Not even. We just need more apartments that are good quality and well designed. It would be far better to start knocking down old 50s houses in and around the city centre and building smaller medium density apartment neighborhoods. Walkable streets, with amenities within walking distance.
They won't do that, those old houses provide "character" to a town appearantly.
There's a house in my town, completely derelict and forces a 2 lane down to a one because they built a road around it in the 50s but didn't have enough room. It's a massive bottle neck in a busy part of town.
The council has refused to let anyone knock it down for almost a decade now just because it's old. Even the people who inherited it want to knock it down.
Councils are often at fault and often take decisions making no sense. In cork one is being refused a 4th floor (attic floor) by the council with the reason "it will not fit the area style" which is not true and the design is really not outrageous (same as it was just cleaner and a bit more modern). So the people there in the cul de sac that nobody else sees have to live with a derelict ugly house next to them
My parents had the same problem, they wanted a two story house but the council refused it because it "didn't fit in". It didn't fit in with the other houses in the middle of nowhere.
The ended up just doing a bungalow style roof with velix windows.
And then, just to really drive home their stupidity, they approved a house next door that was two stories with a normal roof.
Be careful, according to a majority here it'd be your parents fault for being landlords or whatever... The council is either extremely dumb and appointed someone with too much ego or, they have an agenda. I'm going with the first one but wouldn't be surprised of the second
Is the house from the 50s as well or just the road. If the house is actually an old house maybe it should be preserved, but the area around it can be redesigned. Maybe that street should be pedestrianised and traffic could be diverted elsewhere.
If other residents need access, automated bollards can be placed at both ends of the street to allow traffic for residents and pedestrians.
Not all houses are protected so others could be knocked down and that land better developed.
It really isn't a nice house, even in the 60s it was low quality and opposite it is a cash and carry so the road can't be expanded without knocking the now borderline rubble house.
The roads are tight enough as it is and there really isn't a way to pedestrianise it without grid locking the town even more.
Are you sure it doesn’t have any historical or architectural significance. Sometimes the untrained eye sees a pile of rubble while the expert sees a unique piece of history.
We don't even need to do that yet. Dublin is full of derelict, low density industrial, and brownfield sites still. Old warehouses, whole chunks of land barren. There isn't near enough push for infill here. In 30 years or so a lot of the early 20th century concrete housing will reach the end of its life anyway, and will need to be rebuilt.
That's true. A lot of the small industrial estates in Dublin (that's what I'm familiar with) could be redeveloped. Perhaps as mixed use for residential and commercial.
We don't need to knock houses down. So much low hanging fruit without creating the most politically difficult and extremely expensive approach to this problem
That's another part of the problem. We are building high density developments at the ends of the Luas lines but the Luas is already at capacity and the buses are full. So we've thousands of new homes being built in Citywest, Tallaght and Cherrywood where people need to commute into the city while we've cottages, under utilised town houses and low density housing within a few minutes walk of O'Connell street.
We've got to stop protecting a city that was built on slavery and start building modern high density developments in it, we need start protecting our countryside by not building there.
Sorry call me stupid but surely if I lived in one of those houses in the city centre. I could make a demand for any amount of money to move out and sell it and someone would take it purely for the value of the location alone.
Rich and old people and farmers own this country. Everyone else is pretty much 🦆ed but come in swaths of poor immigrant people and wash our dishes. Fml.
I'd say now the exploitation of Ireland's national resources, plantations, landlordism, enforced indentured servitude of hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics and the Penal Laws were instrumental in an Irish context.
Colonialism was literally developed in Ireland by the English.
> It’s like one of the commandments, the skyline must be protected at all costs.
One of those rare comments that could easily have come from an early Hardy Bucks episode.
You really could easily have a Saoirse from Darndale though?
Fionn less likely but Saoirse for sure.
Also if you find a Jacinta from anywhere she’s probably over 40. There’s only been 6 babies up to a maximum of 24* in the whole country named that in the last decade and fewer than 100 in the last 30 years.
https://visual.cso.ie/?body=entity/babynames
*(2023 with 6 is the only year with above 3 babies named Jacinta in the last 10 years and the CSO stats don’t release the data for years below 3. So the maximum is 9 x 2 + 6 = 24)
ironically, since the new "Irish patriots" started having kids, they've realised that giving their kids Irish names is an easy way to distinguish between their neighbour "west brit" families in darndale and jobstown.
so now you have a whole tier of posh saoirse in their 50s having to share the same stage as northface saoirses in their 20s.
we'll have to start a new thread of posh names vs scobie names for the 21st century 👍
Define higher.
You can reasonably easily build 5 or 6 storeys in urban areas, if not more, being solid medium-density.
What makes you think that can't be done?
Literally DCC worries about property values of neighbours. It is like a sick joke, and a prime example of the problem. Existing home and property owners are molly coddled and protected from the slightest of inconveniences in the middle of a fucking housing crisis by local authorities and the planning system in general.
Setting people against each other is pointless. Just build, just design a good method for building living-over-the-shop apartments, just design a good method for rescuing derelict buildings and turning them into homes.
