Right to a house?

Mary and Jim are a couple in their sixtie, they have no kids and worked all their lives. Jim and Mary bought a property when their wages actually meant that they could genuinely afford on a single income a house in a suburb of Dublin in 1982. This mortgage left them comfortable and paid off. In 2002 their grandchild lives with their partner in a rented house in Dublin and pays rent of €2,000 a month. They have two kids and need a three bedroom. Whilst paying for this mortgage they have to save for a deposit for a house they can ill afford, as house prices are way above what it should be as inflation drove up house prices but their wages not so much. The 40% increase in elec costs, plus gas, spiralling petrol prices, threats of job cuts, ever growing shortage of food stuffs and resulting costs on that mean that they live in this weird twilight world - not enough to live on but enough to get by

So in essence its the people living pay cheque to pay cheque we help mate!

It's a sad state of affairs that an 18 year old has to finish school and know exactly what they want to do with their lives and they better choose wisely because they only get one chance and then go into a life full of responsibilities after college.

I had great craic in my 20s and 30s. Still living it up approaching 50. Have a house. And an apartment.

Have a read of your post , from no kids to a daughter with a child.

You still sound like you're having no fun now. A life wasted i would say.

There seems to be two unrelated discussions going on here about two entirely different things. One is about “social” housing and/or people expecting housing for free. Lots of straw-manning going on there. I’ve never had “social” or “free housing in my life, so I can plead ignorance and stay out of that one.

The other discussion - the one I’m interested in - is the one about affordability. How do you measure housing affordability? It’s how much of your income (after tax) you spend on housing. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assert that increases in home prices and rents have exceeded increases in income by a significant factor. There’s lots of freely-available research on the topic, such as this EU report: https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/housing-affordability-ireland_en

Some interesting stats in there, such as the impact of land costs (way too high) and construction costs (ditto). In 2019, Dublin had the 3rd-highest construction costs in Europe, after London and Zurich, and “margins” make up a large proportion of the increase. “Margins” is another word for “profits”: construction companies are profiteering from the situation, not so much their suppliers or building workers.

That's your answer to young people.

My parents will leave me this house or at least part of it, inheriting houses has been going on for generations, who am I to stand in the way of tradition. My adult life has been non stop suffering anyway so I will happily take that one positive.

My grandfather bought a town house for my uncle in the 70s when my uncle was 9, when he got married he lived there for 8 years and used the money to build a bungalow in his wife's field. My uncle was essentially set up twice, he had money and a field.

I think a common reason cited for the prohibitive cost of housing now is because of building regulations. Even building the most basic house you can now will leave you with a super cosy home, well insulated, good heating systems etc.

Regulations are regulations for all new builds, regardless of whether its a private luxury build or a council estate. The current regs dictate expensive construction and materials.

You can't build lesser quality as social housing.

Of course you can build a lesser quality house when it comes to social housing, as long as you comply with the building regulations. By all means insulate the houses, have a good heating systems etc. but there's no law that says social housing has to be exactly the same as private housing, only that the regulations must be complied with in both cases.

Here's an example of how costs can be saved.

Build social houses in simple rectangular form terraces like in the picture below.

They are still a good house if built properly and this method is an efficient use of space. This saves a lot on groundwork, blocklaying, plastering etc.

A simple 'A' frame roof on a row of terraced houses is also far cheaper to build than if you had to build roofs on detatched or semi detatched houses.

This method alone is so much easier as there's less plastering etc. The houses would also be easier to keep warm as they would have less walls exposed to the elements.

The only downside to these is that they may need extra fireproofing materials but this would be no different to an apartment.

You can put in cheaper flooring/bathroom fittings, skirting, architrave etc. I doubt there's any laws against that.

I know that modern thinking is that the government don't want council house estates any more as it can give rise to antisocial behaviour/ghettos etc (their words, not mine) but realistically, we need sh1t loads of them built and built in a hurry. If we can do it cheaply, it means we can build more of them. I've no problem with council houses by the way. I grew up in a terraced council house.

Have you seen the social housing that has been built recently and what happens to the housing that was built?

Go look at them and you get an idea why your plan hasn't worked and been already attempted.

Go to Ballymun and look. Mixture of new and old council housing. Civic pride in the location isn't there. The amount of rubbish thrown on the streets by the locals is apparent. You are suggesting we create ghettos. Integrated housing is needed so we don't make the same mistakes.

People giving out about the 3.5 times salary rule. I tell you this now...be thankful that is there. If you think house prices are high now, just wait until you see how high they would be if that rule was gone. Prices would accelerate explosively.

More houses are needed. What's your suggestion?

How come I know more than 10 people who are Irish and in their 40s own more than 3 houses each?

one of them is a finance senior manager she own 5 houses.