Rent rises - what can the Gov do about it?

The government want high rents. Their goal is to transfer as much of your payslip as possible into the hands of investment firms.

They're doing a great job.

They could start by removing nonsense market interference like rent controls and hap.

You can regulate and enforce till the cows come home, but I don't think that will change anything. In fact it is likely to make things worse, as LLs exit the market.

The only real solution is to go back to the future (ie the 50's) and start building social housing.

Even at an unprecedented level it's not even going to cover this years inward migration alone with several years building, nevermind backlogs.

The 3 big parties have no interest in rent mitigation in reality

We shouldn't be housing immigrants in social housing, there should be quick processing of inward migration and then either the immigrants are expected to work and contribute, or are not allowed enter.

There are thousands and thousands on the housing list. Any positive change would be better than doing nothing. I'm a right wing FG supporter but I hate market interference, rent controls and HAP more than I hate the idea of building social housing. If we are entering a recession, large social housing building contracts are a great idea too.

we have to accept that free market fundamentalism has completely failed, and is now in a state of collapse, yes much greater state interventions and actions is actually the only solution, but we seem to be stuck, and unable to do so, for various different reasons, many ideologically based....

..once again our governmental majorly fcuked up during covid, as bond rates went negative, public finances should have been refinanced under these conditions, and significant borrowing done to build, this didnt happen, so.......

please show us where free market fundamental ideologies are leading to more stable housing markets, providing us with appropriate health care needs, environmental needs, amongst other critical human needs?

Venezuela, north korea, ussr, cuba, these are all great examples of non free market state run thriving economies.

I've told you before (more than once if I remember correctly) that the Councils did continue to provide social housing; the only difference being they BOUGHT houses already built by the private sector rather than BUILDING them. For the simple and obvious reason that this was CHEAPER. The Approved Housing Bodies were also a factor - I am not sure what role they played. I know they bought a 28 unit estate in a local town around 2010.

You want more Govt interference in the housing market when all the evidence points to them having made a hames of it - especially the rental market. The only worthwhile intervention by the Govt in the rental market is the HAP scheme; the market sets the rent, the tenant finds the accommodation and the Govt fills the gap between the actual rent and what the tenant can afford. There is minimal State interference and little bureaucratic input.

On News at One Tuesday Bryan Dobson interviewed Prof Michelle Norris of UCD re rentals. Quite the best interview I have heard on the subject for a long, long time. 20,000 small landlords have left the market in recent years. Reasons (1) some are no longer in neg equity and cashed out (2) some find the business unattractive - unlike other businesses they are taxed on turnover NOT on profits i.e. taxed on gross rent less allowable deductions (3) Some years ago PRSI was not paid on the income, now it is significantly increasing the tax (4) She said there had been 6 interventions by the State in the housing rental market in the last 3 years all putting burdens on landlords either on rents or on repossessions. [Incidentally Eoin O Broin only ever refers to the first of these reasons and is never interrogated on it]

Prof Norris said the first thing to do is [no, not extend rent cap Eoin] stem the exit of small landlords from the market thro action on tax and no NEW regulations should be introduced without modelling/testing for potential impact on supply.

Effectively no new regulations.

ou're all over the place. When the market collapsed in 2008 the LA's and the Housing Bodies were the ONLY substantial buyers in the market.

What do you mean by 'they bought a few'? How do you know? Do you not remember the problem of unfinished/ghost estates, where the problem was how quickly they could be demolished ? There was a great chance then for the State to go counter cyclical (NOT NOW) but they hadn't a bob and if they did they would have been accused of bailing out builders/developers/banks. Short term ism again which bedevils the housing sector.

No Houses 'got panning for private ownership'. Builders had to provide some social housing but could sell the rest as they wished and the LA was free to buy as they wished.

Your third sentence sets out a huge (your word) increase in private landlords as being a PROBLEM. Surely they were helping the problem??