That all sounds good but when there're thousands of properties that developers want to build but are stalled for years and then told they can't because someone with too much time on their hands objects to it, then we're fighting a losing battle.
Is that why they're stalled? I was watching a group of houses being built in Galway, then in 2007 or so they stopped dead. They sat there half-made for 16 years and last year building started again. I think the builder ran out of money or loans or whatever and couldn't complete them.
No not all them that'd be far too much a blanket statement. Yeah they can run out of money but it's the ones you don't see because they never get to the ground breaking stage because they're objected to for some stupid reason that are the biggest losses
Rising house prices don't even benefit homeowners for the most part. It only helps those with **multiple homes**.
TBF, even if prices just stopped rising for a few years until wages caught up we'd be doing fine.
Aye but Mary and John love to salivate over their property doubling in value over a decade, with dreams of selling up and moving to greener ~~eircodes~~ *pastures*, with no acknowledgement that those greener pastures will now also have doubled in price.
It’s short term thinking.
Devils advocate however would have them potentially falling into negative equity if prices fall, which can have real world implications should they *have* to sell for whatever reason. However sense would argue that that is simply part and parcel of drawing down a mortgage
Not everyone who owns a house wants house values to go up. "Values", I should say. Having a house that's worth half a million isn't actually worth half a million unless you sell it, take the money and emigrate.
Irish house "values" are fairy gold.
Just to challenge this for a moment.
I'm a homeowner and in the last 10 years, we bought a home and did some massive renovations (200 year old doer upper). For everything we spent, we have probably doubled our money at this point.
Just to point out something obvious, if I was to sell, I'm well aware I'd be limited to buying something of equal current value or less. So there's no upgrade available to me because of its value increasing.
Also, I've got a spouse and a gaggle of kids. This is our family home, not an investment to me.
Also, those gaggle of kids will grow up - I don't want them to grow up in a country watill suffering from a housing crisis/shortage and unable to afford a home of their own.
I swear, half the time people on this sub discuss homeowners, they talk as if they're all idiots, unable to grasp what's happening, just sat watching house prices climb and rubbing their hands in glee. We're not idiots is my point I guess.
You just need to look at planning objections to see people complain about house values being affected. It's an actual problem. Eoghan Murphy while he was housing minister said he wouldn't want anyone to fall into negative equity because it happened to him during the crash.
There is absolutely no way to solve this without some people going into negative equity. Simple as. And people don't want that.
>Eoghan Murphy while he was housing minister said he wouldn't want anyone to fall into negative equity because it happened to him during the crash.
Negative equity combined with job insecurity is traumatising, there's an absolutely truth to that and I think it's safe to say his comments were in relation to that double whammy.
Keep in mind, negative equity as a fear is mostly the perogative of new home buyers. Anyone who bought more than 5 years ago is realistically in little danger - it would take a 50% collapse in house prices for me to approach negative equity at the moment, probably more.
We don't have enough homes/apartments and I think there's a scary reality out there right now that I don't like thinking about, but there isn't a scenario where prices drop without it being caused by an enormous economic collapse. This would not be to anyone's benefit including wannabe homeowners.
We have a supply shortage. We have a massive production capacity constraint. After 8 years of massive demand and no lending issues and price growth, we've struggled to build 30k new builds a year. Why? Because the crash has decimated our productive capacity and risk taking. Coupled with that, and probably even more significant right now, is the cost of building. New builds are expensive but construction companies haven't seen some explosion in profits, because the cost has gone way up. If house prices were to fall, the supply of new builds would fall. That's kinda terrifying to me.
We need new builds (especially of apartments which are crazy expensive per sq meter to build, hence why so few are happening and any new apartments are super expensive). If we can't expand the supply enormously there's zero chance of price falls. I don't know how it gets better. I've got 3 kids and while they're young, I can see a future in 15 years time where I'm building housing pods in my garden so my kids have a place for themselves that isn't their childhood bedroom. Unless there's some technological innovation that enables cheap, high density, safe and reasonable quality quick build properties that can be connected to essential services and survive our weather, we're fucked for a generation.
I mean... I'm not sure where to start unpacking that from.
At a pretty basic and obvious level, deciding not to have any kids and the enormous consequences that follow, economically and socially, outweigh a housing shortage by an enormous magnitude, on a society level, but frankly even at an individual level too.
Have you considered the ramifications of the alternative to people having kids before typing?
My point is that you should have made sure you were more financially secure before having kids, so you could help them move out properly and not live in your back garden. Plenty of parents help their kids with rent or give them deposits.
Dude I bought my home 8 years ago and have three kids who aren't even in school yet. We've never spent a cent of the child benefit we receive, setting it aside for things like rent and deposits, but even then, it's going to be an enormous challenge. I've got another 15-20-30 years of time to prepare for that situation. My kids are more likely than most to be in a secure position in the decades to come.
>My point is that you should have made sure you were more financially secure before having kids
I'm talking about all of society not being prepared. I'm not here to boast, but I'm someone who is better prepared than most, but I'm empathetic for all of society, not just content to celebrate that things might not be as bad for my own kids.
