Are you affected by the housing crisis?

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166571#Comment_123166571

Many people are in their mid 20s before they finish their education and reached a position where they can being to save a deposit. After a deposit is saved, a mortgage has to be obtained on a property. When there is an economic collapse, prices fall but so do earnings and the availability of credit. many people now in their 40s never had the happy confluence of affordable prices and the availability of credit. Cheap property is no good if you can't fund it.

Kaisr Sose

I am not going to dispute there is a shortage of housing in Ireland. Having gone through a boom in construction, to bust, the correction was severe. During that time demand has never contracted and then grew exponentially with no sign of it stopping.

It could be argued that Ireland has just tried to grow too fast without any thought put into managing that growth or investing for growth. It's always reactionary, too late and insufficient. Like many a successful business, if growth and expansion is rapid, it can cause the business to collapse as it just can't cope. Ireland as a nation has hit this point both for housing and other critical components of a functioning economy. As a result, Ireland is just pretending to be a wealthy country. We will probably blow this boom too.

That said, there is much mis-or incorrect information posted here.

@hometruths 600,000 people homeless? Is there a source?

@zell12 What is the source of your claim that the shortage of housing is a deliberate decision to preserve wealth of those with property assets? To organise this would be a massive undertaking involving 100's of thousands of people..Just because some people have this view, does not mean it's true.

@Claw Hammer It's not nearly 20 years since the bust The bust not just one year and spannes 2007-2009. Recovery was very slow, beginning 2012 with inward foreign investment etc. The recovery in construction was slower again, and did not keep up with job creation, immigration or normal demand.

@Sleepy There are many homeowners paying more in interest (not capital) than others pay in rent for similar homes. There is no economic or financial model that says renting should be cheaper than buying, yet some believe it should be so. You are 100% correct on institutional landlords, but not so on the private ones. Many have rewarded longstanding tenants with fair rents. They are not making supernormal profits. Any gross profit is subject to 50% tax, in most of not all cases. Many have sold up because the return is not sufficient, and the downsides and risk of bad tenants too high.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166988#Comment_123166988

I think it's just too great a problem for it to be avoided, sadly.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166990#Comment_123166990

It's worth pointing out that people in their late 30s or early 40s entered the workplace in the middle of the recession. Personally speaking, I didn't start earning good money until I was 30, and many of my friends and relations in the same age age bracket had similar experiences.

Hurdig

What about the young people in their late twenties & early thirties still living at home with their parents. They are trying to save for deposit for house. Rent is so expensive they can't save deposit for house. Catch 22 situation

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167011#Comment_123167011

@hometruths 600,000 people homeless? Is there a source?

Not 600k physically homeless obviously, 600k people not housed according to their needs due to the housing deficit eg house shares, living with parents etc .

Over 10% of the population. Mind boggling stuff.

Confused11811

47 year old male here, mortgage free since aged 40. I bought first house aged 24, bought several since. All while being single or widowed. Never worked a job that paid massive money, above average wage by 10-15%.

I did work, save hard and made sacrifices. In today's environment if I was starting out again no amount of hard work or sacrifice would afford me the ability to do what I've done. In today's environment two young civil servants living together as a couple can't afford to buy in urban areas. 30 years ago they could have bought in middle to upper class Dublin areas.

It affects us all, my children school in D22 can't hire teachers, major urban hospitals are losing nurses and support staff. If people can't afford to buy in an area they'll go somewhere else.

The two civil servants living together who can't afford to buy should be the real metric used in all European countries. If government workers are in that situation then there is something wrong.

Housing should never have been allowed to get to the inflated unsustainable prices it has got to. It's a form of modern slavery. The lack of supply and the lack of a coordinated national social housing system is down to the lack of will by authorities.

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167011#Comment_123167011

The property market turned in mid summer 2006. Things staggered on into 2008 before the government woke up to it.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167760#Comment_123167760

…have they ever truly woken up to it!

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167765#Comment_123167765

They woke up to the fact the country was broke in 2008. they are only getting interested in the housing crisis now because it now affects the middle classes. Middle class people can't buy houses, including members of their own families. Years ago housing problems consisted of people trying to get council houses. The middle classes weren't affected.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167796#Comment_123167796

…i beg to differ, theyve never truly woken up, as theyve gone back to the same type of policies that caused the crash in the first place, i.e. do everything possible to cause hyper inflation of prices, as surely, it ll work this time!

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167803#Comment_123167803

No way have they gone back to the policies which caused the crash. During the boom there were 90,000 house a year being built with rula county tax relief, holiday home relief and inner city tax relief and lower capital gains Tax. Add relaxed i.e non existent building standards and throw in reckless lending and you had a bubble. None of those things are happening now.
The result is no building. The government is trying too hard to avoid a repeat of what they did before, not engaging in the same thing.

