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

I've thought about it a bit more and maybe I can explain it another way.

Again consider the very simple example above:

It is a small population of 9 residents happily accommodated in 4 households.

So they have an average household size of 2.25

Would you agree that as long as there are 9 residents and 4 houses in that community happy with their housing, the total housing stock for that community is not chronicly undersupplied, irrespective of what is actually available on the market at any given time?

The number of residents, number of houses and average household size is data that confirms to us there is not a chronic undersupply of houses in that market, irrespective of what the immediate of demands of the individual residents might be.

It is clearly obvious from the data that building two new houses and two new apartments would lead to significant oversupply. This is the data that was ignored by Canny McSavvy in favour of the narrative.

Does that make sense?

Is the area now under supplied? Will it be? Should we make sure there are a few spare houses so we dont ened up with a homeless crisis? Or should we just wait til it all happens?

I agree with you also that we need to plan ahead for spare houses so we don't end up with a homeless crisis.

And I'd ask you the same question, of all the new build forecasts you've seen which do you think is the most accurate to ensure we have enough spare houses?

By 50k have seen you any published forecasts by experts that sound correct or where you getting that figure from?

Yes, I'm aware I asked it of you and you ignored it. It's no problem, and I din't badger you about it.

I have claimed on here many times I think a lot of the belief that the only way to solve the current problems in the market is to build more new builds is driven by the media headlines rather the data, and I've been lampooned for that. This was also point of the article in the IT so roundly rubbished here - the author contends that the narrative is not supported by the data.

There is no shortage of posters willing to say how ridiculous that is, but so far nobody has actually cited any data, they've only repeated the narrative.

I have asked the question a few times because surely, if the opinion that "The only solution to the current problems is to build more houses" is supported by data rather than headlines the person expressing the opinion would have some idea what that figure is.

If the figure is too low you won't solve the problem, if it is too high we'll end up in oversupply.

So what is the figure?

I think the figure is somewhere between 20k and 30k per annum, and I think we need to concentrate almost exclusively on apartments. No more 3 bed semis. But unfortunately I cannot link any expert forecasts that I've seen as I've yet to read any that I think are credible.

I am simply asking which ones you, or any of the other posters who rubbished the IT article, think are credible?

So 33,000 per annum?

And I am assuming you don't know what data and assumptions they have based that forecast on? I am not trying to catch you out, it would just be quicker if you did know and could link rather than me having to search for it?

It is the future assumptions about population growth and new build completions that are potentially problematic.

There is no point in coming up with an estimate of pent up demand based on a shortfall of previous assumptions they may have been incorrect, either to the low or the high side. We know what has already happened in terms of population size and houses built.

The idea of making an assumption about a backlog of pent up demand is ridiculous.

To calculate future housing need projections you need:

• Current population size
• Current average household size.
• Current housing stock number

With these figures you can work out what is the current spare housing capacity (if any).

Once you have that as a starting point, you can then make assumptions about future required spare capacity, changes in population size and household size snd make projections.

Does this make sense?

I found the source of the 33,000 new builds per annum - it is an ESRI report in conjunction with the Dept of Housing.

It has a huge amount of detail and clever assumptions concerning future population growth, based on mortality, fertility, migration rate etc.

And obviously they use this to make their best guess at population growth, and thus they calculate we need in one of their scenarios 33,000 new build units a year. It is this scenario that was used for the Housing for All declared targets.

But as far as I can see, nowhere in the report do they state what they are basing the starting point from - for all the modelling about future population growth and consequent housing demand, they publish nothing about the current population size, housing stock and spare capacity.

Their assumptions about future population growth may well be correct, but if they are not factoring in whether we have 0%, 2%, 20% or even -10% spare capacity from the present, the figure presented for future housing demand is meaningless.

This is the same across every future housing demand projection I have seen, hence why I said earlier I have not seen a credible projection.

https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/RS111.pdf

I'm just a guy that believes the data does not support the narrative. Some people do think that makes me a conspiracy theorist.

I am not claiming the census is an estimate. Quite the opposite, that's the point. I agree it's an accurate figure.

But the accurate figures from the census tell us that there is spare stock. Whereas the narrative tells us there is no spare stock.

Which is more likely to be correct? The census or the narrative?