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

And if ultimatley, neither is going to achieve the housing required, we need to park it and look at other deliverables that each govt actually CAN produce.

Its at that point that SF run on empty.

A couple of years is 2-3. I doubt if that was bought for 160k in that time frame

June '21, €160k

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cif_2_southcon23-constructionindustry-economics-activity-7105501973084282880-aniu?

Jim Power from the CIF is on the record recently at this conference stating labour is no longer the problem. Its planning permission. I'm sure you can find minutes of it if you care to look.

(which would stand to reason with the huge downturn currently happening in commercial development)

I would assume he knows somewhat better than you.

Increasing the supply of social housing by building more of it increases the supply of private housing. There are currently 60,000 households on HAP, because our recent FF&FG governments stopped social housing building a decade ago. If those households were in social housing instead of the private sector housing, as they should be, we'd have 60,000 more private housing units instantly.

Our current government is doing the opposite, and is both keeping social housing tenants in private housing on HAP, and in recent years leasing entire blocks of private sector housing to use as social housing. They're both wasting huge amounts of tax payers money on this, and outbidding taxpayers on this housing with their own tax money. Its terrible policy from any perspective of fairness, effectiveness, financial prudence, or even just logic.

FFG dont have a plan to deliver social housing directly. That is clear. But there is no evidence to say SF will do anything differently.

FFG are standing over a fair number of housing delivery at 30k, and again, there is no evidence that SF will even match the 30k, let alone beat it.

The liklehood is that SF wont get in to power anyway, as they will need FF to form a govt.

As long as FFG close ranks on them again, the current govt will be returned - with the Greens probably replaced by indies/Soc Dems as the third leg.

30k ish new homes over the next few years, possibly rising to 40k is as good as we will get for the next 5 years or so I would say.

Jim Powers is essentially the chief lobbyist for large builders in this country, so his views are inherently biased. Planning reform undoubtedly needs to happen, but its the construction industry leading the push to make judicial reviews against planning decisions more difficult.

Also when you say commercial development, are you actually referring to a subset of commercial being offices (and possibly retail?). Commercial itself is quite broad and includes others like pharma, logistics, data centre, education, hotels, medical etc. all of which are still quote strong.

I am not sure there will be the massive inflow of labour and especially skills from the commercial building sectors as many think.

First the downturn is in office accommodation, (which may be changing as more companies restrict WFH) and maybe the agri sector not across all the sectors.

While in the office construction sector in Dublin this should throw free workers in Dublin other parts will not. However a lot of commercial buildings labour is more semi skilled than full trades. A large section will be steel fixers, mass concrete labour, crane operatives etc. You generally do not tend to have a substantial amount of Plasters, Carpenters and brickies involved.

The skills involved are more in tune with building Apartments than houses which will be 30-50% more expensive than houses

SF's policy documents state they will very much do things differently. "Theres no evidence that SF will even match the 30k" is based on... what? Given they've never been in power? At present the only definitive evidence that we have is that FF&FG are either unwilling, or unable, to solve the housing crisis after over 12 years in power.

"a far number of housing delivery" is not an accurate way of describing 30k units per year, as as been discussed in this thread many, many times. We need 35k new housing units a year simply to hold the 100k population increase we've had every year now for multiple years. To account for existing unit replacement, and making a dent in the housing crisis, we'd need 60k+.

SF are polling at almost the same as FF&FG combined according to today's Irish Times, and rising. They're the massive favourites to be in power come 2024 or 2025 with every bookie, and according to every political analyst. We're going to find out what they can do very soon.

In the mid 2010s we were far from bankrupt as a country. By 2015 the Irish economy was very much back on track. HAP became operational in 2017, we could, and should, have been building social housing instead by that stage. As has now been proven.

There were TDs in the Dail, and think tanks, asking questions about the brewing housing crisis in social housing as early as 2014, so it very much was a problem that was visible in 2016.

"What we are currently experiencing is a rental and social housing crisis especially in Dublin" according to DNG of all people, back in 2015. http://pdf.dng.ie/pdf/DNG-Paper-Ireland-AHousingCrisisNov2015.pdf

For what it's worth the State does not want council housing because of the problems associated with providing it. How many council tenants are in arrears with their rents which are substantially below market rate? How maxny have been evicted?

Why do you think the housing of these people have been outsourced to approved housing bodies and the private sector?

I always find it funny how people think there is some conspiracy to inflate property prices. A property only has a value when it comes to selling it.

If there is a massive social housing building spree are we going to return to purely council estates? If there is anti social issues/rent arrears how will these be dealt with? Remember by and large these are the very members of the voting public who would vote SF.

They are not polling at a rate to form a majority govt. They still need FF.

There is no evidence to say SF can deliver more than 30k. They are unproven, but you seem to think its a given that they will deliver 60k or so per year.

I can all but assure you. They wont.

As I say, I think its largely a moot point, as long as FF hold their stance and dont let them in.

But in 2010 we were. Demand for housing did not start to rise until 2016 and after. If an Irish government had decided to go building houses before 2016 they have been a riot.

The first thing was trying to actually get the construction industry going again. There was a lot of excess housing still available until after 2016. The IMF was still.in control until about late 2013 if I remember right.

And yes the country was still broke in 2015

No, you're not understanding the problem at all. As things currently stand the Irish state is paying the rent of close to 60,000 households on HAP, keeping them in the private rental market. The state is also signing long term leases for entire apartment blocks that are already completed, to use for social housing, taking those apartments out of the private rental market. Both of these measures drastically reduce the supply of homes in the private rental market, and are being done because FG in particular have an ideological opposition to building social housing.

If the state instead had a large scale social housing construction program, as it has had in past decades, every household moved into a social house when it gets built by the state would be one less in the private rental market.

More social housing built by the state = fewer people in the private rental market = more housing supply in the private rental market for actual tax payers = a more functional rental market, is the fairly simple equation.

The workers that we will import......as soon as we find a place for them to rent!