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

With the greatest respect I know where and how it was where I grew up. I can tell you that the house I grew up in was purchased from new in the mid 70's and was exactly how I described.

People did have it worse whether you accept it or not. You may not have experienced it but I and a lot of my counterparts did.

Me and others don't begrudge what others have if they are young, old, poor or rich. If some older folks have done well, fair play.

However, if older people are lobbying en-mass, stopping developments, pressurising local governments to not build any new homes within their vicinity least their own property value may be affected, then **** them.

They are pulling the ladder up after themselves. The very homes they lived in were built by some developer and it was a greenfield before then. They cannot now turn around and say, we want our area to remain as in forever.

Who do you think should pay for the increased building regs now so?

You had it worse, in an oddly (and significantly) substandard house

The actual numbers show that the majority of people did not. Houses were so much cheaper (proportional to income) that the higher deposit was much easier to achieve, and the lower mortgages never reached the same level as they do now - even at peak interest rates. Those are facts, not opinions.

Kilnamanagh? Wherever it was, it was built to a price point (and hence standard) well below what everyone else was doing. You can find house ads for bog standard houses in bog standard suburbs from the 1960s referencing central heating for instance.

That wasn't normal. And the house was still much, much easier to buy for a young couple (even on a single salary - maybe not a single person though as you usually got paid more when you got married back then) than any house is now.

The house as described in the 1970s is the same as everyone else had at the time. The only difference now, taking the assumption that a new house is the same as everyone else has, may be that the builders rubble in your garden is buried and seeded over - its rather a stretch to call that "landscaped". Rare to even have a front garden now. You're still going to spend ages spending to fit the house out - just with an even lower % of your income left. (as an aside, my cheap 1972 house had a built in wardrobe in each room. Not fitted as you'd think of now, and I don't think it was common. You're also over-egging the standards and included kit on a new build)

People buying their first house in the 70s and 80s in general did not have it harder than now. Ridiculous edge case examples don't stop that being true.

My sister bought a new build last year. I assumed all the windows were triple glazed but they’re not!

The number of new homes making it to market is reducing from a third to a quarter

The state alone is taking 25%

Is there anything stopping us from selling homes in shell format as in the 70's. Most buyers are coming from poor quality rentals, having a shell allows you to improve

Regarding insulation and efficient heating systems. The cheapest way to do these things is during construction. Could a tax/charge be formulated so that these things are paid for overtime. If the Payback for an efficient home is 10/15 years. Paying it back over this time period is effectively 0 cost

How would these 2 measures reduce the cost of construction?

The other major problem is in the 70's, your mortgage was serviced by predominantly 1 income. Today you need 2 plus looser lending policies. In general in the 70's you got a bigger house and garden. You would have assumed that the addition of a 2nd income plus smaller homes on average would cover the cost of improvements in "quality"

The issue here is how do you balance affordability improvement with the industry hoovering up money that is thrown at it. Ie any extra money, greater efficiencies, better ways of doing things is captured by increased land values, profits rather than greater affordability.

This is a choice, how come it's the very small minority benefit at the cost of the vast majority in democratic nation(s).

It must be a seriously powerful lobby and when you consider that all these lobby groups are headed by former politicians (investment funds, banking, construction sector, land owners)

The problem is obvious, we are looking to the very people that are the problem to solve it. Pages of blaming old people are a convenient distraction for them

Things that you might be able to cut costs down on a new build are limited. Return to non integrated kitchen appliances and hence don't supply them. Tile less surfaces.

There really isn't much more you can do unless you reduce energy standards and I don't think this is that time to do that.

There is something to work with in your idea of putting some of the energy efficiency works in to a separate charge - the insulation maybe not but solar panels and invertors that so many new builds now have for instance.

In the 70's trades people only earned fairy average wages. Most were enjoyed directly by a builder on site. As houses were more basic there was less need for certification or professional input in a house.

Most builders never used engineers. You had a lot of small builders providing basic housing. The like of McDonald homes who build 6-10 basic bungalows out of a book. You picked your house, they applied for planning and 6-8 months later you walked in the door.

Developers build in much smaller stages. There are as no need for security on site( if someone took a barrow of sand it was not a huge loss. If he was building a wall he get the builder to drop a few bales to him.

There are away less small schemes around of 30-40 houses.ost developments ate of a hundred plus houses. I. The late 80's a friend bought a house.im a development. The developer/ builder had 2 different house types a three bed room and four bedroom house. He was building 6-8 at the time. It took.him 3-4 years to complete.

These guys are now virtually all gone. In Limerick city there is really only two developments at present one in Raheen and one in Castletroy/ Monaleen.

It's got so hard because of planning and legislation it's impossible to build. For a developer now to build it will be 2+ years before he can start after he buys the site.

He can no longer build 5-6 of the houses, sell these and then build another 5-6. Mass development could be adding 20-50k/ house to costs.

from holiday homes to significantly restricting short term lets government is forced to consider all kinds of measures to address the current homeless/refugee housing crisis...

someone in a previous post mention expropriation at this stage anything could be possible to owners property rights..

https://www.thejournal.ie/holiday-homes-ukraine-madigan-5752392-Apr2022/