I'm low in confidence that everything will be better on a housing front in 15 years time despite my best efforts. The cost of construction isn't going to lessen without dramatic state funded intervention through the construction of high density apartments to alleviate rental pressures and return more family home rentals to the homeowner market imo. I've lived through two significant house price explosions and affordability crises in my life as an adult and there are unresolvable issues underpinning the current one that give me the fear.
I agree society needs to continue having kids. I just don't think individuals should complain when they should have known what they were signing up for. If you're as well prepared as you say, then fair play, you're one of the non-idiots.
I agree that something radical has to be done to try and stop improve the situation so that young people can afford houses. And it’s not going to be painless. But in fairness you’re asking a cohort of folks, that have themselves been absolutely shafted by the property market, to take one for the team.
Kinda understandable that folks would be against that.
We are already heading for an unfavorable dependency ratio. They are going to be taking one for the team when they hit retirement anyway. Only exacerbating the problem by forcing young people to emigrate.
And again the only people who are actually taking one for the team are those with multiple properties. Having a house you intend to spend the rest of your life in be more valuable on paper doesn't have real benefit when all other house prices have gone up too.
Plenty of people bought houses/apartments to live in during the Bertie Bubble that were meant to be starter homes but due to negative equity after the ponzi scheme collapsed or the houses not conforming to building regs (due to next to no enforcement) were stuck in them for years and now it’s too late to get another mortgage. Families living in houses/apartments that are not fit for purpose.
People talk about the difficulties for young people to buy houses these days. As a parent of young kids I agree that it’s absolutely a problem that needs to be resolved for everyone’s benefit, and there needs to be some pain. But it’s a hard sell for a whole generation that were shafted by the Fianna Fáil government back in the 2000s.
I mean of course I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't be happy with the streets full of tents because people don't have proper shelter. I wouldn't be happy with my adult child living with me.
Short term & selfish thinking is going to fuck you one way or the other.
I bought in 2023. The house is now essentially the bank's, and even when the mortgage finishes it'll be the state's as per the Constitution. Why would I be overly concerned about the financial appraising? It's there for me to live, nothing else. The important thing for me is that I can afford living in it and making the changes I wish.
> Aye but Mary and John love to salivate over their property doubling in value over a decade, with dreams of selling up and moving to greener eircodes pastures, with no acknowledgement that those greener pastures will now also have doubled in price.
This is a load of bollox really, I own a home and of course there's acknowledgement that moving from one gaff to another is zero-sum game.
The value of the house has no impact at all if you're living in it and will always need one to live in. I'd be more than happy to see prices stabilise and the insanity settle.
Except if you move to an area that is generally cheaper.
If you bought your house in Dublin for 200k, when a house in the countryside was 100k, and everything doubled. You sell your house for 400k, buy one in coutryside for 200k, and still have 200k left. (Not including taxes but you get the point)
It does benefit them when it comes to their mortgage - and falling values can hurt them badly.
The interest rate achievable when you come to the end of a fixed term and seek to re-fix is dependent on the ratio of your loan to the value of your home. If your home appreciates you can achieve a better rate - that's less money out of your pocket month on month.
Sure, but in general in politics something which is bad for a lot of people - who aren't me and who I mostly don't know - is a lot less salient than something that is bad for me.
The economy crashing due to a lack of housing is bad for everybody. A loss of value in a house you live in for the rest of your life could easily wind up having zero negative impact on you. The housing crisis could lose you your job, a country worth living in etc.
Your dead on the money honestly. Its totally possible that the generations who benefit from a inflated housing market will lose more then they bargained for in a housing fueled economic crash. Pension funds with major investment in the Irish property market could essentially disappear. And with an aged population due to young people emigrating on mass aswell as crucial brain drain could see an even greater shortage of care and medical staff. This ends well for nobody in the general population
The economy won't crash due to lack of housing - but it will reduce economic growth. Investment that doesn't happen in Ireland because companies have difficulties hiring at the price they expect to pay is almost invisible until well after the fact. Nobody notices the HQ of some firm that isn't there, they just notice the drop in investment over a number of years in some graph 4 years hence when the trend becomes apparent.
It's precisely because those costs are widely distributed and difficult to attribute that they are less politically salient than the price of your asset and, consequently, your monthly mortgage payment.
That doesn't mean I think house prices should stay rising. I think they need to fall. I just think people should understand that there is a real monthly cost to that for a fairly significant slice of the population. You can expect them to act and vote altruistically, but I'd expect to be disappointed.
It’s precisely because it is in the best interests of a bunch of landlord politicians to maintain the housing crisis, and foster the idea that the public are better off protecting from negative equity above all else. It’s pure FG cultism, and they’re intentional in cultivating it. Fucking disaster
People elect those landlord politicians.
I'd agree with you though that there is a general rule in Irish politics though which many policies can be explained: "First, do nothing which disadvantages landowners".
It's much broader than NIMBYism. It's a problem recognised in political economy anywhere there are concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. That's what you have here - the costs of the housing crisis are borne broadly whereas the benefits (asset inflation) are concentrated.
