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

The effect of investment funds and state purchasing would appear to have made new homes unaffordable for ftb's

The site appears to be located in or immediately adjacent to an area marked as being at medium flood risk when looking at the site on the flood maps.

The fact is the site should never have been given planning permission in the first instance and is prime example of a dodgy celtic tiger era planning approval.

Its all well and good to say its still useful, but if that area then flooded severely and the house became uninhabitable, based on the quantifiable risk, Council will be sued and questions asked. Council will be seeing this as an opportunity to right a wrong. Also it could be difficult getting insurance on a site declared at flood risk.

Flood risk in this country was severely underestimated and/or overlooked up until the crash and it will only continue to get worse with the effects of climate change. To say it hasnt flooded in the past does not mean it wont be in the future. There are numerous examples of properties across Ireland being flood affected for the first time in living memory recent years.

The best flood defence is not to build on flood plains in the first place - building walls to deal with floods just shifts the problems elsewhere.

Land needs to be allowed to flood, if you try and raise the banks or build walls you are causing flooding somewhere else. Council are right to try and knock this, uninhabitable buildings on flood prone land that should never have gotten PP in the first place - wont be eligible for insurance either so only choice is to knock it!

Walls work both ways though so they can just as easily trap in flood water if there isn't some consistent flood defense strategy for the whole area to ensure that doesn't happen.

You're right about the red tape though, the biggest issue with bringing that back into use is that no sane engineer or architect is going to put their insurance and livelihood on the line to sign off on that building as habitable after some minor remedial works, you can see clearly the roof timbers are rotting, so right now its all " But what about the refugees!" but in a years time when it burns down, floods or the roof collapses it'll be all "Who's going to prison?"

I wonder who originally gave permission for it to be built

I disagree due to the fact that there are a mass of people who have a home to go to and they cant afford it, its called the housing list.

What do you mean?

US heading the same way. Business investment is taking a massive dive which may translate into less FDI here by the MNCs. Jobs growth and consumer spending there is still positive but the question is for how much longer.

If the UK & US are both in recession then I think that bodes much worse for us when compared to what ever happens on the mainland. Although it is worth noting our exports to the EU have ramped up significantly since Brexit at the expense of the UK.

In terms of the effect on the property market, it may well depend on the severity of any recession. The Economist published an interesting take on this last week:

For me, the two big unknowns this time around are the fact that inflation is being driven in part by supply side shocks and financial markets are starting to have withdrawls from a decade of the free money drug.

Not necessarily especially if growth slows big time and as a result jobs losses start to become the norm, that will hit the demand side. Personally I think the Tech MNCs in Dublin city centre will start the paring first, smaller ones more so than the Googles, but nevertheless the contagion may spread.

what I mean is we only have one stock of houses for both rent and to buy and even now a lot of people cannot afford to rent or buy a house but the left leaning government are handing them cash to make sure they can afford it so the affordability factor is not an issue. The over riding ratio is people who want to be living in their own home (either renting or buying) vs the amount of houses that we have available for rent and to buy.

I think it's more of a 'Celtic Elephant' situation, it's already here in the room, but nobody is talking about it.

The Co Council planning department.

Yes but this dose not seem a flood plain. Looking at the photo there is a house on the LHS in good condition. As well the old defence is 600mm-1m below the existing walkway. This brings me back to a council agenda. The green growth on the lower defence suggest that there was not serious flooding there in the last twelve months( this would have washed away the earth whee the growth occured. So it only has the lowest defence not been breeched the footpath the higher defence is in place as well.

Inside the security fence is a small wall. If this was a mas concrete wall it would secure the area.

It's look like an excuse from the LA with an agenda, it smells like it .....

I am just a stupid peasant. I no senior engineer. Then if you want to solve housing you really need to red tape out of the loop.

I do not know the site although I have often been through Killmallock. However as you say flood defences work both ways. From looking at the photos it depends on how you access the site.

A major cost in any developments at present is getting a site to building stage. Replacing a roof is a minor cost. It looks more like external timbers are an issue. Was it mentioned as an issue in the senior engineer's report