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

how much of an issue are holiday homes though? the bigger issue is that airbnb and the likes have thousands of listings in the big city centres. in the grand scheme of things i dont really care about some holiday homes down in dingle or west cork there is better uses for the homes in city centres, where homes are scarce and plenty of essential workers are struggling to find somewhere to live. they need a work around asap but they have to come down hard on those short term lets listed in the bigger urban areas.

Two UCC students have decided to address this.

Brian O’Kane and Peadar Ó Rathaile this week began sending planning enforcement complaints to Cork City Council. They have 60 in already and have plans to send 371 complaints relating to Cork city short-term lets. After hitting the city they’re going to go for 1,700 similar lets in Cork county before shifting their focus to Dublin and the rest of the country. “I'll be willing to go about this for as long as it takes,” said final year law student O’Kane from Blarney, county Cork.

Fellow law student Ó Rathaile, an Ennis, county Clare man, said he’s “heard oftentimes that every lever is being pulled to address the housing crisis” but was frustrated that no real efforts have been made to address illegal Airbnbs. “To my mind this is probably the easiest lever to pull that hasn't yet been pulled to return potentially 25,000 houses to the market. I saw that the law was there but it just wasn't being enforced, which is a general theme in law in Ireland. It communicates that the 'law is here, but we're never going to enforce that,'” he said.

Address this?

All Cork Co.Co had to do to get the same info was go onto the Airbnb/Bookings.com/other short let sites.

I really don’t think anyone should be linking to The Ditch in relation to problems with the accomadation sector, the clown who runs the site did this:

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/journalist-ordered-to-vacate-home-over-nearly-50000-in-unpaid-rent-42296150.html

Do you read the news at all, you'd want to be insane to buy to let a property. Price drops? low single digit possibly over the next 12 months but that's about it.

But the council didnt, which is kind of the whole point.

I can’t see to many prospective landlords being enthused at the prospect of a SF government.

EOB has also called for a complete ban on no fault evictions meaning LLs would be unable to terminate tenancies when they want to sell.

Would require landlords to get used to the conditions that apply in most other countries. Other landlords can buy, the sale price will likely be impacted as a result, but that isn't a given.

edit: removed a reference to the UK, as they have actually watered down their proposals to end S21 evictions to be similar to our current system - the original proposal wasn't that way

From a renters perspective, it would be a positive, but the post I replied to stated in its first line “Buy to let is the way to go”. A ban on terminations when the owner wants to sell, or the prospect of one if SF are elected, will not entice small landlords to enter the market.

There wasn’t a ban on evictions for non payment of rent, and no, that isn’t the big risk. The risk in the case of no-fault evictions is that when selling the owner is immediately at a significant disadvantage by not being able to sell to owner-occupiers, they are currently the group most likely to bid on a house, excluding institutional investors/LAs.

Thankfully we are now seeing a row back on the proposed legislation for short let’s.

The issue is that while it is the ideal from the tenant perspective for security of tenure, that requires willing suppliers.

You have a lot of existing supply that just doesn't want to be locked in for long tenure.

By making it the law, that supply will just go, you can't lock people into a long term contract against their will, they will sell or just end relevant part 4 tenancies as they come to an end.

That is going to make things a whole lot worse for tenants because there is already under supply.

The majority of people just don't understand that the majority of leases now are 6 year part 4 tenancies, the landlords did not commit to indefinite duration leases.

From 2022 leases moved to indefinite duration tenancies but only after the existing part 4 tenancies complete their 6 year cycle, so on a rolling basis over the next 5 or 6 years or so they will roll over if the landlords don't get out.

Many of the landlords don't want forced long term tenure so they are selling and won't roll onto a lease of indefinite duration because that isn't what they want. Because with the threat of selling with tenants in situe and rent controls the value of their investment will plummet and they are legally entitled to make decisions on their own property once they are in line with what they signed up to contractually.

People can say we don't want the type of landlord anyway that can issue 6 months notice to sell, I don't agree for many reasons because there is always demand for shorter duration leases and you don't want those tenants using up long term rentals.

Aside from that, the reality is that beggars can't be choosers in a market with massive under supply.

The problem is under supply, not the type of existing landlords and driving them out has one result, less supply.

In my opinion we need to keep the existing supply and increase future supply, incentivise longer tenure if that makes sense but dont destroy supply.

Are you implying that landlords legally adopt their tenants?

You seem to be implying that the nanny state has outsourced its nanny role. There may be some truth in that.

interesting irish times article today where real estate agent notes price rises of approx. "2% march to march" vs 8.5% inflation so effectively a drop in house prices in real terms

Further age factor and interest rate affordability issues also raised

"He noted that the median age of house buyers was increasing.." and

"we are calling for the Government to again reintroduce mortgage interest relief to assist younger first-time buyers in particular, as it is having a direct impact on affordability."