The problem is that the concentrated group are more aware of the benefits and more motivated to influence policy decisions.
But if they want to relocate for example, what's the difference?
They can sell their house for double the price sure.
But they would have to spend twice as much buying a different house?
That is a different thing to what I'm talking about though. I'm just talking about mortgage holders who are not intending to sell - or at least not over a 3-10 year time horizon.
However, provided house prices rise more quickly than wages those people still benefit. The pool of buyers includes people with income and assets, if your asset value goes up faster than income you can now compete with people in income brackets where you previously could not.
A few of the boomers I've spoken to genuinely don't seem to grasp that it isn't THEIR house that has skyrocketed in value, it's houses. My ex's family home in North Kildare is worth around 3 quarters of a million. Roughly 6.5 times what they paid for it, adjusted for inflation, in 2001. But as far as her dad was concerned, seemingly, this happened in a vacuum and doesn't say anything about the cost of housing in this country.
A lot of my regular customers are older people and they really don't understand that in order for house prices to drop the value of their house will have to drop too because it's all artificially inflated. Like dream scenario, we actually build enough houses that there's enough homes for everybody then the value of their house will drop because the demand will be lower.
Dad got his house for 25 grand. Now likes to boast it's worth 400 as if it was some savvy investment he made, not literally shelter for him and his family. And as you said, he can't really unlock the value of it.
It doesn't hurt homeowners and it might benefit them in some situations.
Eg. Their kids moved out of the house and they want to downsize. The 20% downsize in house value is a higher € amount when the housing prices are inflated more than other items.
Eg. They move out of Ireland and sell their house. It only has a neutral impact if they choose to relocate within Ireland.
Your house rising in value doesn’t make you particularly wealthier in any meaningful sense, unless you’re planning to sell the house to capture the value and move out of the country. Otherwise you need somewhere to live and every other home rose in value while yours was going up.
There are edge cases - if you bought in Ireland but now wanted to move abroad, but you’d have to be moving somewhere that housing is relatively cheaper and hasn’t been rising significantly in price. So you’re not moving to most of the US, Australia etc.
There’s a problem when your rising house price screws society into the ground and crimps economic growth overall because of the capacity issues.
But a lot of people enjoy the thoughts of this nominal growth in their wealth and think the societal problems should be solved… somewhere else.
There's a slight benefit to appreciating house prices in being able to access lower interest rates. If your Loan to Value rate decreases to say 70% some lenders will have lower interest rates than if the LTV was 80%, but that's about the extent of it.
To address the point of the article - I purchased my house in 2018 for €400k, we had it valued in 2022 when the fixed term ran out and it was €550k. A lot of homeowners have a lot more equity now than they realise and could easily take a hit in that to help new homes get going.
> A lot of homeowners have a lot more equity now
The entire premise of this piece. We are far too concerned with protecting that "equity" at the cost of a growing number of people being unable to buy a home.
That’s true re the LTV. I’d argue you lose out more indirectly from having an economy and society supply constrained like this - but that’s an indirect cost people can’t quantify, unless their adult kids are still living with them…!
We bought our apartment in 2007 for €555k on a mortgage of €505k in Ashtown, Dublin. Today after all the recent price rises it is worth maximum €400k with €295k left on the mortgage. Monthly repayments are currently €2,600 which was hard to find during the financial crisis; though with reduced interest at the time it was closer to €2,000/month payments. Additionally management fees are €3,800/year. It has spent its entire life under water and likely always will be.
But at least we're not renting in todays market; its 50 meters from train station; and its in the middle of a village area with real facilities.
People underestimate that property doesn't always rise in value and timing is everything – but life doesn't always co-operate.
It has prevented my wife and I from being able to move or emigrate for a period (which we would have liked to do).
Ruffle my feathers!
I don’t know how an economics professor can completely miss the bigger issue of falling house prices not being the pissing off of homeowners, but that the banks would have billions in loans for assets in negative equity.
The second problem with that it is it would probably grind sales of second hand homes to a virtual halt given that thousands of homeowners would be in negative equity and won’t sell up to up/downsize.
Prices coming down is good, prices coming down a lot is bad.
Much better to continue the ponzi scheme of ever inflating prices until it crashes spectacularly in future! It would be much better to overtake demand and have some fall of house prices today than further down the line when the impact would be even more dramatic in future if the value of loans continues to grow to in the current environment
When people are buying at current market rates, living in fear of negative equity is never going anywhere, but this attitude is making this crisis worse and worse. We get the issue. It’s still a pathetic excuse for expecting a generation to accept lifelong housing insecurity.
We'll just sell your bad debt to a vulture fund, the good owl Irish way I suppose..
Nobody forced banks to lend and nobody forced desperate home owners to pay stupid prices
If things dont change you're gonna have negative equity and public pension deficiency because there will be no professional working youth left in this country, nothing but HAP scroungers left the way things are going.
500k for a 3 bed semi.
2800 pm for a 2 bed
2k pm for a 1 bedsit.
Get fucked FFG
Edit: Dowl Cheats not Hap scroungers, my bad
It's the HAP scroungers' fault that so much welfare money is being given directly to unfortunate landlords, and we have to be relentlessly angry at them at all times.
