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

I think WFH during the pandemic lead to quite a lot of people moving abroad with no intention of coming back. The empty apartments in prime areas like the Docklands isn't a post-covid phenomenon, we all saw the lights off during covid. They were never coming back because the housing crisis was so severe pre-covid with rents soaring every year and poor value for your money as well as huge struggles to obtain an apartment.

Don't anyone be fooled into thinking the tech slowdown has resulted in empty apartments; the housing crisis itself is the reason for the empty apartments and wfh during covid was a release valve for many workers to get out of the rental system which they gladly took.

Separately;

Commercial Property Crash

I was reading more over the weekend on the commercial (office sector in particular) sector slowdown and it is quite clear there will be a big crash in office values and rents; we will end up with ghost estates of empty offices, this is undeniable at this stage. It is not just about the top of the market vacating and reducing their footprint, but the mid-level market as well, as leases are not being renewed in a "low hanging fruit" effort to cut costs. The big issue with commercial property is that there is no way in hell the State can step in to bail out commercial landlords so they are utterly exposed to the perfect storm of rising interest rates and reduced demand. The Blackstone REIT imposing its redemption gate is just the tip of the iceberg and they even have a large portfolio of housing (which apparently is in great demand). Small side note: there is a link between rising interest rates and illiquidity pockets appearing in markets; the property fund gates and collapse of certain crypto exchanges are absolutely linked from the drying up of liquidity.

Funnily enough, it is only after the horse has bolted the Central Bank has decided it should do something, seeking to impose leverage limits on funds taking exposure to Irish commercial property but giving existing funds 5 years to comply. As usual, way too late to the party.

And remember; right before covid, Irish and UK property funds suspended redemptions due to runs on the funds. If your pension is still getting exposure to commercial property now; reduce the exposure for a while!

When you have the vested interests whinging in the national news, it is probably a good measure for the market, as a general rule. The whinging in this article shows that this tax will force land to be used quicker and efficiently. The argument against it RZLT are that it effectively makes building more expensive, but this is only the case where the building is taking too long which is something the author ignores; the precise intention with it!

That's a bit pathetic; "unfair" for the poor large landowners is not a good reason to hit them with a tax for not using permission.

Ireland, especially on the east coast, does not get cold. It is rare to see the mercury go below 5 degrees celcius at night even in the darkest winter night and day time temperatures are pretty much always at least 10 degrees. There is effectively an 8 month summer as well so excellent insulation tends to be more of a curse than a blessing in my experience, resulting in incredibly hot and stuffy dwellings most of the time. Houses need to be built with air filtering/conditioning more than insulation these days.

This is an exceptional week, hence the weather warnings, but it is by no means normal in the east of the country to have such cold temperatures at any time of the year, let alone for a month or two. In fact, the last few years we have experienced basically a 7/8 month summer from May to November with warm temperatures. Yet, housing seems to be focused mainly on heat retention and not on ensuring cool, pleasant temperatures. With climate change anticipated to get worse and temperatures generally to keep rising, housing in the east of the country should be built with this in mind.