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167760#Comment_123167760

Not really relevant to the thread but you are taking the start of a dip or end of growth rather than the total collapse of economy and house price crash (2008).

Late 2008 is when it really kicked off and continued to 2013.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167827#Comment_123167827

…the rules have changed, but the game actually hasnt, and the game is, and has always been, to facilitate and encourage property price inflation by whatever means possible, so, ta-da!

…we re still playing a credit game, only that a large chunk of that credit has moved further into institutions such as investment and pension funds, and credit does what credit does, i.e. inflate asset prices!

StormForce13

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123155591#Comment_123155591

Ah, but young journalists are different! First they write the conclusion and then they look for cases that will validate their work!

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167878#Comment_123167878

Sounds a bit like the Housing Commission!

Sleepy

@kaizersoze I presume you're factoring out the capital gain when you state that private landlords aren't making supernormal profits? Unless they bought the house very recently, most landlords would be clearing more than the mortgage repayment even after tax. Rents are way too high when compared to a mortgage repayment for the same property but that's the market, and a landlord would be a fool not to charge market rate (particularly in RPZs).

I'm not one to demonise private landlords. It's not a game I'd get into myself (even if I had the capital to do so) due to the risk profile. Our tenancy legislation is excessively pro-tenant imho but I'm not going to act like most private landlords aren't making very good returns on their initial investment (usually little more than a deposit rather than the full purchase price of the property).

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123167945#Comment_123167945

….markets are now so dysfunctional, most landlords and tenants are seriously negatively impacted, i.e. its a mess!

herbalplants

Unpopular answer. Fact good few estates of the new houses in Dublin are 90% bought by Indian nationals. Money used at times from their families.

Many might not stay here forever but they plan to rent these homes.

More regulation should be brought around this issue and stop it.

All you have to look at Canada now.

nearby_cheetah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166808#Comment_123166808

encouraging the state to step back from providing this critical societal need, and promoting other parts of the economy in doing so, such as the fire sectors(finance, insurance and real estate),

Who provided the investment and labour to build the 90,000 odd homes in the mid 00s?

Was it the state? Or something else?

Are you trying to say whatever method that provided that investment and labour to build the 90,000 odd homes should not have been allowed to do so?

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166957#Comment_123166957

because we have a housing crisis with lack of supply, and our population has increased by 98,700 between April 2023 and April 2024.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2024/keyfindings/

and by just under 500k in 5 years. Take away the immigration and you suddenly have 500,000 less in the housing market.

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123169770#Comment_123169770

There was a population of 9 million in Ireland in 1846. Nobody should be complaining of overcrowding until that figure is exceeded.

reniwren

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171219#Comment_123171219

Life expectancy was something like 40 too

batman_oh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171219#Comment_123171219

Yep, lets all live like they did. After all it's a target number we should hit at all costs. Actually lets double it.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171219#Comment_123171219

That didn't end to well…are you forgetting the great Hunger??

You also had generations living in thatched cottages or tenements. No thanks, building regulations were also very different

tom1ie

we are not building enough houses because we don’t have enough builders and tradespeople.
So we have to import builders and tradespeople to build these houses but we have to house the builders and tradespeople so they can build housing.

We also have to provide more affordable rental but we are pushing LL out of the market and not building enough housing to then rent out affordability.
Rental is expensive due to the government keeping an artificial floor level in place via HAP.

Discuss.

reniwren

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171326#Comment_123171326

Invest the 2.75 million spent per day on on ipas housing on apprenticeship courses and generally making young people's lives better. Tada builders.

tom23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123166715#Comment_123166715

This…

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171219#Comment_123171219

Scraped from the Internet by ChatGPT ...

In Ireland in 1845, just before the Great Famine, the average house size and the number of people per house varied significantly based on class and region.

Average House Size:

Rural poor often lived in one-room cabins made of mud, sometimes as small as 10–20 square meters (100–215 sq. ft.).

More prosperous farmers and townspeople had stone-built houses, typically 50–100 square meters (540–1,080 sq. ft.).

Average Number of People per House:

The 1841 Census of Ireland recorded an average household size of about 5.3 people.

Many poorer families, particularly in rural areas, had 6–10 people per house, often living in cramped conditions.

By 1851 (after the famine), the population and household sizes had declined significantly due to death and emigration.

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123171219#Comment_123171219

Indeed, hospital waiting lists were non existent back then and teacher n creche shortages were a non issue back then too- the glory days!