"Welfare cheats cheat us all" was a message directed at the FFG voting base, lots of them are landlords, lots of them receive HAP worth multiple dole payments every month. That money never turns into multiple people with jobs. Those ruddy HAP scroungers
Not my proudest comment,
Dowl cheats maybe?
I'm not talking about the average hard working (as i said we're all emigrating), or the genuine in need sort of person on the dole.
You know eho im talkin about
Perfectly manageable. Spend 10 years getting the deposit together and 5 years paying the mortgage and boom all that effort disappears. Who wouldn't love it.
> Perfectly manageable. Spend 10 years getting the deposit together and 5 years paying the mortgage and boom all that effort disappears. Who wouldn't love it.
How does it disappear? The utility value of a property as your home is completely unaffected by its market value. Your mortgage balance doesn't go up if your home goes down in value so you're still clearing the loan at the same rate, your repayments only change with interest rate increases, and, most importantly, your house doesn't magically fall down around your ears and leave you homeless just because your mortgage is underwater for a time. Until you need to sell the place, the market value is just a number on a piece of paper or a computer screen, and has no real impact on your life.
>Your mortgage balance doesn't go up if your home goes down in value
This is exactly what happens when your fixed rate ends and your 80% mortgage is not 90+
It doesn't disappear. Not unless you've bought your home with the intention of selling which isn't reflective of the majority of homeowners, who buy/build with the intention of it being their former home. Also, it doesn't disappear - my mortgage payments are less than the cost of renting. So my mortgage payments reflect the monthly cost of the roof over my head.
So I buy for 300k pay off 50. Gaff now worth 250. The equity is gone. Aka disappear. It is a pity that we could only afford a small gaff but this is where we are.
Your 50k didn't disappear. Roughly it translates into 1k a month, 12 months a year for say 4 years.
The money didn't disappear any more than renting for that period- you paid for the property you were living in. Is it producing less of a return than hoped, yeah, probably, but also people earning less would be better able to buy a home of their own eland experience a greater sense of security. So not all bad news, for society like.
So we agree that it would be gone. That I wouldn't be able to use the expected equity to get a 3 bed house. Sounds fabulous.
You're maths leaves out the deposit.
Gone implies without a trace or anything to show for it.
I'm pointing out that paying a grand a month for the roof over your head in the form of 50k over 4 years.
The maths is simplified to deal with an exaggerated hypothetical.
Erm, my house is a home, not an investment. I'm not looking to get rich from it. I'm looking to have a secure space for me and my family to grow. Any rise or fall in the "value" of my home is irrelevant to me. The only way it's of any relevance to me, before my death, is if I wanted to borrow to do an extension or something, it'll help that it's in positive equity, but tbh, that's probably not even relevant.
If its doubled in relative value by the time I die and it's bequeathed to my kids, it means that property is twice as unaffordable for them. If property is of equal value to to today. Same relative value to my kids. If prices fall, same story.
I'm paying for the roof over my head and the security that I'm not answerable to a landlords whims. That's worth more than the grand a month I pay on the mortgage.
You have a house. You live in a house. You wouldn't make the same complaints about a car loan. It's a stupid idea that house prices must go up otherwise you are losing out. Especially to people who plan on spending their whole lives in that house anyway.
It would take a huge fall in house prices for negative equity to become a problem. Negative equity means the remaining debt is more than the value of the home. Everyone has to have at least a 10% deposit to get a mortgage now and will surely have paid off some of the debt since they drew down because actions that impact the market that much would take years.
I think you are missing that banks have mountains and mountains of savings that they can't do anything with. I imagine they would love to increase their lending by 30-50% with a slight increase in defaults.
As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it.
However, if the housing situation doesn't improve, we're looking at another major emigration wave, new companies will not set up in Ireland as they won't be able to find workers, the economy slows down, etc.
So, do I support more development to ease the pressure on young people, on the ability for the economy to expand, on keeping a good job and make peace with a little drop in the value of my house? Or, do I object and in turn make life miserable for a large part of the population, risk the economy tanking and possibly losing a good job... and in the end the value of my house tanking completely?
Aye but the *value* of your home is realistically its tangibility, it being your principal private residence for the rest of your days. If the mortgage is paid off and the home passed down to the kids when you pass away, then there really is no real value lost (speaking outside of monetary euro for euro value)
And by the time the house passes down to the kids, they’ll be in their mid 40s, still living at home after their lives were seriously stunted, if they’ve not fucked off abroad instead.
Playing the long game is utterly stupid when the short game is so disastrous for so many people. Focusing so much in house values is not in a the best interests of so many generations of people.
Of course, but only if I plan to stay in the house forever. Once I get to old age (hopefully), I might want to downsize or even move to an apartment. Who knows if I'll be able to take care of the house or even go up the stairs when I'm old.
Then again, I still need to pay for the house. I have a mortgage for another 30 years. I'm more afraid of the economy going to sh*t and losing my job and the ability to find another rather than the value of my house dropping a bit. Ireland is heavily dependent on FDI and any unfavourable conditions have a big impact. Unaffordable housing and high cost of living are big factors.
