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

How many Irish social housing estates are in fact ghettos. Is it a case of the noisiest being the "voice of all". Would it be an exaggeration to say half our city stock was initially social housing

@Bass Reeves

To me the whole rating system is a bit of a joke. Seems to be some formula that takes window size and a few other tick-list items such as heat source, rather than attempting to measure things like heat loss.

Source of income you say?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/dublin-city-council-owed-38m-in-unpaid-rent-1.4781829

council houses resolved the previous housing crisis but will the housing be for working class or people unable to get on the housing ladder for whatever reason. This is never debated. If the housing was open to anyone regardless of income then the argument of having to pay taxes for the welfare class goes out the window. But this will never be debated despite it having solved previous housing crisis when implemented by previous governments.

I see the housing minister is meeting builders next week regarding accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. I reckon there will be a lot of builders binning the house building and going at refugee accommodation instead. Less supply n invariably higher prices to come-

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will hold an emergency summit of key stakeholders from the construction industry, estate agents and other bodies next week to discuss the medium to longer term response

Is there a difference between these 2 cohorts you mention? Certainly the qualification income limits need review in light of current property prices and lack of affordability. Increased supply would also cool both rental and price inflation

Of course certain candidates should be prioritised such as essential workers that need to be physically present at their workplace. Dress it up as a reward to those that kept the show on the road during lockdowns.

Rates are jumping higher in the US and aso in Europe.

irish 10y now 1.30%, hope this hits 2% thisnyear. This whole “big government” needs to come to an end to fix the housing market.

There should be a higher cut off income for it (high enough you could afford a mortgage), but below that its simply means tested rents. But again, this would require actual enforcement of non-payments & evictions, which is the reason for such massive arrears in social housing. People who decidedly can afford to pay (the rent is means tested), but choose not to.

Rent is means tested so that almost everyone can afford it, even if on welfare alone

Deducting rent from welfare directly would be a good idea, stop chancers from withholding.

I see landlords now required to register tenancies every year. I assume they will be charged a fee for that hassle too.

Death by a thousand cuts. But no point keeping cutting after they are already dead.

It has already collapsed. There is no fixing it now. This is the Titanic.

Yes.

we haven’t had any free markets in property for as long as I remember.

the UK central London market is probably the closest: no rent controls, quick planning permission without nimbyism of the shires, decent landlord rights, largely irrelevant social housing provisions for builders that just adds costs onto the working population, no HAP equivalent support due to social rent caps that disqualify most of central London.

the result in central London apartment market: abundance of supply (due to unlimited money pouring in, i.e. battersea, east london etc), stale rents since pretty much 2007, it takes a decade to fix it but London flats are starting to become very affordable in rent and price for local salaries ( and are actually really cheap compared to most other cities). Rents in luxury markets are probably down 10% since 2010 despite massive salary increases across the board. Ousting Ken Livingstone was the key + 12 years of Tory rule.

Such a scenario which I wouldn't be opposed to would mean that the social/affordable housing policy would be extremely successful and self financing similar to the Dutch model

Seems the only fair solution. The current prospect of middle income tax payers having no home and paying for someone else to have one with their tax can't work and will only alienate people.

So your advocating the government undertakes secretive discrimination and creating a system that is open to bribery.

Social housing needs to cater for everyone even if they have a bad credit rating, do not have a bank account or work in the gig economy where it wouldn’t be possible to deduct at source. If such processes existed the people not paying rent would take the government to cleaners with discrimination proceedings and still get away without paying.

There are issues at social housing levels and affordable housing levels, IMO the issues are greater at the point where working people can't afford rents as they have additional costs of working and most likely commute further. Most would have no issue with deduction from source when rent is more affordable and potentially a shorter commute

State housing can't cater for everyone straight away, breed a culture of compliance that sets the standard which quickly changes behaviour and delivers significant cost savings to the recepient. Success breeds sucess

We don't want to make things easier for the drug dealers and there hench(wo) men, much better to make it easier for the folk that work and play by the rules.

