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

There's a whole host of checks that vendors expect people to forego. Just another sign of the state of the market.

Government fills hotels.

Government bans airbnb.

Sounds like a sound strategy.

Hotels with families

Homes with tourists

Sound strategy indeed

Eroding property rights for everyone.

This is the thing, the west coast of Ireland and North County Cork were the ghost estate capitals. Surely there was away to balance tourism and local need.

Air bnb should only be allowed when local need is met. Where air bnb is allowed. Commercial rates and all other business charges should be applied. This will help to ensure max utilisation of said property

It's the govt that filled the hotels with families.

If a town is fortunate enough to deliver a tourist trade and the hotels in that town are taken up with IPAs, AirBnB type lettings are really the only means to enable a tourist sector, no?

I am not saying it is a perfect situation, but its obvious that the heavy use of AirBnB is, in part, the result of govt policy on removing hotels from public access.

Banning AirBnB in tourist towns with no hotel accom available to the tourist market is a death knell to those towns, local jobs and future investment.

I have wondered this also.

There still sems to be a lot of AirBnB in Dublin, so I assume the regs are not being controlled, but I dont know that for sure.

That said, AirBnB does have a place in tourist markets, especially when hotels are being taken out of commission to accomodate IPAs or homeless families.

There is a balance, but its a tough one to strike.

Intentionally provocative/extreme but a good article (and to be fair written by an older gentleman) highlighting some of the age related inequality we seem unwilling to face up to.

“Unable to afford their own homes or save for a pension, they’ll have to carry the burden of paying for the pensions of the home-owning generation. More must be asked of older people”

Just such a shame the young people of Ireland are on average so uneducated economically that they are voting for a party that wants to perpetuate this by

• reducing the pension age

• eliminating the only (token) wealth tax we have (property tax)

• increase income taxes (their only hope of ever accumulating some wealth of their own)

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/01/05/gerard-howlin-the-young-are-caught-in-a-grotesquely-unfair-trap/

(no paywall)

https://archive.ph/AKiOB

Copy and paste the article into top box:

https://archive.ph/

Raising the pension age only works for some white collar workers in non-physical jobs. How well do you think a 67 year old carpenter, or bin man, after 50 years on the job, will be able to do his job? People like that will just end up going on the dole in their early 60s either way (as currently happens in large numbers already - its why the DSP have a policy not to require anyone aged 62 or over to engage in job activation processes, theres no point in even trying to get people that age to work physical jobs) at a cost broadly similar to the state.

The honest answer that all of our political parties are shying away from mentioning is PRSI rates are going to have to increase substantially as our population ages, almost every year in perpetuity going forward unless our demographics change massively.

Which is absolutely going to screw young people the most, delaying/preventing them from buying a home even further, meaning for large numbers of them when they reach retirement age and don't own their own home they'll have to be housed by the state, meaning PRSI will have to increase even more to accomodate that...etc.

The property tax should absolutely be retained (and increased massively), but income taxes are going to have to go up too either way. Housing two thirds of pensioners in social housing in a few decades time won't be cheap.

I can see this coming back to kick the government in the rear end.

I started working and paying prsi at 15 at a time when half a 150 pound salary would be gone in state deductions.

Are they going to give a higher pension to people who start work at 22/24 who do a few extra years after 66 compared to those that worked from 15 to 66.

Legally challenged I suspect

Fair points, but if the hotels essentially dont exist anymore, as they are taken up by IPAs, who will accomodate the tourists, if not AirBnB?

Ghost estates are an interesting point, but unless they are owned by the state, they can't have capped rent.

And if they are owned by the state, they will be used to accomodate lots of folks, not just those employed in tourism and including those not employed at all.

Hotels aren't allowed to be hotels anymore.

That is a problem for those small towns and will result in further decay to the town's social fabric and economic prospects.

However much we may choose to ignore it.

If not PRSI it will be USC. Government knows that very few people will actually emigrate over tax levels.

Thing to watch is all the new international agreements on corporation tax. That will screw Ireland's finances bigtime in the longer term.

Didn't they ban them in certain areas a few years ago. Or has this been implemented at all?

Why demolish state of the art assets, with foreign capital baring the risk of a downturn.

Drive up and down our city centres, full of solicitors, accountants, dentists, doctors, estate agents, financial advisors, banks etc

All could be moved to an office block and property freed up for residential conversion