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Inside Dublin’s Housing Crisis

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,424 ✭✭✭garhjw


    When you're using George Hook to make a 'left wing' point, you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pat Kenny is a long way off centre, though he's a bit more subtle than any of the shock jocks. Ciara Kelly is socially liberal but on economics she toes the party line on Newstalk of anti-public sector stuff. Yates is further right than Atilla the Hun. You're right about Moncreif though.

    Very easy to be anti public sector when it’s such a sH*t show so that doesn’t back up your point. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your left wing boloxology doesn’t mean they are right wing.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,905 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    garhjw wrote: »
    Very easy to be anti public sector when it’s such a sH*t show so that doesn’t back up your point. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your left wing boloxology doesn’t mean they are right wing.

    Thanks for proving my point beautifully.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,424 ✭✭✭garhjw


    Thanks for proving my point beautifully.

    Good lad. Carry on.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 70,336 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    This isn't the radio forum


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    The reason for the housing crisis is Enda Kenny. You see back in 2009 when house prices were falling through the floor, Enda Kenny put a false floor under house prices. He did this by guaranteeing a traunche a houses (belonging to the bailed out banks) against negative equity. This caused people to start buying houses before the natural bottom had been reached by the market. Who knows how low house prices might have fallen if kenny had not interferred. This country borrowed 200 billion euro since 2009, most of which was borrowed on Enda Kenny`s watch and this 200 billion was used to inflate house prices. In other words, we borrowed 200 billion euro and have nothing to show for it but high prices for houses that already existed and this distortion of existing house prices means young people now have to wait for new houses to be built. In an un-rigged market, they would look for a house of any age, not just new houses.

    So how do we clean up Enda Kenny`s mess?

    First, we need much higher taxes on existing properties. This will do three things. It will incentivise the owners of those properties to sell and it will lower house prices by increasing the supply of houses for sale. It will also ensure that those who benefitted from the 200 billion euro Enda Kenny borrowed, will be the ones to pay for it.

    Second, we need to exempt new builds from property tax. This will cause the sellers of existing houses to buy new houses (to escape the property tax) and it will cause a market driven construction boom and bring plenty of new jobs in construction and support industries, which will counter the impact of a global downturn on our multinational sector.

    Third, we need to exempt first time buyers from property tax. This will ensure a market for now affordable existing housing stock for sale and it will ensure that those who were not participants in the madness of the Celtic tiger years, will no longer have to pay for the foolishness of those who did participate.

    Forth, the revenue from the higher property tax will help repay Enda Kenny`s borrowing binge.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Ya because lumping extra fees on those who are already paying property tax and mortgages will fix all the current issues.

    Only thing that will work is building more properties and encouraging full occupancy of existing stock.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    This thread was nearly five years old. It would be nice to say that things have improved, but no such luck...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    2009 would you get a grip.

    Horse was long bolted by 2009. Boom and bust economic policies by FF for decades previous caused it here. FG done very little to fix it since, in fact they've made it worse.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    That's one of tbe main causes of tbe issue seeing a home as an investment.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    I could not disagree with you more. If you think the government can solve this, you will be very disappointed. The only thing the government can do to address these problems would be to undo everything they did to cause them.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Problem is scarcity at the low end not investment.

    Because of the scarcity of supply in public, social and affordable housing. That demand is pushed into more expensive housing. It's only at that point it conflicts with "investment". Investment isn't the source of that problem.

    It's the lack of building at the low end, and the outsourcing of that capacity to the private. It's cost cutting policy. Was common worldwide just followed like sheep.

    At the same time we've reduced supply. We've increased demand through economic and humanitarian policies. Though I don't see thats humanitarian about what the Govt are doing.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    It will take a change of govt and policial landscape.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    I'm not having a go at you, but this is not happening with the immigration levels we currently have:

    Maybe the 61k net immigration in 2022 was a once off, but I doubt that it will be a lot lower this year, if at all. There are about 57k vacant properties in Ireland, and we build about 30k units a year. Immigration figures like that quickly take up all available housing, and ramping up production takes time, if it's even possible at all. Even if it were possible to build 100k units a year, the environmental impact of that needs to be considered.

    In short, no solution to the crisis will be had until the elephant in the room of immigration is addressed. We can dance around the issue all we want, both sides can call people names, but the reality that we do not have infinite resources is a cold fact of nature.

    As mentioned above, the only way for the state to fix this would be for it to reverse the policies that created it. The same people who created this mess (through incompetence, an utter lack of care or just malice) are still there, and we are expecting them to "fix" things?

    The only "solution" that I see is a crash, and that will not happen in a vacuum.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    That is true but it's still a large issue, The idea that property is an asset that you pass on to your children and the even dafter idea that a property asset will lift someone out of poverty it distorts everything.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    That's not what the commoditization of property is.

