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

Of course it helps the first time buyer. Granted it indirectly helps the developer also. There are many FTBs who, due to crazy rents.and general living costs would never be in a position to save the deposits required for houses even before the HTB came in. The scheme has allowed hundreds of these people move from the rental trap to owning their own home who may otherwise never have been able to do so or would have taken many more years chasing rising prices.

As they say we're were where we were and while it is not a brilliant situation to be in it beats just leaving things as they were, all other things being equal.

The attached confirms my post that whatever name you give the tax be it property tax or council tax the funds from it is used for local services.

Which still does not answer my question why is it levied on the value of a house rather than the size of identical houses?

Why does size not consume more street services than a smaller property?

Probably because bigger houses does not mean in itself the house being a bigger burden on local services. The idea behind the Poll Tax was that service usage was based on number of people in a dwelling, which rightly or wrongly turned into a political disaster.

Which proves my point that all equal sized houses in an area should pay the same property tax irrespective of the house value.

The property tax is a wealth tax. The more valuable your house is considered to be the more you pay. Only owners of property have to pay It ie Renters don't have to worry about it. So it's no where remotely close to being a poll tax. It was brought in to widen the Irish tax base after the last crash.

If burden on services was the metric any payment ought to be independent of house size. Council Tax valuations are rather dubious in any case.

Wealth tax v tax on the less well off

With cars the poorer tend to drive older cars and are taxed more. That tax is used to subsidise the purchase of some new cars for the more well off as well as the infrastructure to give the buyer free fuel to power the car

This is dressed up as an environment tax despite the best outcome for the environment is making what you have last longer.

Taxes and levies on cars/petrol/diesel/insurance is far greater than housing. If we turned this policy on its head maybe we could afford more housing closer to where people work at affordable rates.

We need 35-40k new housing units a year to cover our population growth (ie mostly immigration) alone, if it keeps up with levels in 2022 and 2023. Nevermind replacement of existing housing stock, or actually making a dent in the housing crisis. 60k a year would probably be a realistic goal.

If our current very hands-off government, that has at no time yet shown any urgency on the matter, is in any way capable of getting us there is the big question.

The state currently raises approx €1bn from motor tax a year. If that was transferred onto fuel we'd need to add about 60c per liter to fuel to cover it.

If we had that sort of price differential from Northern Ireland fuel running and fuel smuggling would become an absolutely massive problem.

Its a nice idea, but the only way to make it work would be to implement the same thing in the UK and here. Which is not going to be a runner politically over there, given how (comparatively) cheap their motor tax is.

Taxation should have a purpose first an foremost. We would be better off if local councils could break down how previous money was spend and how future money would be spent.

The idea of taking as much tax as possible with no accounting for where it goes is ludicrous.

There mortgage lending rules definitely don’t make them the poster boys of Europe…. Have been warned and warned of the risks of lending 100%+ LTV and loan to income rules….These warnings are not from some ‘expert’ on YouTube but by the European systematic Risk Board.

Anyone that is surprised that property prices have fallen as rates have risen must have overlooked the fact that mortgages in Germany are generally based on the maximum repayment that a buyer can make…Which doesn’t change as rates rise so less money available to buy. We would have seen the same in Ireland except for the prudent central bank rules which has prevented prices going higher as LTI and LTV rules provide a cap in growing market and prevent a drop in property value when rate rises.

They could easily do worse and they dont have a costed plan to deliver 50k homes.

interesting article in light of 10-13% recent price drops in germany where affordability has been hit

‘Two-tier market’ warning as house prices hit affordability limits and average home in Dublin now selling for over €511,000

Estate agency firms are predicting price falls for next year in some parts of Dublin

A significant cooling in property price inflation is being predicted for next year.

Locations experiencing zero inflation in the last quarter included counties Galway, Kerry, Laois, Mayo, Meath and Wicklow.

Car tax for petrol cars has been based on CO2 since 2008.