"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

Do you expect house prices to remain static?

Those who own houses worth multiples of the initial purchase price were earning lower salaries at the time and they saved. They also didn't expect a turnkey house with brand new furniture.

Very few people have the cost of a house they can pull out of their arse, or parents to gift it to them.

No, not to remain static, but you can look at various multiples such as house price to income level ratio. Incomes will presumably move in line with increases in cost of living. For example, I first asked a previous poster about the ratio of the equity in their house today to their current salary.

Almost everyone who buys a house will put themselves to the pin of their collar. They will stretch themself to buy in the best area they can. There are no gold medals needed. What we have today is a scenario where - largely in part to government policy - an occupation which would have gotten you a house in a nice middle class area will now get you a house-share to your 30's, whereupon you will be advised to buy a derelict and unroofed shell of a building half way up a mountain in Kerry.

There is no need to go off on strawmen about being gifted a house by parents. 30 or 40 years ago you could get a council house if you couldn't afford a house. Then you were allowed to buy out that house at maybe 60% of the actual physical construction cost (not this SCSI developer crap). Whereas now the State inflates the private market, resulting in a flow of wealth to those who already have it.

I read a good article in the IT a week or two ago about how the government is also trying to facilitate a similar flow to pensioners now. The people in their 50's and 60's were gifted by the previous generation (indirectly if not directly) and then proceeded to change the system to take from the following generation. There are other factors at play such as the uplift in the general economy, but that particular cohort tried to ringfence as much as possible of that for themselves. Previous generations did not do that.

Its easy to say " oh we sacrificed to get where we are "... " we bought in 2001 " ... let's quantify it... People now looking to buy the same property, are paying a far far larger cost. So you could quantify it and say, well yeah you struggled, but current aspiring buyers, are struggling 3 times as much as you did...

"If you want something in life you go get yourself and if you think Marylou is going to give you a leg up, you need to get some white powder to keep the fantasy going, all she wants is a United ireland."

Except in Ireland this isn't universally true. Its the hard workers, most of them poor, that can't afford a house or scrimp and save for years. The Government hands out free housing worth 600k or even more, for nothing to huge amounts of people that have never worked. No lpt, no management fee, nothing. Just a lottery win for some, while workers whove no chance of getting that, live In kips for extortionate money

There is a risk with glib soundbites, esp as we near an election of, Trussing the housing market, with financial institutions taking a negative stance on possible election outcomes.

So we should shut down social housing?

What alternative do you want to put in place? Because saying the government shouldn’t give people a free house is not an option as far as I can see.

I agree with the stopping people picking and choosing location they want to live in, not sure how many but we have people who would prefer to sit on the homeless list instead of taking a home because it is not in the right location for them.

But we won't get to a situation when the government is going to have to give people a "free" house

Apologies if this has been covered, there are over 500 posts, and I can't read them all.

In simple terms, how would she do this if she got into power and she was serious about it, would there have to be legislation passed or something similar?

What would stop someone from selling a house for more than 300k? Surely you can put whatever price you want on anything you own, you may never get anyone willing to pay it, but that doesn't stop you from pricing something at whatever you want.

The thread title says "average". There is no notion of a cap

There would be plenty of steps any government could take:

1) Remove help-to-buy and shared equity schemes

2) Cut the likes of HAP which prop rents up to a level people can't afford. The result is that people know they can get more rent, so they pay more for the house, which in turn leads them to believe they deserve more rent.

3) Stop the LAs from inflating house prices in the private market by outbidding everyone with their "bottomless" wallets

4) Proper, and enforced, vacant house/site levies.

5) Cut the LAs own waste and bureaucracy. This might allow reduction of some of the levies they place on housing

Ultimately though more houses need to be built. In the medium term that has to be corporations and councils. Given that we are so far behind, then a quick pressure release would be mass installation of modular homes. Not ideal due to the finite lifespan, but much better value than agreeing to pay the guts of a million quid over 30 years to rent an apartment from some German pension fund. The social housing mix idea may have to be temporarily suspended

The market is inflated but the days of buying a house in Bray for 50,000 is long gone unless the entire country is destroyed and everyone loses their jobs.

Something which you are correct if Sinn Fein get into government could happen, sure you will be happy then? but not living in Ireland if you want a job

If you bought a house, can pay for it and plan to live in it for 30-40 years what difference does negative equity make to you?

I find comments like this very entertaining, but also very disturbing... these people are allowed to vote!

*€50,000 then is not the same as €50,000 now... they do not equate. The world is a different place, the value of money and the value of currency are not the same. Irish property prices are generally in line with other markets around the world.

It is possible to save and buy a house these days, I did it recently without a gift from parents, a help to buy scheme or any other assistance... I just saved and sacrificed luxuries. I agree that by removing the HTB & HAP might help, but building a huge amount to satisfy the market will still not make property values drop to an average of €300,000.

People need to concentrate on managing themselves, do what it takes to get onto the property ladder and then make whatever incremental moves to end up in the house they want... just like people have been doing for the past 100 years.

*Did I not say that?

**What else has gone up 10x in value since 1995?

A pint in 1995 was about £2 if memory serves. A tea might have been 60p?

A 10 pack of cigarettes was £1.50 or so iirc.

You need to compare like to like. A house back in the 90's is not the same as a house today. I'd love to know what % of the value of houses these days are made up of, central heating, treble glaze windows, insulation, flooring etc... maybe building a house these days to the same spec as the 80's/90's would give you a €300k house.

So what is the plan for Sinn Fein to get us out of debt?

Yes, but those arguments never take into account that the relative costs of those things can be a lot lower today.