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

We are already at max output. Unless we hire more construction staff from other countries

So the number of houses are not going to increase if you give them all to social welfare.

What you are doing is making a market which it is of more benefit to sit on unemployment than it is to work for a living. People who want to buy a house don't want to be told all their hard work is useless because they are blocked from buying a house, but don't mind that the rent might decrease.

Im not making any mistake. I work for a living and expect the opportunity like everyone else to buy a house. I don't want to get told I can't because someone who can't be bothered to work is been handed a free house. This is the sort of ridiculous idea I would see from Sinn Fein to be honest

Plus from an MNC point of view, why would you put more jobs into Ireland when your staff can't buy houses?

ANyone coming out of school, sure why do I need to go to college or get a profession, I can sit at home and the government will hand me a free house while those saps out working can only rent.

Sorry but it's the most ridiculous idea I have seen on any thread, hence why I think it's a Sinn Fein one

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.

They are not the same market that is true, but they are related markets in that someone, for example, who gets a council house is probably no longer too pushed to purchase a house in the private market.

Given that councils have more money to spend than individuals and can if needed outbid individuals, it follows that money greater amounts of money is being invested in housing with the council involved than otherwise. This will result in an expansion of the building sector and more units built. More units in the long run is greater supply and therefore lower rents and eventually prices.

Essentially, this is what is required. More units built. If we were to purely rely on private purchasers a lot less money would be being invested in the property market as things like deposits are hard to save up for. Therefore councils keep things going providing much needed accommodation and incentivizing builders.

I fully see why people might be annoyed if a council pays a builder to build an estate or purchases an already built one but that is missing the bigger picture.

The councils are not building their own accomodation though. Thats the whole problem!

Social housing should be, in the main, constructed by the councils, i agree.

But because the councils have deep pockets, they are taking the easy route and simply renting the new apartment complexes from the developer. Note that they are renting, not purchasing.

So not only are they using tax payers money to lock out private renters (anyone on an average salary or above and doesnt qualify for social housing) they are also using our money inefficiently, as in 20 yrs time, when the lease comes to an end and the council has paid 100s of millions in rent & maintenance to the developer, the council owns not a brick in the complex and has to return the whole development to the developer...

Oh, and here's the best part, they now have to re-house all their social housing tenants...(but where? There is nowhere to put them)

And all the while they have made prices higher in the private market, by locking out the private renters who earn average salaries and upwards. (The people paying all the income tax and losing the right to housing by virtue of having a decent job)

The bigger picture is that councils just want to reduce their social housing list and dont give a hoot about the people that pay their taxes.

When councils start building their own homes again, then we will start to see a positive impact on the housing market.

At present, private developers funded by investment funds are the only show in town amd are the only reason we are seeing any new construction at all.

Local councils are proving to be the enemy of private renters/buyers, but they are doing a great job for homeowners by keeping their prices propped up, as they keep cutting off the supply of private housing by diverting it to social housing. (temporarily, as buildings are not owned by the council)

Its a terrible, wasteful, inefficient strategy and is the epitome of the govt kicking the can down the road on housing.

Do you have the same graph starting in 2006/7? Also, comparison to other countries with similar gdp growth.

I've heard it repeated many times that councils should build more council houses and that is true. Where people get it wrong, and if you don't mind me saying so, I think you also make this mistake, is that when councils build houses they do so without impacting the supply in the private market. A moments reflection and we can see why this is not true.

Each house build by the council requires labour, land and building materials. They must purchase these from the private market pushing prices up of those three things. That is why it is often cheaper to purchase a number of units from a developer who may have economies of scale in their favour.

Here is a blogpost on long-run house prices in Ireland, credit to Seamus Coffey of UCC.

The councils have to supply social housing but I don't think it is their job to literally build the houses entirely with workers directly employed by the council. Even private builders hire contractors for a lot of the jobs and don't have all the workers directly on their own payroll.

I'm not against councils directly employing building labour. Where I disagree is that there's a huge amount of savings in the long run over contracting building companies or purchasing newly built housing. There might also be issues with strikes with publicly employed and permanent building staff which would also drive costs up. I think there's reasons councils don't go down this route.

All methods pretty much draw resources away from the private market and drive up costs there. This is unfortunate but if you want social housing, that is inevitable.

Personally I think a lot of reform needs to happen in the private market to bring costs down there and attract inward investment. Building or purchasing more council homes, though necessary, is only part of the answer.

Maybe we'll go back to the days when bin collectors were direct council employees and so forth but I think there's probably reasons why councils take bids from competing companies rather than directly employing workers for a lot of areas that councils are involved in.

I think Sinn Fein if they get in will probably do a lot more direct employing, but I think this will be for ideological reasons rather than money saving ones.

I didn’t see anyone whinge, just pointing out what majority of tenants seem oblivious to and rent is taxable income.

The whole reason they are getting council housing is that they are not in the private market. Your understanding is deeply flawed Im afraid.

The thing is councils should be building on the land they already own not buying up private developments, councils have all the architects, engineers and planners they need to get schemes through planning and out to tender for a private builder to build but they are too slow and lazy at getting it done so they are not hitting the figures for units built and the knee jerk from the higher ups to boost their numbers is to use their big chequebook to take houses from private buyers.

Lets not forget a lot of councils are incredibly slow at turning over their own existing stock of houses where a tenant has died etc, can take 12 months for them to get another tenant in there or to CPO derelict houses in their area - too much like hard work for them.

The main reason for both of these issue is they have no motivation to do things quickly - if a private developer buys a site they want it built on and sold ASAP as its costing them money so might have houses sold in 2-3 years, the council are happy to tip along and take 5 years to get houses built.

The wording here is mixed though, its actually the AHBs such as Tuath that are buying up the most units out of the hands of private buyers and councils and AHBs both get help from the LDA, so for instance the LDA buy up some houses in a private estate and then hand them over to the local council for people on their housing list.

Yeah, it's so unfair. How come landlords income is subject to income tax?

It's such an anomaly that people could be forgiven for assuming that that could never happen.