet another green light for crisis investors!

There are people investing hundreds upon hundreds of millions on the expected result that we are too stupid to solve the housing crisis. So far, they're right.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655319#Comment_121655319

Ireland's population grew by over 100,000 people last year, and the same the year before. That population increase would require 35,000-40,000 brand new housing units, per year, built just to house them.

We built approx 32,000 housing units total in 2023, and 30,000 in 2022.

How is this remotely sustainable? Anyone looking at the figures being at all honest will tell you its an absolute disaster. We're not building enough houses to house the number of arrivals we're getting, nevermind replace old housing stock, or make any sort of dent in the housing crisis.

Given theres apparently no prospect of us building 80k housing units a year in the near future its not going to be possible to make any sort of reasonable reduction in the housing crisis unless we reduce our population growth. We can't tell people to stop having babies, and we can't reduce EU immigration, so the only other policy tool available is to reduce non-EU arrivals.

Our politicians need to start being honest about this, the cold hard figures in housing speak for themselves.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655462#Comment_121655462

These entities investing in the crisis to the tune of billions can see things as clear as day.

To boil it down, they see a unprecedented influx of migrants that has pushed housing into mega scarcity, raising the cost through sheer demand. That's the past.

They see the current situation on opposition to that artificial demand. Namely, there is none. That's the present.

They look to the future and its predictability and see government going hell bent on policies to continue mass migration, regardless of the worsening crisis. That's the future.

That's a great investment.

People better realise that there is very serious money invested in maintaining this crisis long term. Serious money, lobbying sized money.

They know whats propping up and increasing prices. There is no confusion or moral dilemma worth a jot compared to the fortunes they've bet.

Mass migration and its crises has billions invested behind it. It's time to get as real and as cut throat as these people because they are, quite literally, banking on the impoverishment of your children's futures.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655297#Comment_121655297

You are missing the point that migrants do a lot of the essential jobs that enable Ireland's infrastructure to function in the first place.

Banning all migrants tomorrow would grind the country to a halt.

Controlling asylum or refugee numbers is not the same thing as enabling migrants to work here.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655910#Comment_121655910

Not all migrants are created equal. Its a deliberate political tactic to lump them all under the one umbrella as beneficial financially, but in reality there are huge differences in the impact different nationalities have on the Irish economy.

If you set the very real housing crisis aside the unemployment rate for French or Swedish immigrants for example, at under 7% in the last CSO statistics from 2016, would agree fully with you. They do add to the economy.

With an unemployment rate of 63% for Congolese, 45% for Saudi Arabians, or 43% for Nigerian immigrants they most certainly aren't helping the economy - they're a massive financial drain.

Given the complete lack of available housing in the country it would presumably make sense to prioritise letting in the immigrants likely to be financially positive for the country, who're doing jobs that need doing. Which would mean reducing the number of non-EU asylum seekers.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655462#Comment_121655462

Ireland's population grew by over 100,000 people last year, and the same the year before. That population increase would require 35,000-40,000 brand new housing units, per year, built just to house them.

There's no doubting the mathematical reality that 100,000 people will require at least 35,000 housing units to accommodate them.

But the same mathematical reality can be applied to the current population as a whole - 5,149,139 as at Census 2022.

If we're to accept 100,000 people will require 35,000 houses, then it follows 5,149,139 people will require 1,802,197 houses.

The total habitable housing stock as at Census 2022 was 2,112,121, a putative surplus of 309,924. This is a very healthy surplus even allowing for spare capacity to facilitate turnover between owners, tenancies etc. It certainly nowhere near crisis numbers of undersupply.

How is this remotely sustainable? Anyone looking at the figures being at all honest will tell you its an absolute disaster. We're not building enough houses to house the number of arrivals we're getting, nevermind replace old housing stock, or make any sort of dent in the housing crisis.

It has been pointed out in the property market threads numerous times that since about 2016 the habitable housing stock has been increasing slightly more than the numbers of new build completions. This is because, as you would expect, in a booming market with tight supply, property owners are incentivised to maintain and renovate older housing stock. It makes perfect sense.

This would suggest the idea that we need to build X,000 to combat the obsolescence of old housing stock is simply scaremongering.

TBH anybody looking at the figures being at all honest would not conclude it's an absolute disaster. Quite the opposite, they'd be scratching their heads wondering why the honest appraisal of the data is so at odds with the narrative.

Either the data is wrong or the narrative is wrong.

