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

Which politicians and bureaucrats house their tenants in slums?

Many politicians are very likely to be out of the Dail after the next election because of housing issues, it is very much in their interest to improve the situation. And there are many reasons for the slow down in building which are unconnected to politicians like planning, labour shortage, availability and cost of materials. Also, politician’s targets are often aspirational, missing them isn’t unusual.

It will be interesting to see the publics reaction if SF are elected to Government, when they can’t deliver on all their promises and miss their targets.

Todays Irish Independent carries a story about Glenveagh Homes selling a development of 140 apartments to be completed in 2 years in Blackrock Co Dublin to a German cuckoo fund - Union Investment.

Last year this same fund bought another development of 435 apartments in Ashtown Dublin 15. These one and 2 bed apartments will NEVER come on the open market where owner occupiers can buy them. THEY are all to be rented out.

If a protest is arranged about this I will be there.

Virtually every new apartment development in Dublin doesn't hit the market for sale, I just find it amazing that nobody cares until its a housing estate.

Raw material cost was yesterday's news most materials are back at pre war prices and falling, availability of labour and wage inflation not an issue as reported by glenveigh during the quarter with the greatest inflation impact. Govt targets were set low and not revised to take account of the jump in population or refugee influx.

The industry knows it's dealing with the village/nation idiot in the government and will extract every last cent out the government.

A slowdown would be the perfect opportunity for a government to pick up the slack and meet its targets.

Over the last decade opportunity after opportunity has been passed up to fix this but gov appear disinterested

Houses due for delivery today would have had to break ground months ago. Just because prices are lower today doesn’t mean you can turn a key in the door tomorrow.

Raw materials costs unfortunately isnt yesterdays news, certain costs have come down, steel, aluminium etc but interest rates have increased, fuel prices remain high as do logistics. From what ive seen prices of construction increased early this year and they have stayed at that level overall.

I absolutely agree with you that in an effort to curb rent rises, Government meddling has had the opposite effect, pushing rents up and Landlords out. For that they deserve to be pilloried.

But I’m not sure how you think they can do anything more to drive rents down. They can’t magically build houses to rent, much as investment funds are despised on boards, they are the only ones providing rental properties in any meaningful way at the moment. If the Government reduce rental supports, the unintended consequence would be the eviction of those who rely on it.

I really don’t see the issue with politicians owning rental properties as long as they declare them, I doubt anyone could accuse this Government of introducing any legislation which favours landlords, if anything the legislation has been decidedly unfavourable.

@RichardAnd

Looking back to Michael Noonan stating in 2014 that he wanted prices to continue rising it is now pretty clear that reinflating the bubble is no accident.

So, if cash is king as McWilliams stated in his blog,

Assume you are now renting and but also sitting on a cash pile of €1,000,000 ,

What is you best course of action right now?

This idea of mom and pop landlords is a bit of a red herring.

People who were traditionally invested in property are still invested in property.

A lot of people have left the private rental sector as landlords because they were in negative equity for years on so called starter homes like apartments and small houses that they are now able to sell. These people were operating as landlords because they had no other choice and many of them were renting larger properties for themselves and their families to live in.

The funds are attracted to Ireland because there's no regulation on how they operate, developers are happy to take funding from them because it simplifies their lives.

Foreign investment funds are operating in Ireland because they can not because small time investors are leaving the rental sector.

Who said the market can’t crash? Name one poster who said that.

Because building a series of almost identical small buildings is a like for like comparison with a large hospital project on a restricted site with extensive political meddling