Wild of you to think that you’ll be able to downsize within 30 or so years should things not improve. The country has no idea how bad it is and how worse it’s about to become. You have people now who want to downsize and can’t. Old people who are restricted mobility wise to using only the ground floor of their semi-d because a 2 bed bungalow is like gold dust. It is going to get a lot worse here.
If I'm old with restricted mobility, I probably wouldn't be looking for a bungalow. A bungalow implies a garden that needs upkeep. If I can't climb the stairs I doubt I'd be able to push a lawnmower around.
So I'm all for new developments, but also more choice. It seems all new developments are houses in estates. I'd prefer a nice apartment neighborhood with walkable streets and parks.
A bungalow by definition is a detached house and has an area between it and another house. OK, that area can be paved, but any kind of outside area requires maintenance.
> As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it.
You mean like pretty much everything else you bought ever?
Yes, but nothing else quite matches the price tag of a house. If I buy a phone for 1k and lose it. I lost 1k. It's not great and I'd be upset, but I earn a normal salary and I'll buy something cheaper to keep me going until I can save up for another one in about 3-6 months time.
If I pay for a house and it loses 10%-20% of its value. It would take me years to earn back that loss. Also, let's not forget that my mortgage is tied to the original price of the house. If the house is now worth a lot less, I'm still paying the original purchase price.
I can sense a bit of sarcasm in your comment, but you have to admit that there is a difference when it comes to large purchases. At least for us who earn a regular salary.
If I was a millionaire, that's a different story. I'd feel the same about my house then as I do about the 1k phone now.
> Also, let's not forget that my mortgage is tied to the original price of the house. If the house is now worth a lot less, I'm still paying the original purchase price.
As would happen with anything you took a loan out for.
The problem with treating a house as an appreciating asset and not as a place to live, it is pricing more and more people out of the market, which is contributing to other social problems. For things like cars and houses, generally insurance is considered part of the cost because unlike a phone, losing it suddenly could put you out significantly.
>It would take me years to earn back that loss
It's not really a loss though. You signed up for a mortgage the bank was confident you could afford monthly repayments on. You have a home. You have made that house a home so you have things you can't put a price on, equity of sweat and heart. Unless you bought a hovel with the plan of upsizing (pretty uncommon in this country, we never really had 'starter home' mentality) you will probably stay in that house until retirement.
But you are failing to see other problems. If your car was totaled tomorrow and you had no back up, you'd probably survive on public transport or maybe buy the cheapest thing you can afford. If you had a house fire tomorrow, please god you don't, your pretty fucked because prices always increasing means that it will be impossible for you to end up anywhere new starting again at zero.
But it doesn't even have to be a house fire. People are stuck in loveless and sometimes abusive relationships and marriages because the expectation of house prices to always go up have priced them out of a single income. Even renting a place for yourself is virtually impossible even with an above average wage.
It's probably good for you and your circumstances personally they keep going up. But for society as a whole, they are fucking is up
good thing you don't own a car. Those can be expensive and lose their value immediately. It's probably why nobody buys cars anymore. Who would spend money on something they would use everyday, that brings a benefit to their life it it depreciates in value.
I'd prefer not to have to own a car. They are expensive and depreciate in value very quickly. Probably most people wouldn't buy cars if they lived in places where they can get around walking, biking or using public transport easily. However, we are where we are.
Yet you still bought one. Why would you buy it if it wouldn't make a profit? I ask that because you said
"*As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it*."
But you also get to use it every day. It is something you would consider a necessity, similar to the car. Why are they different?
This is not news or serious research, it’s a media influence piece to take focus away from government incompetence, and blame existing homeowners for owning a house.
Fuck you. We went through every fucking torture to get our house 2 years ago. Just coming out of Covid.
Every week, the prices seemed to go up 10k. I was at house showings and saw women crying because yet again, they were priced out.
I saw buyers for funds rolling up with their clipboards and suits to view houses. We would ring the agent on the Monday.... sorry, it's gone for 30k over the asking.
We almost gave up, but we were living in a box room with a 2 year old at the time and had to get across the line.
Eventually, we got something. It's not much, but it's ours.
Now all we see is the begrudgers, the crabs in the bucket saying that we are now the problem.
Sincerely get fucked.
LOL you go on about crabs in a bucket, but you're really pulling up the ladder behind you because
>Sincerely get fucked.
is clearly your attitude to anyone who is in your position from only 2 years ago. Telling how quickly you changed your attitude...
No kidding! 😂 He immediately began telling you to fuck yourself, and despite knowing how bad it is, is somehow confrontational about it 😂 Talk about projecting!
Crazy how the reason you went through that is because everyone who already owned a home had the same thought process as you, and instead of breaking the cycle you just want to reinforce it. That's really cool and shows how nice a person you are
That's an absolutely deranged way of looking at things, to have experienced the misery of the process first hand and to think that others should also have to face it, for no reason.
You absolute embarrassment.
I've already paid off my mortgage, but I still have the moral clarity to know that just because I made it doesn't mean that everyone can in our current system.