    The vast majority of property owners have one property, the vast majority of landlords two.

    It's not going to lift a anyones kids out of property. That's some socialist narrative that doesn't hold water. It really only applies to mega rich which are a tiny % of the population.

    That said disparity of wealth in the population at large is a real issue. Not dismissing that.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    It's not immigration itself just demand. Immigration is only a part of that. Generations of Irish emigrated around the globe. Hypocritical to complain about it. It's a net benefit also.

    The issues is fueling demand without putting in the resources to service it. That's simply poor govt economic policy.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    The emigration of the Irish has come up before. When it does, it's used to justify enormous levels of immigration to Ireland by telling modern Irish people that we cannot complain because people from Ireland emigrated in the past. Putting aside the logical flaws of this thinking, it is an attempt to apply a moral argument to what is entirely a matter of resources.

    Simply put, there is not enough housing here for the people already on the island, and further net immigration in the tens of thousands will compound the issue. It's very easy to say that resources should be made available, but that has not proven possible, and I see no reason why that will change.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,279 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ...a more state lead approach is actually the only resolution to this, only, we re still waiting for a government with this type of fundamental ideology build into its thinking, ffg are primarily market centric based, i.e. financialised based, they ll never change this type of thinking, its firmly cooked into their thinking, its never going to work, ever, as its ultimately based in sweating assets, not creating them, this is exactly whats currently happening....



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Immigration is only part of the population increase. So while it makes things worse, compounds it as you say. Its not a core issue. So it's hypocritical to complain about immigration while ignoring all the other issues.

    In the past people left for better opportunities. People aren't doing that now.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Immigration is an enormous contributor to the population increase. Indeed, births currently out-pace deaths, but the actual birth rate here is below replacement. Left alone, the population would begin to decline in the years to come. Obviously, that's not ideal, but I don't think that immigration is the solution. It's not hypocritical to complain about a problem simply because there are other issues.

    Regarding your second point, the Irish who emigrated in the past largely went to places like the USA, Australia and the UK. In the case of the former two destinations, these were largely unpopulated land-masses with abundant resources. Ireland is a small island with severe growing pains. Regardless of what happened in the past, the issue of the availability of resources overrides whatever ethical reasoning may exist for immigration.

    Whilst we're on the topic, and before someone calls me the "r-word" (which you didn't do, and for that I thank you), I want to clear that I have no issues with foreigners. I myself had an Italian grandfather, so I recognise that migration is a part and parcel of human existence. Unfettered immigration, on the other-hand, is dangerous.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    I think it's focusing on symptoms not underlying causes. As such is a deflection.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Then what do you say the underlying causes are?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    The problems have existed for quarter of a century. Recent immigration is too recent to be a cause.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    We do not have unfettered migration, unless you mean the unfortunate Ukrainians.

    The population density in Ireland is 73 per Km2 (190 people per mi2).

    Holland 424.13 people per square kilometer.

    United Kingdom is 280 per Km2 (725 people per mi2)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    This is not a density issue. It's a housing capacity issue.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    As mentioned above, it is not about density. Rather, it's a matter of the availability of housing and services. To call immigration "unfettered" may be hyperbolic on my part, but I'm not so sure that it is.

    I'll accept that point. Indeed, you are correct that immigration is a symptom. The actual problem, in my eyes, is neo-liberal economic models, or globalisation as it's called sometimes.

    Post edited by RichardAnd on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Neo-liberalism is not synonymous with globalisation. Even if one facilitates the other.

    I still think there is scope for a country or a govt to independently follow a more long term responsible economic, and social policies.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,077 ✭✭✭tabby aspreme


    Reading the start of this forum from 2018, regarding Coveney and Eoghan Murphy's actions is quite telling



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,067 ✭✭✭Murph85


    30,000 homes a year are being built... its a farce ... nearly triple that were built during the celtic tiger years ..

    " but there's a labour shortage" yeah there is... we don't need more commercial development, we don't need data centres. Divert those resources to residential...



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Let's compare your suggestion with mine. Your government led approach would mean more social housing which could be built using the large budget surplus. The problem with that is the big budget surpluses are likely to be available for a limited time and wouldn't be enough to build all the houses necessary.

    My idea of taxing housing is designed to force those who benefitted from the 200 billion borrowed since 2009 to pay for that. And by exempting new builds and first time buyers from the property tax, we will get a market driven construction boom and affordable housing for the masses.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,459 ✭✭✭Padre_Pio


    More money in commercial construction that private houses.

    The government cannot dictate what builders should work on.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,366 ✭✭✭CPTM


    Couldn't they create incentives and disincentives though. For example a heavier tax on certain building project types for the next 5 years.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Boom and bust economics is what got us into this mess in the first place.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,459 ✭✭✭Padre_Pio


    The govt will do nothing to dissuade business from building offices and factories. Ireland promotes itself as a friend of business.

