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

I do own my own home. After graduation in the early 90s I emigrated to study/work, returning when I could afford to. My two eldest children live in the UK. So I’m sorry, I have little sympathy for those who think society owes them a house where they want to live.

You have to help yourself by identifying where you can afford to live, if it isn’t Dublin, then there is no point in waiting for SF to help you buy a house. It isn’t going to happen because the reasons for property prices are many, some, like the number of high earning tech sector workers, are not within their power to affect, without affecting lower paid workers, and damaging the economy further.

Well according to them there is more money to be made when the costs of living (not just housing) and things like taxation are taken into consideration.

You keep mentioning this strawman - who has claimed they are "owed" anything?

The reality is, the country cannot function without essential civil servants and roles like nurses, gardai, teachers, trades, shopworkers, etc etc. There are so many professions that need to be "local" but cannot in todays market afford a house. The country will stop functioning in parts if this goes on - already its very difficult to get teachers in Dublin, many Gardai stationed in Dublin quit because of the cost of living, many nurses emigrate for same.

The idea that the Dublin housing market can be just tech bros and pharma workers is a delusion - you cannot run a city or country with only tech & pharma workers.

Join the club Timmy its not just gardai and nurses its every profession that cannot afford it, its the same in the US New York not affordable by most, same In France (Paris), England (London) and other affluent areas where there is a high demand to live, why would Ireland and Dublin be any different and its not just gardai and nurses emigrating. Your argument is the strawman our public sector wages are 20% higher on average than the private sectors wage.

Many countries are seeing HP's drop now so it is understandable that demand for new builds will fall. If labour costs are anything like what we have then as many point out it will be uneconomic for builders to bring more to the market.

The price to income ratio for housing is much lower in most of the US, mainly due to the reserve status of the dollar and the deflationary effect that has, and there are arguably more opportunities to get rich in the US.

You can get a two-bed condo in Florida for €175,000 ($180,000). If you earn e.g. $60,000 p.a. and pay 20-30% tax that is cheaper than here.

Price to income ratio for Dublin is 1:9. That's more expensive than New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Miami.

In Dallas it's 1:3.8; Chicago 1:3: Minneapolis 1:2.7; Tampa 1:4.1.

So housing in Minneapolis is over three times less expensive than Dublin is, and it has a huge, thriving economy.

Melbourne, Perth and Christchurch, New Zealand also have significantly lower price to income multiples than Dublin

No big discount for moving to Canada as far as I'm aware.

Also if you can save a big deposit here, the money will go a lot further in Spain, Portugal, Turkey - though you may be on lower wages thereafter.

As well as that no need of heating systems in Florida, Nit much insulation needed. Aircon much cheaper to install that a heating system. Maybe not as much living area either as you patio/deck functions as another room or two.

In the states wood is used to a much greater degree than Ireland. I think it can go to 85 feet. Balcony's can be done with timber as well remember the one that collapsed in the San Francisco

Thats so **** depressing.

These are the kinds of outcomes that leads to populist parties being elected.

We're just storing up so many problems for the future.

It is simplistic to think that the Government is solely at fault for house prices, and that they/SF will make it so you will be able to buy. Ireland has full employment with many high paying jobs, and the highest population since the famine. We also don’t have enough houses, which for the most part are built by private developers, the pariah of the last recession, because they borrowed/speculated and built too many houses too quickly. Who can forget the “ghost estates” left unfinished because there were no buyers/developers went bust. Let’s also remember we have just emerged from a 2 yr pandemic during which building stalled, that was hardly the Government’s fault.

This is not new, but it seems people still ignore the facts and look to attach blame.

See, there you go again, should I not have been able to work/study here? There were better opportunities to do both abroad, even as a new graduate in my early 20s, I was mature enough, and had enough savvy to realise there were better opportunities abroad, and to get what a I wanted, I left Ireland. Both my older kids have done the same, neither think they should be able to stay here to progress their careers/earn and save enough to return if they want to. Like me, they don’t think they are owed anything by anyone.

In a properly functioning market, where demand outstrips supply, prices rise. When the cost of providing goods and services rise, the cost to the consumer rises. When you bid on a commodity against someone paid more than you and with more savings, in a properly functioning market the highest bidder wins. Where the State is under pressure to provide social housing, in a properly functioning market they become the biggest fish in the pond. So saying it’s all the Government’s fault is to discount that your fellow domestic buyers for the most part are the ones bidding against you, and the State are buying social housing because there is huge pressure on them to do so.

So again, stop waiting for someone to help you, when more houses come on stream, there will probably be buyers with more money than you in Dublin, so broaden your search, help yourself.

@Dav010

Long post, but you dodged the underlying question. Should those for the most part that study and work in Ireland be able to afford a home in Ireland?

You acknowledge full employment, therefore one can accept that very few expect society to provide them with a home

You acknowledge ghost estates at the start of this cycle therefore government had a significant head start on the supply demand imbalance and get significant advance notice of new high paying jobs. This gives significant time to plan housing supply.

Where is the logic in saying one type of housing was ok to proceed during the pandemic while another is not?

Broadening your search is a solution, but it should not be the only solution as you will end up back at the ghost estate situation you were at at the start of the cycle.

Don't be a disciple for the insanity that brought this country to its knees and had our government sending it's begging bowl to some of the poorest countries in the eu

Housing should be built where it is needed with a range of product for each income level. Private provision with state subsidies that only cater for the top 20 to 30% of income earners is not sustainable.

At full employment with some very high wages never before seen in this country and the lowest interest rates and still almost every house in the country is subsidised by the taxpayer.

Our homes are high value because of insane policies that attack and handicap our children. It not a result of our personal genius and foresight, far from it

Sorry, let me answer the “underlying question”, should you be able to afford a home in Ireland? That depends on how much you earn, where you want to live, and the availability of property at a price you can afford. If you can’t afford it, then no, there should not be any guarantee that you should be able to afford to live where you want.

A woman in her late 50s recently told me that herself and her husband 'had to' buy a small 3-bed in Bray when they were starting out, because they couldn't afford to buy in Dublin. They were 21. Entry level bank jobs. they could afford to buy in BRAY!!

Another couple, similar ages to the above, had the same story - mid 20's they 'had to' buy in Kildare, because they couldn't afford Dublin. Again, entry-level salaries for both. And the house price was less than 2x income!

Nobody is here asking for handouts. it's insulting to suggest as much (to say nothing of your use of "deserve" in the above), but of course you know that already because you hold the ludicrous notion that yourself and your generation had more savvy than today's house-seekers. Your refusal to acknowledge that things could, just possibly, be worse in this regard than they were for you is blinding you to the stark realities of our housing market.

What's most disturbing about the current Dublin market is that it's so warped that workers essential to keeping the city going can't afford to live there.

It's easy to say that that's a common theme around the world, but it's also true in previous decades essential workers could afford to own in the city that needs them.

All this talk about meeting building targets is meaningless if investor funds are allowed to outbid homemakers. It's doubly crazy when the government joins in the bidding.