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

Our minimum wage should be at €15 per hour to match the living costs that are soaring. €29k per year would barely feed and house a single person these days. Something will give, quite simply because it is unsustainable that so much cash ends up in property where it ultimately dies and is lost from the economy.

Ronan Lyons is good writing in The Currency, especially I enjoyed his piece on how real prices of property fell during the Celtic Tiger because of supply more than meeting demand. But he is still paid for by vested industry interests so is not necessarily impartial.

That’s exactly how it is.

main issue is we value labor too low vs idlers. Cut the dole and other benefits (housing etc) and all these min wagers could live of their wages without increase. All these cost of living crisis countries (coastal America, London, Ireland) have high welfare rates. Those that don’t (Texas, florida, Japan, Germany) have nowhere near these issue.

Increasing the minimum wage equals higher costs for businesses which means more inflation and would just result in higher rents and house prices. it’s a catch 21 situation and for this reason countries like the USA and UK have always needed immigration to fill these lower paid jobs.

But unless housing costs crash, it will all end in tears. Our much lauded FDI and corporate tax take will be obliterated and the real economy will be strangled by a lack of spending as housing takes too much cash from salaries. It has already happened that we have a severe labour shortage and practically no rentals are now available. If we want to turn on the immigration tap post-covid restrictions, it won't work when housing is unavailable and unaffordable.

It just is not sustainable to be paying people wages of €10/11 per hour, this is not enough and considering the inflation that has happened already, I'm not sure why you think wage increases to match the existing inflation would be a bad thing, it is required to catch up with existing inflation rather than get ahead of more inflation. The State must unwind its bloated supports for housing and let the market correct as it needs to do for the last 15 or so years.

The ECB is playing with fire by not trying to turn off it's magic money printers and increasing interest rates as inflation is going to continue to rise. Unfortunately, this could create a real Brexit type risk to the Eurozone/EU as the dust seems to have settled on the UK and the doom predictions have died down; trying to adopt one set of rules for the whole Eurozone in this extremely vulnerable economic situation will be a nightmare to manage.

What needs to happen is the cost of living needs to decrease

It is not that we need the cost of living to decrease, but rather that people need to limit there expectations and manage there life's. I got married at 29, i had been working since my teens. Ya I had traveled a bit, I had lived away from home since I started working. When we decided to marry we put a plan in place. We saved very hard for the bones of three years. My wife lived at home and I rented. I was sharing a house with 3 other lads. We met up 3-4 times a week.

Nowadys someone leaves college at 23, they get a job and continue to party like in college then they maybe meet someone and move in togeather still in there 20's. Or else they reach 30 and decide they want to live by themselves and rent a place They have there takeaway coffee's, there nights out, there fancy phones, there clothes that they use a few times and give to a charity shop or the local GAA collection, they have there weekends away in a hotel in Ireland or with Ryanair. They have there holidays. Then they want a house with all the MOD cons, completely painted and decorated as well as A rated. I will not mention the odd line of coke.

There is no doubt that houses are expensive, buts at present it seems they are a much better option than renting. Buts its down to SUPPLY where some here like it or not, and the willingness to limit your lifestyle in your 20's. People drift into cohabbiting in rented accomdation, have a child and can never save. Watching RTE's How to be good with money is an eye opener. People with 2-3 dogs and not realizing the cost, buying there lunch 2-3 times a week, going out to a resturant once a week. Changing there mobile every 12 months. Having an overdraft of 3-4K on a credit card continually and a credit union loan as well.

By the way a housing crash will not solve the problem. because a housing crash will indicate that credit(a mortgage) is not available, cash buyers the same as 2010-2016 will be the winners again, as Moore McDowell one said on Q's&A's all them tears ago '' Joe Sixpack( now Joe Slabman) will be the loser'',

Yeah it's a bit of a "I had it tough" boomer dismissal. Not everyone wants to buy and some people are happy to rent but why is the default cost absolutely extortionate? For those not wanting to jump on the property pyramid scheme, renting should be something that is a viable and sustainable alternative. However, only very few working adults could afford to live in their own place as a renter and that is pathetic as a society to allow this to happen. €1600 for a pithy one bedroom in Dublin, which means there are plenty of late 20s onwards adults still living in flat shares, which is deeply demoralizing as they get older. It also prevents them putting aside proper cash for their future as rent takes up too much of their salary - do we really want the average 30/40 year olds who can't afford/don't want to buy just flat sharing?

Irish people seem to live in a bubble and genuinely think Ireland is just like other EU countries or even better with housing when it really isn't. The government, by letting housing costs runaway largely from its own actions, has now left us in a terrible financial position where we will need to borrow multiples of COVID borrowing in order to stimulate the economy post-covid. Quite simply, the borrowing to date in COVID is only the tip of the iceberg to keep things ticking over but there is chronic underinvestment in infrastructure and services that will need to be ramped up. Unfortunately, the government won't be able to raise taxes to pay for any of this borrowing without committing political suicide as the cost of living, including housing costs, are rising dramatically. The heat really needs to come out of the market to avoid an economy stagnating.

Wow so 2008 was the first recession in Ireland.

It Was the first recession where our youth did not leave en masse and the pull up the ladder culture was far more visible

The pull up the ladder generation had the cheek and brass neck to turn to the "diaspora" (the generation screwed over in previous recessions) to save their asses

Embarrassing!

Rubbish. the pull up the ladder brigade as you put it educated there chidren to a higher standard than previously not justat second level but on to third level. Now a lad with a third level qulification can not afford a house ???. I med an old friend last summer of a class of thirty boys that started second level, about 25 did the group cetificate after second year. Only 22 did the inter Cert and 8 did the Leaving Cert.

Most lads that imigrated were gone at 16-18 years of age.

And what? Thats a trend across most of the western world, more people stick with 2nd level and progress to 3rd level education - it doesnt mean that the older generations didnt pull up the ladder post '08.

And your muck about "setting expectations" lol right. My parents and their parents bought houses on what would now be classified as unskilled jobs.

Nowadays you would struggle to buy a house on 2 median incomes in a lot of places, unless you move to the sticks (and can get a job anywhere near that income level).

cant afford a house because hes spending 6 quid a week on takeaway coffees.

How have you managed to admit its down to supply yet still think its due to people being bad with money in the same post? If everyone was suddenly good with money, they'd still be screwed because...as you admitted, its down to lack of supply.

They can have all of the takeaways, new phones, avocado toast in the world if they like, because for most of these people 3.5 times their salary gets them nothing

Saying this as someone who did save a tonne and managed to buy in recent months - your post is still nonsense. If you aren't a high earner, or don't have wealthy parents, you're screwed.

wow really so those who have a house are they not paying tax for welfare schemes such as FTB grants, social housing and HAP ..to me people are being bent over a barrel in what they pay in tax in order to subsidize these. Sacrificed will you pull the other one.