Vacancy Figures Megathread

My first thought would be that most of those empty houses are not distributed equally, and are mostly in areas where there's actually no shortage of housing (like in the middle of nowhere), and/or very low value (very small, energy inefficient and badly connected), to the point that the effort to rent or sell them and exchange them for land or other assets does not feel worth it to the landlord.

I'd like to know how many of those are 3 bedrooms houses at less than 45 minutes from Dublin city center by public transit (I don't even care about the condition of the house). I'd expect a very small number. If it's actually significant (like a hundred houses), then I would be very disappointed at the owner and the government for not producing the correct incentives.

The census was in April 2022 - it's impossible to have accurate data when those figures were collected 16 months ago. They don't provide details of how many of those 17000+ houses have since been sold or let at this stage. The data doesn't give information about the numbers that belong to older people currently in nursing homes or how many were in the middle of probate or how many were in the middle of a renovation for future occupancy or how many are derelict and uninhabitable.

There's also a lot of people who bought a house or apartment who are working abroad temporarily or have moved in with a new partner. There are a lot of people whose PPR is empty for various reasons and those properties really shouldn't be included in the vacancy figures imo as they will never be available for sale or to let to make any difference to the current housing situation. PPR's that were temporarily vacant on census night can even include people who were away on holidays.

Take all those PPR's out of the figure in the link posted and how many are left?

Clearly, some of the properties that are left may never go back on the long-term rental market because of the anti-landlord regulations that have come into effect over the past number of years. They will be held for family members or maybe sold at some future date. Also, anyone looking at the housing market should remember the huge increase in the population over the past few years and the additional strain that puts on supply. Blaming private property owners for the problems in the housing market is not as clear-cut as some believe.

Just saw announced this programme from today in RTE: https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/0803/1397887-derelict-ireland-why-so-many-of-our-properties-lie-empty/

Very relevant for the thread. Happy to see it being given attention.

That is not vacant though is it. That poster was looking for a way to make use of their property by wither earning from it or liquidating it. Since it is so hard to do either of those things in Ireland nowadays, if there is even a chance of them coming back, which lets face it, most of us do come back, then they have decided not to do anything.

It does not mean they wont be back for the odd weekend/holiday. Wont be using the property for post. Wont be letting friends stay there. Wont be getting sick of being abroad and moving back into their house eventually.

There is no evidence that that will be a "vacant" property.

When I worked in Dubai I rented my place. Whenever I came home I stayed with relatives/friends. I would never rent it if I was to work abroad these days as I would never get it back when i needed it. So the property wouldnt have anyone in it but it would still my home in Ireland and very much in use even if nobody was living in it.

I think there is a difference between supply in theory and supply in practice.

If we could reduce vacancy rates to where they should be in a functioning market, then that would add supply. If we cant access that latent supply, then its existence is meaningless - it only exists in theory, but in practice it may as well not be there.

For me its like the argument around under utilisation of social housing. We have social housing units where one person occupies a 3 bed house. In theory, we could solve homelessness by forcing social housing tenants into property which is an efficient use of housing stock, or forcing social tenants to share properties that are too big for them. In practice, this wont happen, so any extra capacity we have from social housing efficiency is meaningless, as there is no practical way to release it.

You seem to assume that we will get up above a 95% occupancy rate. That is highly unlikely. Friend did the census last year. He had a rural urban mixture of housing. We had a discussion after the census and this is more or less as I remember it.

He had about 280 houses in his area including part of a small town. His vacancy rate was about 65 houses. Of the sixty houses, 10ish were for sale ( 2 of these were ex rentals.), 12ish were empty private rentals ( 4-6 of which were being refurbished long term projects IHO, one was rat infested, 3 were flats LL were unwilling to rent, one was a granny flat owner was unwilling to rent, one was awaiting tenants, one was an Airbnb), there was about 5-6 empty Council houses, ( 2 were being refurbished after firmer tenants, two were boarded up one was a private house just after a CPO, and in one tenants were empty.

3 houses were empty as owners were in nursing homes, 3-4 more were where the elderly owner had moved in with there family, 2 were abandoned farmhouse in good condition ( about 5-6 more of these were not inhabitable which he did not count). About 6 were temporary empty on the night ( owners on holidays or visiting a friend), there was 2 inherited houses being used for holiday homes. There was another 8-10 houses empty sure to bring in probate or just inherited and owners were not doing anything with them.

There was 4-6 empty units over commercial buildings that in his opinion would never again be used as a housing unit. Then there was another 8-10 long-term empty that. need serious refurbishment.

So there you are 60-70 empty housing units that in theory are available according to you. In reality bar the ones for sale none are available. Maybe if LL had more confidence in the market they would finish refurbishment faster, IHO LA refurbishment of houses leaves houses vacant for 10-15 months with boards up houses taking years to put back into the stock

Vacancy issues will be fixed by building more houses.

If there wasn't such a shortage that people were staying confident that the price of what they own will be more next year than this year even though conditions have otherwise deteriorated relative to where they were, then people sitting on houses and leaving them idle would not happen as much.

Such people might also be put off from renting as they might be going against the terms of a mortgage where they have locked in a nice relatively low fixed rate.

Yes. In case you aren't aware, there are different levels to the housing issue. Currently there is a massive backlog in terms of people's stages in life. Younger people are living at home until their 30's in many cases. If there were 100k houses made available at actual build cost in the morning, there would be more than enough people to hoover them up. There are many who would take houses but who aren't planning for it right now as it is unrealistic.

The issue that I think you have at the minute with your vacancies is that there is such a shortage that some view houses as commodities. That will reduce when there are enough houses.

You apear to be concluding that the reason for the vacancy rates is that there aren't enough people to use those houses. That is a million miles off