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

Another possibility would be to give An Bord Pleanala more resources so that appeals don't get held up for long periods. If you remember there was a bogus "NGO" that made spurious objections on environmental grounds which they would withdraw if they were paid a lucrative "consultancy" fee. The idea was to object just enough to have the application sent to An Bord Pleanala where it would then languish. A more efficient appeals process would take away the incentive for these groups to operate in this way. But again, there are probably too many who support the current mainstream parties who would lose out if new developments were easier to get going.

The only positive aspect is that at least this money will go into the creation of new units through, as you point out, keeping builders busy. I would prefer to see obstacles removed and the encouragement of inward investment so it is not just the State carrying the can but that will not happen under Sinn Fein or the current parties.

However it is extra state money going towards building new housing over and above what private buyers can afford. So it will have a stimulating effect on building just like if the State were to build directly or contract a builder to build an estate of houses. If you are against social housing you wont like it, true, but that does not detract from fact that public money is directed towards builders building housing.

By inward investment I mean regulated public-private partnerships where outside money, not merely state money is used to build housing with the outside party getting an agreed percentage of rents over a number of years. Like you might have in say, building a bridge, for example.

The idea here is to get large numbers of housing units built relatively quickly while keeping cost to the tax-payer fairly low.

Agreed LL from Celtic tiger have not, over the period of their investment, made a fortune. But they leveraged up to the max and bought an asset in one of the biggest price bubbles of all time. Of course they didn’t make money. It’s like buying tech stocks just before the dot com bubble and saying that means tech stocks are a bad investment.

But for anyone other than those who bought at the very peak they’ve had almost the perfect decade of massive capital appreciation, massive rental growth, almost 0 vacancy rates, falling finance costs. If they didn’t make money in those conditions then what on earth were they hoping for when they bought? Conditions couldn’t have be more perfect.

As an aside based on your post, unless your mortgage is interest only, ‘covering the mortgage’ is making a profit. Paying down capital = profit.

I think you are wrong in the same way that Sinn Fein is wrong in a fundamental sense. You are not taking into account that new units built and occupied as social housing take away pressure on the private market. The people given social homes are no longer competing in the private market for houses and flats and therefore the overall price comes down there too.

Superficially, you might think you have the opposite view but that is not the case. They object to large upscale private developments based on the same misunderstanding that you have but operating at a different end of the market. They fail to realize that these private developments, even though they don't target the poor, remove pressure at the lower end as the better off are no longer competing with the less well off for the limited available housing.

It is the same basic lack of understanding in both cases.

Ah fair enough. I thought you might have forgotten about half going to revenue and there are other costs on top again such as maintenance etc

Glad you are cleaning up a fortune

Well the average salary is 45k and the top rate kicks in at 40k.

Plenty are but plenty are not.

I thought we were discussing your own personal situation?

Half net? You forgot about the mortgage repayment too

And many people who are retired have a pension too which is treated as income and taxed accordingly.

Are you really a landlord? You are light on facts and knowledge

The top PAYE band starts at €42,000, an income which as of 2021 would put one in the 65th percentile for income in Ireland. Even allowing for across the board income increases since then you're looking at circa 40% of the population earning too little to be in that bracket. So yes, including plenty of small scale landlords.

That aside, why should a landlord in the top income bracket's rental income be taxed any different than someone in the top income bracket who takes on a second job and receives an income from that? Or someone who invests in stocks and then pays the same tax on dividend income? They're all additional sources of income and treated as such.

You assumed I wasn't a landlord so I told you I am one. I'm not sure how much more personal situation discussion you need/want.

The mortgage payment is investment in the capital asset. Again, positive monthly cash flow is not a requirement for a massive positive investment return in the Irish property market given the way its developed over past 40 years (and all signs show it will continue to). Which anyone whos actually done the maths on being a landlod could tell you.

It certainly does look that way.

I'm not complaining about anything. My first post was in direct response to Clo-Clo's post on the last page which showed no awareness of the investment financials of actually being a landlord, to correct them on the realities. This one: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121588441/#Comment_121588441

Suggesting that a landlord's rental income needs to cover the mortgage before they make a profit is just completely incorrect, as any landlord whos at all aware of their own finances could tell you.

I am sorry that this seems to have triggered you so for some reason though.

Irish housing is an asset that has well over doubled in value on average over the last decade. Even if you had the property fully idle, with zero rental income over the time period, thats an absolutely phenomenal return on investment.

Adding in tens (or hundreds, if someone has had a property for a decade) of thousands of euro of rental income on top just makes it even more profitable.

So yes, if you're in any way competent then being a landlord in Ireland is very easy money.