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

40 years ago GPs weren't competing for houses against the huge number of people working in tech roles on 6 figures salaries. Then throw in the tech staff share based pay, which gives them another chunk to add into their purchasing power.

If they want older people to downsize and vacate their larger houses, how does reducing the value of their home make that enticing?

Even taking into account the reduced cost of a smaller house, they would get less out of the deal...

I've looked into this for people... To move into a smaller house in the area they've lived all their lives, with a garden and all of the comforts they want to enjoy in their progressing years... Cost of moving, new furniture,fittings and decorating... Paying solicitors, stamp duty etc. it doesn't leave you with as much as you'd hope... So why give up the home you've worked so hard for...

There has to be a plan to make it more viable for people to downsize...

Yes, they were. 30 years ago was 1993, and plenty of people were leaving Ireland then.

With the incentives Ireland offers to multinationals, particularly in pharma and IT, we are attracting lots of highly paid inward migration and also paying qualified Irish people high wages.

As long as this is happening, house prices stay high. Building more houses will attract more people to come.

All the building policies, help to buy schemes (which is widely accepted are counter productive to prices dropping), asking older people to vacate their properties for smaller ones etc are just pissing against the wind really.

It's going to take a massive negative economic shock to drop house prices, the last shock actually increased prices significantly.

Ireland grew too quickly and housing never kept up and we are a huge number of years from catching up. There's no masterplan at all. So it's not going to happen. Just soundbites from Mary Lou and other career politicians.

The latest I read was a campaign to get Irish tradespeople home. I'd be interested in seeing what the angle is here, what is on offer. How many? We must need thousands. But they too will need somewhere to live. And they will need to be offered big wages. And those 2 things alone will drive prices up further.

We are in a hole of our own making. I own a house so I'm happy, it's worth twice what I paid for it in 2011. It's a fine house, it suits me and my circumstances .I have big equity. I have thought about moving a few times but to move within Dublin is more expensive than it has ever been for me, even with the equity I have built up, or has been built up for me I suppose, I didn't do much to earn it.

But just as I have done little to earn it, the same forces have made Dubliners unable to buy a house, or even rent one in reasonable shape at reasonable cost. These forces are still very much at play, and accelerating.

70/80

Generally, positive net migration can be observed in the 1970s with a peak of 20,000 people coming to Ireland in 1975. Over the 1970s cumulative positive net migration was just under 100,000 people indicating 100,000 more people arriving than leaving. A declining trend can be observed from the peak onwards to 1989. The 1980s were dominated with negative net migration, with more than 185,000 more people leaving than arriving in the 1980s.

1990's

An upturn in the net migration trend begins in 1990, however negative net migration can still be observed in all years (aside from 1992) until 1996. The remaining years of the 1990s show positive net migration. In the earlier half of the 1990s (1990 – 1994), there was negative net migration of 22,600 which indicates that approximately 23,000 more people departed the State than arrived. Positive net migration starts in 1996 and in the latter half of the decade (1995 – 1999), Ireland had positive net migration of 60,000 more people arriving than leaving.

The upturn happened with the Celtic Tiger.

I also provided the unemployment rates I could find back as far as I could find......

You cant price cap a house.

It is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Just like eveything else.

The only way to succesfully bring the prices down, without crashing the economy, is to build a lot more of them.

Because think about it...could Ireland let alone the world support everybody as a council worker with 10 kids each with free gaffs.

That's commercial properties. Different to a mortgage.

It was a mortgage on a commercial property, I suppose the pertinent points are, the bank did offer a 110% loan, and I didn’t request it. I can’t have been the only one.

I guess around 2005/2006 based on the 100% announced in 2005. As above the house price was already raised at that stage so they might of had a small push up but on a market that was already high

A lot of people in the Dublin area can afford to pay a lot more than 300k for a house.

Govt supports or no Govt supports.

Thus obviously if you remove those government supports then the price will fall.

This assumes that the only thing keeping prices at their current level is government support. That absolutely isn't the case.