Past experience should make us cautious about believing that the narrative is more likely to be correct than the data.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655228#Comment_121655228

Migrants should go on strike for 24 hours and show the idiots in this country how valuable they are to running the country.

There wouldn't be a hospital, cafe or shop open if they withdrew their labour for 24 hours to prove a point.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656226#Comment_121656226

If you think there is currently a surplus of 310,000 houses in Ireland, in 2024, then I honestly don't know what to tell you. Thats obviously got no relation to the reality of us having the tightest housing market in the history of the state currently.

We don't need massive numbers of new housing builds to replace old housing, no. But we do need some. The estimations I've seen are circa 3-5,000 units a year. But that wasn't the main point of my post.

My point was a country experiencing rapid population growth of 100,000+ a year, with an average household size of 2.48 (in Dublin) to 3.02 (in Meath), will very clearly need to be building new homes to house those people. 35-40k housing units, to be specific.

Every additional human added to our population is another person that needs to be housed, ie extra strain on the housing market.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656303#Comment_121656303

If you think there is currently a surplus of 310,000 houses in Ireland, in 2024, then I honestly don't know what to tell you. Thats obviously got no relation to the reality of us having the tightest housing market in the history of the state currently.

I said putative surplus. I am simply pointing out the reality of what the data is telling us.

According to the CSO, we have a population of 5,149,139 and a habitable housing stock of 2,112,121.

We all read an abundance of pundits and experts telling us how many houses we will need to build in the future based on applying fairly simple mathematics to assumptions about future population growth - i.e what they think the situation regarding population and housing stock might be in the future.

But despite the fact it is a pretty obvious calculation to use as a starting point, we never hear those same pundits and applying that same simple mathematics to what they know the population and housing stock is today.

And there is a very good reason for that - it's because no matter how hard you squint, it's impossible to apply that same mathematics to current housing stock and population data and conclude that we have a shortage of housing stock.

And for many, that's an inconvenient truth.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655910#Comment_121655910

No, I'm not missing that point. I have fully addressed it, and I'll repeat it here again.

Weaning yourself into a dependant state on importing outside labour is one of the stupidest possible moves any country could make.

So instead of doubling down on stupidity and making ourselves ever more dependant still, we need to address the far larger problem of the impact that mass migration has on all aspects of the country, not tiny slices. And even those slices should be reversed over time.

Yes, the health sector is now dependant on migrant labour. Hoorah, what a victory for Ireland.

As I said above, there are billions invested in the housing crisis. These people did not invest short term, or in the hope that their investment will go down. They are banking on irish people living through a neverending crisis.

Let that sink in. There are huge interests that are backing the continued destruction of the country.

They are clear eyed about what they've invested in. Meanwhile, there are some people doing their dirty work for free by backing up mass migration. Crazy. No other word for it.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656266#Comment_121656266

Great.

Maybe it would be an eye opener as to the zombie-like dependency that has been created out of thin air.

Nothing screams success like giving up your independence to outside forces. Amazing strategy for the future.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656356#Comment_121656356

For 200 different reasons there are buildings, shall we say, that could be homes but are not homes.

You might as well be wishing on a star.

The reality of the matter is that regardless of such ethereal information, there is an extreme shortage of housing for years upon years.

The proof is in the pudding.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655411#Comment_121655411

Lot of people came back following the recovery from the crash, should we not have welcomed them as well?

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656471#Comment_121656471

There's only so long that people are going to put up with rhetorical, go-nowhere explanations.

Yes, huge numbers of people have arrived into the country and yes, the exact capacity crises that go hand in hand with artificial population increase have bloomed to life.

If that issue isn't tackled head on, we are looking at a never ending housing crisis.

So much so that large investment groups have poured money into the expectancy that the crisis never ends, safe in the knowledge that irish people are arguing over stupid grants and the price of cement versus the real money maker of artificial demand. Which the government's have amply signalled they will continue to pursue at all cost.

There's no escaping this.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656406#Comment_121656406

It's easy to dismiss census data compiled by the Central Statistics Office as ethereal information. But it's hardly credible.

abozzz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656619#Comment_121656619

I'll acknowledge that their existence/non-existence has had no impact on anything.

And will continue to have such impact.

The only such use of that information is as a spectral hope to keep people distracted.

"Maybe some day they'll appear, keep grafting so!"

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121656391#Comment_121656391

Next time you to to hospital make sure to tell the administrator you only want to be seen by Irish nurses and doctors. Won't be long til you're screaming for assistance.