I'm sure there are exceptions that can be done for the people you cite, the main objective would be to minimise troublesome candidates that aid in ghettoising estates.

If people who benefit from a scheme and fail to contribute there reduced contributions, we need measures that counteract it, same with private rent and mortgages. No such measures = failed state

The troublesome candidates such as dealers and their henchmen wouldn’t have any issues with any of your suggestions. They could easily have income deducted at source all it takes is to be put on the books of the gym, hairdressers, nail bar or garage that they use to wash their cash.

what is needed is a more fair an equatable system that is not just available to a selected segment of society.

It’s the squeezed low to middle earners who don’t earn enough to buy and who earn to much to qualify for help. Some of these individuals will have good jobs and would be in a position to pay a mortgage rather than rent but are unable to do so because they can’t save while paying rent at the same time and are locked out of the housing market as a result.

Providing a housing model whereby they would be able to save would make a big difference for younger generations so they could buy in the future but there is a large number of people that will be older that could be self sufficient and pay a mortgage that also need to be catered for now or accept that come retirement will need state support to pay rent.

Regardless of whether the model is to rent or to buy it all depends on the ability to build new housing and we all know that regardless of what housing model we are constrained by the no of builders.

Do you really think that former hedge fund manager JayPowell is serious about hiking rates and killing the golden goose of endless monetary inflation?

The federal government will hardly be able to run the current deficits and debt levels with 4% long term rates. Unless they actually start cutting expenditure and the deficits, I wouldn’t trust anything they SAY.

and I can only laugh about all the people who want to emigrate…. Going to Australia, NZ, Dubai, Canada, US, UK and then complaining that ireland is “too neoliberal” and “rightwing” and pushing for left ideas. Lol oh the irony….

"On my side, it looks like it's good news on the job front, perhaps another week or so to get official confirmation. We're hoping we will be leaving this basket case by the end of the year and not playing the game anymore; to say I'd be relieved is an understatement as it is like the titanic or a slow motion car crash that's happening in Ireland. I no longer really care what happens to the property market here but it is clear that it is being manipulated by vested interests in a manner which leads me to think that economically we will be hit quite hard if the MNC gravy train stalls or reverses, given the staggering public expenditure which is just going to waste rather than being invested. And I don't want to be here when SF get into power, as much as I don't think much of FF/FG."

Good luck with the move ( i'll likely follow next winter) but regrettably there's no somewhere over the rainbow where property is affordable ..say at 3 to 4 multiples of gross annual income that was the post WW2 norm. I know because I looked on the ground not just on line. The multiple is 10 now in Dublin but even worse in Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, or London or Barcelona or further afield outside the EU such as Istanbul or anywhere in Oz or NZ. Most people by way of example in Lisbon take home an average of 1100 euro net. There is not much stock under 250k that is livable i.e. it's impossible for the average joe to ever own a home by leveraging a salary against a mortgage. Renting a room at the age of 30 plus while fully employed is reverting to 19th century model where most were forced to live in "lodgings". Millions emigrated from this continent on a wing and prayer to the Americas, South Africa or Oz etc ...in desperation to get the monkey off the back. Now a century later if I m sitting in a slum in Lagos or Cairo etc I can go on line and navigate the Social Welfare entitlements in Dublin or Stockholm etc ...and pack my bags. Flights are cheap.

If you leave your just playing the game elsewhere maybe rules are a bit different but generally it’s swings and roundabouts.

wishing you all the best on your new adventure and hope it all works out well in the end.

surely if rates go up it will be gradually cost the state more to borrow to make debt repayments and will necessitate even higher taxes here to meet existing obligations... higher interest rates coupled with higher taxes sounds like a dire version of 2008 all over again.. hardly a cure to our national housing crisis...

All time high since 2010…. More up-to date info on cso