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

I don’t know the specifics of that case but I have oft been alarmed at the prices the State is willing to pay for social housing.
I would see this as evidence the State can’t even be trusted to procure built houses appropriately. Imagine the disaster they’d make out of the much more difficult task of actually building them from scratch.

They’re in a difficult spot though. Because everyone wants more spending on social housing. How best to do this?

- Don’t buy = wasting money on HAP. Inflating rents
- Buy new builds = you’re overpaying and stopping FTBs getting them
- But second hand = you’re inflating the market

My moral view is that state should never ever house anybody for (close to) free in a house that a median income couple couldn’t afford. This would likely limit them to only buying second hand homes in less desireable areas. That brings its own social problems and would be wildly unpopular - therefore we have this bizarre situation where lots of social housing is in estates where only the top 20% of workers could dream of buying.

But imagine a politician suggesting there should be no social housing in North Wicklow or South Dublin because it’s a poor use of taxpayer money and just ‘unfair’. Most people in the private market can’t live there, so why should there be any expectation of social housing there. They’d be lynched

I know you’ll say they should build at scale, cheaply in all areas. My belief is they would make an absolute shambles of this and create all sorts of other problems.

The big issue its not even just the state buying social houses outright at hugely inflated prices though - they've for years now been signing hugely expensive long term leases on private sector apartments, which is surely the worst of all worlds. Massive cost, taking housing off the private sector market, over paying, and no asset to show for it long term. ie:

https://www.businesspost.ie/news/state-to-sink-another-e450m-into-leasing-of-1000-social-housing-units/

That aside, the moral hazard problem (and the ruinous financial cost to the state of leasing it) of social housing in very affluent areas that you outline (which is broadly reasonable I think) would be at least partly solved if we engaged in large scale social and affordable housing construction in cheaper locations.

DLRCOCO for example has a social housing wait time of approx 10 years now. If someone on that housing list was given the offer of either an apartment in DLR in 10+ years time, or a house in Athlone in 6 months, the vast majority would take the latter. Especially if HAP was no longer an option while waiting.

Anyone who very much wanted to stay in the area wouldn't be forced to leave. But they would have an incentive to leave. And with reduced demand in the area the state could stop this panic buying/leasing at massively overinflated prices.

It would be 'wildy unpopular' with most of the media & our noisy NGO ecosystem, but it would be sweet music to the type of people who get up early in the morning. Who was the government elected to represent again?

The 'people who get up early in the morning' was a comment made by Leo who, as leader of FG, f*cking tanked the last election for his party and lost 15 seats.

So, not really sure the Government was elected to represent that particluar viewpoint.

I agree but the most popular party in the country right now has three core economic pillars

• Higher income taxes
• Abolish our only wealth tax
• More social housing

Its clearly the flavour of the day politically

While I have concerns about the most popular party in the country, very few could go through a forest of money trees faster than FFG.

When it's pointed out to ye that the state is paying double the price for "affordable homes" when compared to investment fund who will put back in the market for the highest rents in the city. What hope is there for new entrants?

Are ye that much scared that ye will sacrafice the children of the country again

What part of the calculation do ye not understand, plus continuation of such policies will guarantee what ye appear to most fear will occur. Why don't ye put pressure on them to fix it properly

Build council estates deal with anti social behaviour deal with non payment of rent problem decreased significantly.

We are always been told of mixed tenure developments in Europe and how they work so well. Why not in Ireland? See the above paragraph.

Where exactly do you think a vast majority of our tax take comes from? Corporation tax and income tax from those employed therein and the support businesses of all the above ie the multipler effect.

We are a small open economy who need direct investment to fund day to day running of the country. We need to import building materials and we are not big enough of a customer to bulk buy building materials from above so we must take the market price.

It is all well and good wanting to give everyone what they want but funding it is a different story. It is always easy in opposition saying what should be done it's different when you have to deliver it.

Mods I am not political and if you deem the above too political please feel free to amend or delete as you see fit.

You wouldn't pay that for one in the Island Field.

why dont the central bank raise the lending to 6 or even 10 times salary and problem solved .. nearly all houses be affordable then

"Take-up of office space in Dublin dropped to a three-year low between January and March, new data shows.

The latest report from BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland reveals that just 16,310 sqm of space was leased during the three-month period.

It follows a surge in the number of offices completed during the quarter, with 84,000 sqm of space added to the market.

This is more than the amount of office space completed in the whole of 2023.

This combination of strong supply and weak demand caused the vacancy rate to jump from 13.1% in December to 14.5% in March."

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0507/1447239-dublin-office-space-take-up-hits-three-year-low/

You'd think/hope this soft crash would result in a re-allocation of construction resources (and developable land) from offices to housing. But that should also have been incentivized to happen years ago if our government had any clue what it was doing so who knows I guess.

Yes good few companies are changing their office location in Dublin . That is only due to the fact they are getting new leases at good discounted rate.

"strategy of the government attempting to inspire the private sector to build in large numbers" - what? What incentivises did the government put out to encourage building in large numbers?

Deplorable market conditions made by the Irish government everyday gets worse and now they want to buy all the do uppers.

"The state has agreed thousands of expensive long-term social housing leases at a cost of up to €3,200, the Business Post can reveal.

The almost 9,000 deals come at with combined price tag of more than €3.24 billion over their 25-year lifetime, with scores of rental agreements costing the government €2,500 or more a month."

https://www.businesspost.ie/news/exclusive-state-leasing-social-homes-from-private-sector-for-up-to-e3200-a-month/

What a complete and utter waste of tax payer money. Leasing 9000 properties at massive cost, with nothing to show for it after 25 years. And taking those thousands of properties off the private rental market, driving up rental costs for tax payers, while they're at it. A double whammy for all the renters out there paying large amounts of tax.

Its such a daming result of our current government's policy of refusing to just build state housing.

No, effectively what I'm saying is the state should have built 9000 social houses to house those families, instead of very expensively leasing housing from the private sector. As was social housing policy at every time in the history of the state until the failures of the 2010s and 2020s.

Do you think the state spending billions of euro to lease social housing at €3200(!) a month is good value for tax payers? Do you think its good for the tax payers in the private sector rental market having those 9000 homes taken out of it, that they now have to compete with the state for the very limited number of properties available?