If the public money flowing from the bottomless public purse into the private market was stopped, you'd quickly see a decrease in prices.

It's a vicious cycle. Public bodies won't/can't build. So they pump money into the market from their "bottomless" purses. Which leaves the market in a state which makes it even more difficult to do things the way they should do them.

I just don't get why we waste so much money on HAP. Let's build social houses. En masse. But - and here's the crux of it - don't give them away or have rights to purchase for cents on the dollar. You have a social house as long as, and only that long, as you need it. It is not inheritable.

Not sure about the fit out TBH, it's too subjective and open to abuse as a price control benchmark. If you look at countries with functioning rental markets, they typically rent unfurnished with white walls. Tenants are free to furnish and decorate as they wish but must return it in the same condition.

As for the levels of service from the owners, every tenant deserves a timely response to any reasonable request but in reality, what they should have is autonomy, like with the freedom to decorate. Taking an extreme example, our minimum rental standards require the provision of a microwave, an appliance that can cost as little as €75 or less than 0.5% of the average annual rent for new tenancies. If the microwave fails, and the tenant is waiting a week for a new one, that's poor service but in reality, our regulations are focused on the wrong thing, something like a microwave should be the tenants responsibility, they should be free to choose whatever microwave they want, or none, without having to to figure out where to store whatever POS the landlord provided, same for bed, sofa, and other furnishings. Larger appliances like fridge freezer, cooker, washing machine are probably better on the LL side but the regs should call out what a timely response to any issues should be.

Confusion multiplied.

modern society is far different in many ways, even financing property is now far more complex, when you start to look at the operations of credit and bond markets etc, but something is clearly catastrophically failing now in regards meeting this critical need. its clearly obvious the intended political approach of significantly reducing the public ownership of property, and the encouragement of more privately owned, is now starting to fail dramatically, the only solution here is the reintroduction of public accommodation, both housing and apartments, and to maintain a higher level of public ownership than is of current, an enormous amount of government borrowing is needed for this, but our current and previous governments have been deeply unwilling to accept this reality, hence their current falling.....

we re currently experiencing a major ideological failure, and id argue its actually a collapse, to the point, we dont really know what to do about it, and that also includes the opposition, we re also not the only country experiencing this problem, as its a wide scale global one. it could be argued, and i do partly agree with this, this approach worked for many older generations, in regards home ownership, many of which, probably would have never been able to obtain ownership without these polices, but this has now placed younger generations at great risk

renting public accommodation should be means tested, a significant amount of public borrowing will be required to build, which means many will probably need to pay market rate, or near market rate, to guarantee repayment of these loans.

our current approach is actually greatly exposing both renters and landlords, in order to have a functioning private market, protective measures for both entities are critical in order for these markets to function and exist, its clearly obvious, if we continue as is, this part of our property markets will more than likely also collapse, i strongly disagree with your last comment, even though an understandable one, there are failures in both sides of this story

again, i somewhat disagree, the nuances of being a landlord arent clear cut, there can be large amounts of debt still owed, and personal assets used in order to gain access to that credit, of course taxes to be paid and other costs, then of course theres the continual threat of a tenant refusing to leave and/or wrecking the place, this has all become very very messy, but i will agree, we probably do need referenda to help solve this one, as this has become a great danger for our economy and our society

there clearly needs to be a functioning eviction process, but in order to have that, there must be a functioning public housing system to support it, as people still need to be housed no matter what, making people homeless isnt a solution, even if tenents wreck places.

its understandable why we re now introducing eviction bans, but equal protections must also be included for landlords, an eviction ban alone simply wont work, both parties must be protected, in order to maintain a functioning system.

the reality is, the financial situation of the landlord, and of the property, must be included, there simply cannot be a situation whereby many landlords are facing default, and potential homelessness themselves, one of the main lessons from 08 should be the fact, if theres a significant amount of defaults on mortgages, it potentially could bring the whole system done, i.e. ignoring this fact simply is not an option, and must be included