2 out of 3 young adults living at home

Oh great. there's a factory in your town. It's the big schmoke then?

Is it listowel? Because according to google maps it's a 60-90 minute commute in the morning to limerick city. Have we become so used to commutes that we think 90 mins each way is acceptable? 3 hours a day.

In that town (and surrounds), there's a grant total of 6 properties for sale.

https://www.daft.ie/property-for-sale/listowel-and-surrounds-kerry/semi-detached-houses?redirectReason=expired

Btw, there's a whopping 49 in the whole of Kerry.

https://www.daft.ie/property-for-sale/kerry/semi-detached-houses?redirectReason=expired

So your solution for the tens, if not hundreds of thousands that are looking for a solution to the housing crises, is to move to Kerry, where there's 49 houses and apply for one of the 4 positions in a Kerry Group factory.

https://jobs.kerry.com/search/?q=&q2=&alertId=&locationsearch=&title=&location=listowel&date=

Sorry if I sounded nasty, I was trying to make a point. It seems like you have a nice life down there, but it's not relevant to the housing crises. It's a lovely part of the country. Yes, there's a couple of cheap houses there, but it's just a couple. And even if there was a thousand houses, there's no work for people to do. There's not enough spare houses to support the population of Kerry, never mind people moving there from the rest of the country.

There's a reason that property is so high in Dublin, people want to live there because that's where all the jobs are. And the jobs go there because it's where the people are. A large tech or pharma firm could relocate to Listowel but it couldn't hire what it needs. And there will never be a massive jump in demand for housing because there's not the volume of jobs there.

And that's why property is so cheap there.

There's a bigger discussion about what to do with rural Ireland. Should we be encouraging development so that everything isn't clustered around Dublin. I think most would agree that the answer is yes. But that's a long term solution, meanwhile people are struggling right now.

I was speaking myself more in relation to apartments.

Again, comparing us with the rest of the EU when it comes to compliance in living in apartment blocks needs to take into account the other factors at play.

You still didn't bother reading?

The housing crisis is easily solved, from a technical perspective.

The issue is the people whose job it is to solve it, will have their nose severely put out of joint if they do their job and fix the issue.

The problem is empty properties, excessive HAP, and the easy money issue with investing in property.

We know there are at least 12,000 empty properties in Dublin with 40% of those properties empty over 4 years, and there are over 100,000 vacant across the country.
These are AirBnB properties, Non-rental investment properties, properties that people have inherited and are just sitting on, and finally holiday homes.
The solution here is Tax. Properties that are empty for more than 6 weeks a year should be taxed at something heavy, (say 4% of their value, so for a property valued at €300,000 you've to pay €12,000 tax per annum, if it's empty for more than 6 weeks). Non-payment of the tax should result a penalty of equity in the property. (IE the state now owns 4% of the property)

No one is forcing people to hold on to properties, they're making a fortune off them. And these wealthy people are usually buddies with/make donations to the established political parties.

It should also be noted that the first thing someone involved in renting property will tell you is that they make very little money off it…. why are they doing it then????

HAP in Dublin for a lot of people is €1400 with many on the EHAP at €1800 (last time I checked). This means rent starts at €1850 for a HAP worthy property in Dublin. It should also be noted that many tenants have agreements with their land lords for additional cash payments on top of HAP (like €200 per month for example), which is against the rules of HAP. People on the HAP are desperate and are not willing to rock the boat so just pay it.

Even in my estate, the properties that were previously rented are difficult to sell as the new Landlord will not want to be subject to an existing rent pressure zone limit. The properties that were not rented always sell for a higher price as there is Landlord looking to increase their stock at the expense of a family trying to buy their own home.

We've 30 years of non-regulation and crappy business practices to fix, it's not gonna be easy from a political perspective.
If it were me, I'd announce the rules, and say they'll be coming into effect in 4 years time. That will give Landlord's time to get rid of their stock and invest in something else, hence reducing political backlash.

Should have been clearer, a 2nd property… IE not your family home.

You won't get votes from this section of the public but they'd get my vote and many others in a heartbeat who believe that they are locked out of the property market.

I'd agree with you, you've realistically speaking very little chance of getting a vote from any land lord, or developer. That wouldn't matter though as most people own 1 or 0

Maybe there could be a floor limit IE say property worth less than €200,000 would not be subject to the tax and the further away you go from densely populated areas the less of a percentage of tax there would be.

To be clear though, building more properties for Landlords to buy is not the solution, a Landlord will nearly always be able to outbid a person looking to buy their own home.

"The first thing someone involved in renting property will tell you is that they make very little money off it"

LL's forever spout this line and it infuriates me, essentially they're getting their asset worth 000k's paid for by people who often don't have any other option.

My old LL used to always talk about how much their mortgage is when a price increase came, she had 3 houses rented out. She made out that she was the unfortunate one when I was contributing a sizeable % so she could own the house that I was was living in.

What has a politician not getting a vote off LL's have to do with my comment? I'm stating that they'd get plenty more votes from the people who don't own homes or only own one residence which is a much larger porportion of the pop than the private LL's.

Even though it was not relevant at all to my point I'll still respond to it. I'm putting my faith in myself and my partners hard fought for savings to help us buy our home.

HAP should be scrapped. Why should people get their rent paid or subsidised by taxpayers money.

All it does is, increase the market rate for rent in an area.

100%. All HAP is is a subsidy to those who already have substantial wealth in property. It's madness.

Re HAP

Its robbing Peter to give the money to Mary to give the money to Paul.

But it makes Mary and Paul happy.

So, the government get a vote from Mary and Paul and maybe even Peter who's too burned out and exhausted to think.

A house is an asset.

Unless people want the PBP solution of public housing where everybody would be tenants, houses will remain as assets.

A house provides housing services (shelter and warmth), and is an asset.