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

Sinn fein If they get power will find out the hard way, just like liz truss discovered, that the markets decide what you can and cannot do when in power.

Whoever owns your debt owns you.

A thought occurred to me today...

A lot of FFG supporters are pushing the idea of their long, long awaited planning reform as the solution to our housing crisis.

While I think reform is welcome and will lead to some improvement, can anyone tell me what the expected positive impact of this centrepiece of FFG housing policy will be?

Will output increase by 30, 50, 100%?

We've long heard about SF's 'magic money tree', this sounds very much like a 'magic productivity tree' to me, especially with what looks like worsening staff shortages.

Have you read EOB article in the Sindo? Are we allowed to post it here?

Is that how bad you think things have gotten under FFG, you want us to do without teachers and doctors to spare a few houses?

Or do you mean me having kids!

There's things the state could do like incentivising apprenticeships etc that would certainly help.

I think it's far too late to bring in foreign workers as there's definitely no houses now.

I'd say a national housing entity with a very precise function (build lots of houses) would be the only way to go at this point.

I'd figure it could be cost neutral given how much is already being spent by the state a) buying at inflated cost from the private market and b) managing contracts and spending with the plethora of housing NGOs out there.

Obviously if we have to go this route it's best not leave FFG in charge.

They'd probably end up with Phil Hogan's driver as CEO, or bringing back Angela Kerins.

Eoin O’Broin says that they can build 21,000 public housing units in a year, and reduce costs at the same time.

Surely if you massively and rapidly increase demand for something which is finite, then the cost must also increase? This is basic economics, no?

In this case, how do you ramp up the demand for construction labour and materials without ramping up the price?

BTW of those 21,000 homes, only 4,000 would actually be available for purchase. The rest would be cost rentals (4,000) and traditional social housing (13,000).

I don't think this would qualify as state aid as it doesn't affect trade between member states.

Even if it was somehow deemed to involve trade between states there are exceptional circumstances exemptions.

As for your point around bureaucracy and such costs, I'd suggest these are already present where the state buys from the private market and deals with so many housing bodies.

Just a simple question tbh.

Some posters seem to think that house prices should never rise, even though they always will of the population is growing.

Why always?

Again you don't understand basic economics.

Prices don't always rise if demand rises, in a free market supply would increase too.

FFG like to talk about housing as a 'free' market. This is either ignorance or an attempt to mislead.

In reality it's quite restricted. So supply won't increase rapidly, if ever.

There are measures that could have been taken to increase supply, but they've failed repeatedly to take them.