Why aren't areas like Beaumont and Walkinstown more popular.

Where did I say no one wants to live there? Lots don't are won't that is all.

Yup no corpo houses in Beaumont.

Clontarf has a big enough one and Howth has even a bigger estate of corpo houses.

It will be interesting to see what will happen in Howth after all those massive number of apartments are finished, how will that affect the market there or maybe it won't.

I have noticed that also, moved into Greenhills a few years ago. A new generation of families moving in as the elderly population declines. Between when we bought and now the prices have gone up by 50%. The houses come with decent size back gardens and the vehicle access to the rears make them ideal for garages to set up or other small businesses. Its a decent area with a lot of amenities close by. We bought as it was easy commute to our jobs and close to M50 and city centre.

Yeah, it's mad that most of these houses would have been purchased with just one person working. I must keep an eye on this one to see what it goes for. I know the road, Greenhills is probably one of the "quieter" parts of Walkinstown / D12.

I am not sure why you think gentrification is "sad". It actually means people who own in the area have an increased asset. The areas themselves improve and ordinary people that earn more are happy to move there with the quality of services and shop improve.

Society has moved on where many households being double incomes now. While you think a single bread winner and female staff had to leave their job once married was a better situation that time is gone.

Commute times are way longer than they used to be so property close to major employment is worth more. It is no surprise a postman doesn't earn as much as somebody that needs a degree and years of experience for their job. How much training does a postman require? Supply and demand applies to employment and being easily replaceable means you will be paid less.

What other way should it work?

Yeah it's all inter-related.

You cannot take the good parts of social change like increased labour market participation, third level education and higher living standards, and expect to keep all the good bits of the old system.

A postman (or whoever) could afford to buy a house in these areas because a permanent "safe" job was the pinnacle of expectations right up to the early 90s. The flipside of that was that so many people had no job, or unsafe jobs, or just had to emigrate, and that kept house prices depressed. This absolutely was not a good thing.

The metric people use for price increases is generally the average industrial wage. This ignores higher incomes which is how people can afford higher prices for what used to be possible on a low/semi skilled job. Wages for higher portion of the population have risen but the the other employment didn't and won't keep pace with these wages. An increasing wage gap has occurred.

There are a lot more people that can easily replace low skill/wage jobs so the salaries aren't going to increase and they have less locations they can afford to buy in.

Planning regulations have not really gone up in cost, building standards improved and that has a cost but that is not going to revert. That is not an artificial increase.

There are too many people that think this is some plan to keep people down but reality is it is a combination of incompetence and public pressure to do things a particulate way. RPZ is a terrible and reduces people willing to rent and drove people out of the market. The public generally think it is great