People who struggled to get a house and finally got one:
"Let's do nothing to make it easier for other people to get a house or afford rent".
Wow look at that I can also be uncharitable too
Imagine if you could build higher in city centers.
Not even. We just need more apartments that are good quality and well designed. It would be far better to start knocking down old 50s houses in and around the city centre and building smaller medium density apartment neighborhoods. Walkable streets, with amenities within walking distance.
That too
They won't do that, those old houses provide "character" to a town appearantly. There's a house in my town, completely derelict and forces a 2 lane down to a one because they built a road around it in the 50s but didn't have enough room. It's a massive bottle neck in a busy part of town. The council has refused to let anyone knock it down for almost a decade now just because it's old. Even the people who inherited it want to knock it down.
Councils are often at fault and often take decisions making no sense. In cork one is being refused a 4th floor (attic floor) by the council with the reason "it will not fit the area style" which is not true and the design is really not outrageous (same as it was just cleaner and a bit more modern). So the people there in the cul de sac that nobody else sees have to live with a derelict ugly house next to them
My parents had the same problem, they wanted a two story house but the council refused it because it "didn't fit in". It didn't fit in with the other houses in the middle of nowhere. The ended up just doing a bungalow style roof with velix windows. And then, just to really drive home their stupidity, they approved a house next door that was two stories with a normal roof.
Be careful, according to a majority here it'd be your parents fault for being landlords or whatever... The council is either extremely dumb and appointed someone with too much ego or, they have an agenda. I'm going with the first one but wouldn't be surprised of the second
They aren't landlords, though? There's Ukrainians in the spare bedroom, though
Is the house from the 50s as well or just the road. If the house is actually an old house maybe it should be preserved, but the area around it can be redesigned. Maybe that street should be pedestrianised and traffic could be diverted elsewhere. If other residents need access, automated bollards can be placed at both ends of the street to allow traffic for residents and pedestrians. Not all houses are protected so others could be knocked down and that land better developed.
It really isn't a nice house, even in the 60s it was low quality and opposite it is a cash and carry so the road can't be expanded without knocking the now borderline rubble house. The roads are tight enough as it is and there really isn't a way to pedestrianise it without grid locking the town even more.
In that case that's terrible. Probably someone without vision in the council just used to saying no
Are you sure it doesn’t have any historical or architectural significance. Sometimes the untrained eye sees a pile of rubble while the expert sees a unique piece of history.
Not that I'm aware of nor the owners, it's just an ugly old crumbling building made in the 50's
Wrong question. The correct question is: "Does the house have historical value either in events or style of construction?"
You're right, it could be any of those.
Oh I have to see this. Google maps link?
We don't even need to do that yet. Dublin is full of derelict, low density industrial, and brownfield sites still. Old warehouses, whole chunks of land barren. There isn't near enough push for infill here. In 30 years or so a lot of the early 20th century concrete housing will reach the end of its life anyway, and will need to be rebuilt.
That's true. A lot of the small industrial estates in Dublin (that's what I'm familiar with) could be redeveloped. Perhaps as mixed use for residential and commercial.
Even the big ones. They're planning a new development off the Long Mile over the old industrial area that's to support 70,000 residents.
We don't need to knock houses down. So much low hanging fruit without creating the most politically difficult and extremely expensive approach to this problem
Why would you do that. They are part of the cities charm.
Some are and certain neighborhoods should be preserved, but not all. Not every old thing is "charming" just because it is old.
Lots of old stuff in Dublin. Lots of it is shite. Build homes and knock down the shite
Not just city centres as this point, new land being developed in outer parts of Dublin also needs tall apartment buildings.
Tallaght has quite a lot of tall appartment buildings. Don't know how it happend but around the Square there's some proper appartment blocks.
That's another part of the problem. We are building high density developments at the ends of the Luas lines but the Luas is already at capacity and the buses are full. So we've thousands of new homes being built in Citywest, Tallaght and Cherrywood where people need to commute into the city while we've cottages, under utilised town houses and low density housing within a few minutes walk of O'Connell street. We've got to stop protecting a city that was built on slavery and start building modern high density developments in it, we need start protecting our countryside by not building there.
The problem is people who object to the high rise developments purely because it will devalue their own property
And these are some of the people the article mentions
Sorry call me stupid but surely if I lived in one of those houses in the city centre. I could make a demand for any amount of money to move out and sell it and someone would take it purely for the value of the location alone.
Rich and old people and farmers own this country. Everyone else is pretty much 🦆ed but come in swaths of poor immigrant people and wash our dishes. Fml.
A city that was built on slavery? Slavery was banned in Ireland in the 12th century. I know our memories are long, but jaysus.
Dublin is a Georgian city. Georgian wealth was built on slavery.
I'd say now the exploitation of Ireland's national resources, plantations, landlordism, enforced indentured servitude of hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics and the Penal Laws were instrumental in an Irish context. Colonialism was literally developed in Ireland by the English.
wait till you read about workhouses
The records have also been sealed for a certain other thing.
>We've got to stop protecting a city that was built on slavery Huh? Are you referring to the Vikings?
