Is housing really that bad or is it just another hyped up 'crisis'?

Mortgage cost doesn't include capital repayments (though some appear to think it does). It is wrong to consider the capital repayments as part of the "cost of a mortgage"

You swap the interest rate for rental income. Interest rates have increased but I don't think they would be more than the rental yield. It has been a really good deal for anyone who borrowed in the last 10 years. In making that swap you take the risk of rates increasing, but you get the upside of the time when the rent is higher than the interest.

You take some downside risk in terms of the price possibly depreciating, but you get the upside risk as well.

Mortgage costs vs cost of a mortgage is semantics - it is beside the point being made originally, which is:

In a normal market, rent is typically less than a mortgage (monthly payments, same property). The reason being a landlord only has to cover their overheads & mortgage interest, not the entire monthly mortgage repayment. In this case, they still are making money due as they gain equity in an asset. Having a cheaper rent, shorter commitment (months-years tenancy agreement vs 25-35 yr mortgage) is one of the reasons renting appeals to people and is preferable to buying in some circumstances. This is the case the world over, Ireland is no exception (except for chronic shortage currently which has distorted both sales and rental markets)

One house, yea probably.

30+ units, much harder, the original 20 odd detached units impossible.

The only way to do it is guarantee that a approved housing body would buy them.

That's what happened to another Phase 2 nearby in the last few years that was idle since 2007.

By your own details, that builder has had more than 15 years in which he could have built those houses. He could have done 2 per year.

If you were designing a system for providing for society, would you include a provision that someone who can't manage to build two houses per year should be allowed to hoard zoned, and planning-permissioned, land?

If rent cost more than mortgage payments there is almost no incentive to rent over buying - you would just buy, then sell later and youd have far fewer losses than straight up renting, as renting is dead money.

Its mainly market forces that cause rent to be less than mortgage - its also very unusual market forces causing it to hit the current heights where rent is greater than mortgage. This is the anomaly though, its not normal.

Well then, that builder purchased that site since the crash. What you are telling us then that he likely overpaid for it. They made a bad business decision.

It is often the case that changes to planning etc. are not so that a builder can actually build more houses, but so the site value jumps up and the owner can flip it on to the next sucker and so on and so on.

"I can't build because I paid a million for that site and I won't make any money from it. Please grant permission for higher density"

Permission granted. Site flipped for 1.5m. New owner whinges:

"I can't build because I paid 1.5 million for that site and I won't make any profit from it unless you give me tax breaks"

At some stage we have to stop encouraging the moral hazard.

Crisis? What crisis? The government have already outlined the solution to our housing problem.

Step 1: give 60-80% of your monthly salary to a vulture fund.

Step 2: stop complaining.

Read your link before you post it:

The actual report states that the NET RENTAL income is 20,000.

The reason most own one or two is because they don't actually have capital to do anything. Or have the resources to ride out any blips. They are have-a-go amateurs who feel entitled to get a loan of other people's money and to have someone else pay it back for them. When things go pear shaped, they need to be bailed out. I have no problem with people investing their money. But if you jump in blindly and proceed to spend the next 10 years whinging about things you should have known in advance, I'm not going to have any sympathy for you. It is not a good model for housing provision.

People don't seem to like either model. There is huge criticism of large firms buying apartment blocks and renting them out, and at the same time, you get this kind of vitriol towards smaller landlords.

There is always a need for a rental market. Jobs are more volatile and people move more often. Renting is the key option for people who want to live in different places. It is not like the 1950s where everyone lived within a few miles of where they grew up.

Anyone can buy a house and rent it out if they want. But if you buy one and 5 years later you are whinging that it isn't fair that you have to pay income tax on your income from it, don't expect much sympathy. That's hardly vitriol is it?

Having a development of 50 apartments built and managed by a professional company is always going to be more efficient than having a builder build 50 apartments and selling each one to 50 different owners who are then trying to rent them out and manage upkeep of the common areas etc. If you've spent any time in the US you might be familiar with their distinction between "condos" and "apartments" with the latter usually offering a higher standard for anyone renting one.

An advantage of having larger entities is that it is also easier to regulate and control them.

Some stats Eurostat posted up today.

How are we so low in the first chart and an exponential outlier at the high side in the second?

We are that bad at managing personal finance? Would be interesting to see a comparison with the UK. We arguably have more in common with the UK than the EU26.

One graph shows that housing is more affordable in Ireland than most countries, relative to our wages.

The second graph shows that in most countries you’ll get evicted if you don’t pay your mortgage but in Ireland far more people are able to carry on in arrears without any consequences.

I would also like to buy a house to rent out and maybe live in in future, but how can you do that if the tenants can never be told you have to leave your contract is up?

From overseas the tax is 20% min which is fine but in Ireland I would be paying 50% on the rental income I guess. So the while thing is a balls up.