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

In my opinion, a lot of new builds are overpriced. There is a group seven of them going in near my mom's house in Dublin 5. The average house around there will go for 5-600k, but these houses are listed as 875k each. To me, it makes little sense to pay that when it would be possible to buy a well maintained house nearby, invest another 100k into it and still spend much less than 875k. Obviously, new builds have a mark-up, but is that mark up justifiable?

I used to think this way when we were buying. Having bought a second hand house I now realise how misguided I was.

I think people massively underestimate the cost of bringing even a reasonably well maintained house to a good standard. €100k is absolutely nothing these days and would barely scratch the surface of a cosmetic job, never mind a full retrofit getting to the comfort of a new build with A rated insulation, new kitchen, efficient windows etc.

By all means buy an older house for the location/smaller estate/bigger plot of lands etc. or if you’re not too fussy and are happy to live with the decor of previous owner…but if you think you’ll buy an older house and get it looking and feeling like a new build in your own taste for less money - you’ll be in for a shock when the first tender comes back.

I've not spent 50k yet and the house is rewired, fully reglazed, new boiler, partial MHRV, new bathroom, new staircase, built in wardrobes; and much of that not done in a price optimal manner

100k would fully refit a normal house anywhere

I'm not in a cheap part of the country - the house is in the 01 phone code.

Those guides are not accurate, or are assuming back to brick and roof timbers

Painting and plastering have gone up hugely in price over last 5 years in my experience, but plumbing and electrics havent gone up that much?

Is that 50k including partition walls for those rooms etc? And did garage have no plumbing or electrics before?

Compared the cost of a new build in a Dublin suburb with East Cork.

Similar materials, size and style, but Dublin house is nearly three times the price.

Buyers in Dublin are getting absolutely rode. I know people talk of "Dublin wages" but they're not x3 the rest of the country.

Ive a family member who brought their house from BER of D2 to B2 and spent 15k doing it. It would have cost significantly more to bring it any higher.

I thought they were mad buying the house just about 18 months ago, but theyve done a great job on it

They are now going through doing up every room themselves.

Everything they did they learned off youtube. They had to get an electrician and a plumber for a few things they werent comfortable with doing themselves. They changed some windows also and insulated the attic themselves. I asked them how much the heating bill was last year and they said they had to get a new oil tank and get the boiler looked at and filled the tank in September last year and it has lasted until now and they are going to fill it again next week in case it runs out over Christmas.

The place looks like a show house now and to be honest when they were buying it I thought they were nuts. I really thought they wouldnt get away with less that 100K to get it back into even a nice condition.

They told some of the quotes they got from trades and they would make your eyes water.

Its a 160 square meter 40 year old bungalow and the only thing really left for them to do now is the garden and an ikea kitchen as she is not happy with the kitchen thats in there now.

Everything is too expensive.

So what happens now? Construction slows. Less available to buy? Do prices keep going up as supply tightens because building slows?

What a sh1tstorm.

The state needs to get involved in financing builds for social housing rather than buying after the fact, as the cost of finance for developers adds on a big extra cost to houses now.

The state have deep pockets and big surpluses, for them to forward fund developments would save a lot and bring costs down somewhat.

You misunderstand - I'm suggesting the state step in to effectively eliminate the cost of 'financing' developments.

The state can easily offer 0% finance in a variety of ways, they have the surplus funding to do it. Right now they are acting as just another consumer in the market, bidding for completed units at market prices. They would get better value for themselves and stimulate more development activity if they forward funded projects or bought off plans the units they want for social housing.

Agree, it wont fix the situation as of 2019 or even 2021, but now as rates and price pressures begin to feed in development itself is reportedly slowing down, so we may well have resources freed up but no developments as the cost of delivering a house is higher than most would afford to pay for it.

Interest rates play a big role in this, though there are many other factors too. Materials inflation has eased somewhat, but prices will not go down, just rise less fast.

SCSI latest report on homebuilding costs is interesting, 'sort's building costs are just under 50% of total cost of a building now. Thats all the non materials non labour costings, close to 50% of the house price. Mad

Interesting. What kind of profit margin could a developer expect (in terms of percentage) on the building of an apartment block? Probably it varies from place to place.

Is this not what happens in the building trade though in December every year. The middle of Jan it picks up again. I have a lot of friends working in construction and there is nothing unusual about some of them finding things slow in December and January at all. Some of them even arrange their holidays for December and Jan every year. I think i would have heard from someone if there were layoffs, but i havent heard a dickibird.

It's being going on for a bit longer

Maybe this is it - we got 7 quotes for a retrofit of part of the downstairs. Kitchen + one room. c100sqm total. Cheapest of the 7 quotes was c.€195k so the online figures estimates c€2,000 per sqm checked out for us.

New kitchen - €60/70k (probably could have saved €20/€30k off this with cheaper appliances)

Glazing - €30k

Floors - €10k+fitting

€100k gone before you even talk about underfloor heating, electrics, plumbing, painting etc.

Landscaping another fortune as you say.

Bathrooms seem to be about €5k-€10k a pop for a decent size also.

It’s pretty wild. I definitely know I envy those walking into perfect new builds even if they cost a bit more at the outset!