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

The surplus budget is billions of euros per year, its not remotely funny money. Its real money, that can be used to solve real problems.

We were building 90,000 housing units a year fifteen years ago, when our population was 25% lower than it is now. We'd need to be building 110k units a year to compare per capita. Its completely possible to build massively more housing, if we allocate the resources to do so.

We built 32,000 housing units in 2023, and 30,000 in 2022. The goal is 33.5k in 2024. Our current government's housing for all program calls for an average 33k housing units to be completed every year from now until 2030.

90,000 was obviously too much with hindsight, but 33,000 is also very obviously too little at present. The ESRI estimates we need 60k per year this decade. That can't be achieved instantly no, but our government should at the very least be aiming to achieve that within a 3-4 year window, but its not. Thats the problem. We're never going to build enough houses if the government doesn't even aim to do so.

90k houses a year was possible when the economy was essentially geared towards building. That's not the case today. If we want to build tens of thousands of houses more each year, we would need many more tens of thousands of builders to come and build them. Where will they live?

Okay, I didn't actually know that. Thank you.

However, I think that more builders would be needed to build more houses. Can the current non-housing projects simply cease? Probably not...

That Graph and the CSO data both tell us that the numbers in construction are 25% lower from their peak in 07/08. That would mean that if we were building 07/08 standards and majority were employed in housing you would expect 60k of houses a year. If you are building A rated housing units as opposed to 07/08 standards, I wound imagine this number would be lower again.

We built 90k houses at the peak, 25% less than that would have us at over 70k per year.

You can absolutely take some off that for higher building standards now on top, but no more than additional 10-20%, considering we've also had technological advances in the industry in the last two decades that help compensate for some of that.

So if we had a similar allocation ratio of construction workers to housing we would be hitting approx 60k. But instead at present we're at approx 30k, because not enough of our construction workers are building housing. Thats a major problem in allocation of resources.

Building more is the #1 solution, though. Everything else is marginal in comparison. If the Irish state was building 60k+ houses a year, every year, the housing market would be much much less problematic.

The ESRI estimation, a fairly well informed and neutral one, is now 60k a year is whats required also, 45k comes nowhere close.

The planet where you can get 40%. Seriously, the profit would vary from project to project, and what's calculated at the start of a build is probably very different from the end of a build.

The 30% could be gross margin, before the cost of running the business is paid.

Again, hearsay, but there were plenty of reports of builders asking for more money from buyers after deposits were paid, as labour and material costs shot up. Interest rates are up now, and demand is still sky high.

If people will pay it then builders will charge it.

I had my name down on the waiting list for a 5 bed at the Woodbrook development between Shankill and Bray. The 5 beds sold out quick in the earlier phases when they went on sale, I believe priced at 830-850. Months later and they're still trying to shift all of the 3/4 beds from the current phase. Well, got a call earlier to see if I'd be interested in putting a deposit down on one from the final phase before they go on the market... at 950-965. I was expecting a price increase but that seems absolutely mental to me. They won't be ready until the end of the year too.

These 5 beds were criminally underpriced to beging with in Woodbrook.

also, the last phase houses are at the end of the development with views on the golf course, ie much nicer than being stacked next to the apartment blocks.

The current model of retiring at 60-65 and living for three decades or more on a pension is and always was unsustainable. Indeed, it's something that has only existed since WW2, and even after a few decades of existence, it has become unsustainable. Pension funds are now buying up property to rent them to younger generations in order to generate enough wealth to keep older people in pensions. The said younger generations are also paying taxes to fund these pensions that they themselves will never, ever enjoy.

This is all very much in the macro, but you are correct. The welfare state as it exists is going to have to be dismantled because if it isn't, it will crumble.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rppi/residentialpropertypriceindexnovember2023/

Property prices back on the rise in Dublin. With interest rates potentially dropping this year we could be in for more growth..

As if bidding against the government and REITs weren't bad enough...

Really smart move by them, guaranteed accomadation for employees, no tenancy commitments and asset likely to appreciate. This could lead the way for other employers to follow.

A slow reversion to feudalism basically.

Imagine working for an abusive employer, knowing you'll face homelessness if you quit the job. How many requests for overtime work could you feel comfortable saying no to?

Or even for a non-abusive employer, who just won't give you a raise because they know while you're in their accomodation you're not going anywhere.

Living in employer provided accomodation is a terrible idea.

Employers being forced to bulk buy properties, because they can't recruit staff otherwise, also just shows how damaging to our economy overall the housing crisis is becoming.