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

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.

We will stay clear of it then. 😀

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.

"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.

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.

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.

🤣

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

Not with no internet they won't.

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.

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