    RE a govt construction company, the notion of that is laughable seeing how the govt completely mismanages most public infrastructure and the mess of the civil service.

    Ireland needs more builders. The eastern Europeans aren't coming like they were 15 years ago, and the recession destroyed any Irish interest in pursuing a trade. There are plenty of easier ways of making money. I know a good few lads who left construction for factory jobs with better wages and benefits.

    I would say the best the govt could hope for is to promote Ireland to some construction heavy country and hope we get inward migration, but then where do they live, and do they get the same anti-immigration rhetoric?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,067 ✭✭✭Murph85


    They can... they can change zoning, increase or introduce new tax. Of course there is more money in commercial. This mess is entirely the government's creating, I don't want to hear about bog bad developers chasing the highest returns. We voted in the government to look after our interest, not developers...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    I agree with this. Unfortunately, as long as we're chasing the infinite growth genie, this will continue to happen. Mind you, I rather liked when the state was broke; it was less dangerous



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    We got the boom but we chickened out of the bust by borrowing 200 billion euro. The cost of Enda Kenny's cowardice is now beginning to make itself known. Anyone who thinks we can spend our way out of an inflationary problem is mistaken.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    That borrowing isn't what's caused the housing crisis.

    It doesn't make sense to blame everything on FG and Enda. At this point I would not be surprised if you found a way to pin the Ukraine war on Enda and FG.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Enda Kenny likely just did whatever his civil servant handlers told him to do. We don't have leaders in Ireland; we have pension collectors who read from a hymn sheet written by ideologues and/or lunatics. It wouldn't have mattered who was in power back then. All the major parties are more of less the same.

    That said, I agree that we threw away an opportunity in 2008. If we did not think of our own immediate comforts and rather looked to the future, we could have balanced state spending. Yes, it would have been hard, but all that we really did was to pump funny money into an already broken system. Now, 15 years later, the state has managed to inflate property prices back to near enough to where they were in 2007, and to inflate rent prices to unheard of highs. The fact that this comes at the cost of the future of younger generations doesn't seem to be an issue.

    As I've always said, the "boomer" meme is overly simplistic and not a great way to explain the current problem, but it hangs around for a reason.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Most of the borrowing was spent on PS and welfare.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    The tail doesn't wag the dog. It was politicians, FF before and FG afterwards that dictated economic policy.

    Housing (and (construction in general) was used as an vehicles to drive us to boom and bust. But also to drive investment into the country for the recovery afterwards.

    However thats a different issue to selling off public housing, then outsourcing that demand into private housing sector. Causing supply issues in the private housing. Then driving even more demand and outsourcing that into a smorgasbord of unsuitable temporary accommodation, B&Bs, hotels and tents.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    That was so public servants and welfare recipients could pay their mortgages. The wisdom of borrowing is subjective, notwithstanding my opinion that it is foolish. But, to borrow to spend on non profit making things is at a level of foolishness that is so implausible the possibility of corrupt intent arises.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Well they had to buy food etc too, so not all on their mortgages. Maybe your solution should focus on taxing those who benefited from the borrowing. Although I can't see that really flying! Same with the Covid spending, it was only spent on some people. During the bust and subsequently I have remained in employment while paying the 8% USC on the majority of my earnings.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Actually it was solely to bail out the private sector....

    ... and the secret Enda lunar base on the moon. Getting a space suit to work on a bicycle was particularly expensive.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    His solution is basically, is there anything to be said for another mass.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,889 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    It was both. The banks sucked up billions, but there was also an enormous gap between what the state was spending and what it was taking in in tax. That spending has only increased in recent years.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,938 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    No definitely just the private sector bailout and the lunar base..



  • Registered Users Posts: 698 ✭✭✭TedBundysDriver


    Five years since the first post and things are worse than ever. The incompetency of this government and FG in particular who've been in power for going on 12 years is astonishing. They have no interest in fixing this.

    Amnesty International’s new investigation shows that Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,064 ✭✭✭spaceHopper


    All of this about a post to an old thread which was written at 4am, what were they drinking / smoking.

    Some of this stems from EK but it goes back further. The solution is to stop relaying in private LL's for social housing. The state should build their own housing, not buy in new or secondhand on the open market. But we stopped building social housing back in the 90's and early 2000's

    That would free up a lot of rental stock, they would reduce rents or at least freeze them and over time with inflation and wage growth they would become more affordable.

    Houses can be valued based on the expected rental income somewhere between 10 and 20 years annual rental income, lets take 15. Monthly rent x 12 x 15. As there is more rental stock and rents are falling or frozen, you now have more affordable private houses.

    The current government don't have clue, at a time when they want to make better use of land and have families see living in apartment as viable they are lowering the building standards. We are doomed.



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