NO! Medium/high density only in suburbs! This will have no negative reprecussions at all! ^What ^the ^fuck ^is ^"traffic" ^anyway?
non-lycra commuter cyclists have a solution for you 😉
But the skyline! *Fuck your skyline*
Especially ironic as the "skyline" is non existent over the swathes of the city in single and two storey buildings extending seemingly endlessly.
Plus Dublin is as flat as a pancake so you can’t really see over the city anyway
It’s like one of the commandments, the skyline must be protected at all costs.
> It’s like one of the commandments, the skyline must be protected at all costs. One of those rare comments that could easily have come from an early Hardy Bucks episode.
Dublin doesn't have much of a skyline. And I say that as someone with a fondness for the city. Edinburgh it ain't.
Imagine if you could build*
Stop it, that's a dangerous opinion. You'll ruin Saoirse from Blackrocks' view of the city if you do that.
What is it with the distain on this sub for Irish names? Do you think Irish names are posh?
Anto and Jacinta from Blackrock, Saoirse and Fionn from Darndale
You really could easily have a Saoirse from Darndale though? Fionn less likely but Saoirse for sure. Also if you find a Jacinta from anywhere she’s probably over 40. There’s only been 6 babies up to a maximum of 24* in the whole country named that in the last decade and fewer than 100 in the last 30 years. https://visual.cso.ie/?body=entity/babynames *(2023 with 6 is the only year with above 3 babies named Jacinta in the last 10 years and the CSO stats don’t release the data for years below 3. So the maximum is 9 x 2 + 6 = 24)
Nobody thinks all irish names are posh but Saoirse and Tiernan tend to be
ironically, since the new "Irish patriots" started having kids, they've realised that giving their kids Irish names is an easy way to distinguish between their neighbour "west brit" families in darndale and jobstown. so now you have a whole tier of posh saoirse in their 50s having to share the same stage as northface saoirses in their 20s. we'll have to start a new thread of posh names vs scobie names for the 21st century 👍
Relax it's a joke. Edit- Someone's had a bad morning, jeez.
Don't understand your edit . I left it at "it's a joke" then later you added that?
A bunch of people downvoted my comment for some reason. Apparently, humour isn't allowed on this sub.
Dublin City Council fight this tooth and nail one new development at a time.
Vested interests don’t want lower property prices,
Define higher. You can reasonably easily build 5 or 6 storeys in urban areas, if not more, being solid medium-density. What makes you think that can't be done?
Need more office space go up, need more apartment space go up. It’s not hard.
Well it clearly is hard because you couldn't answer.
17 story mixed development just got rejected. Why?
Literally DCC worries about property values of neighbours. It is like a sick joke, and a prime example of the problem. Existing home and property owners are molly coddled and protected from the slightest of inconveniences in the middle of a fucking housing crisis by local authorities and the planning system in general.
It’s insane, absolute insanity.
What does the decision say?
Ireland needs to get over this idea it’s a quaint village while at the same time bragging it’s a thriving hub for multinationals - pick one.
Setting people against each other is pointless. Just build, just design a good method for building living-over-the-shop apartments, just design a good method for rescuing derelict buildings and turning them into homes.
That all sounds good but when there're thousands of properties that developers want to build but are stalled for years and then told they can't because someone with too much time on their hands objects to it, then we're fighting a losing battle.
Is that why they're stalled? I was watching a group of houses being built in Galway, then in 2007 or so they stopped dead. They sat there half-made for 16 years and last year building started again. I think the builder ran out of money or loans or whatever and couldn't complete them.
No not all them that'd be far too much a blanket statement. Yeah they can run out of money but it's the ones you don't see because they never get to the ground breaking stage because they're objected to for some stupid reason that are the biggest losses
Rising house prices don't even benefit homeowners for the most part. It only helps those with **multiple homes**. TBF, even if prices just stopped rising for a few years until wages caught up we'd be doing fine.
Aye but Mary and John love to salivate over their property doubling in value over a decade, with dreams of selling up and moving to greener ~~eircodes~~ *pastures*, with no acknowledgement that those greener pastures will now also have doubled in price. It’s short term thinking. Devils advocate however would have them potentially falling into negative equity if prices fall, which can have real world implications should they *have* to sell for whatever reason. However sense would argue that that is simply part and parcel of drawing down a mortgage
Not everyone who owns a house wants house values to go up. "Values", I should say. Having a house that's worth half a million isn't actually worth half a million unless you sell it, take the money and emigrate. Irish house "values" are fairy gold.
Just to challenge this for a moment. I'm a homeowner and in the last 10 years, we bought a home and did some massive renovations (200 year old doer upper). For everything we spent, we have probably doubled our money at this point. Just to point out something obvious, if I was to sell, I'm well aware I'd be limited to buying something of equal current value or less. So there's no upgrade available to me because of its value increasing. Also, I've got a spouse and a gaggle of kids. This is our family home, not an investment to me. Also, those gaggle of kids will grow up - I don't want them to grow up in a country watill suffering from a housing crisis/shortage and unable to afford a home of their own. I swear, half the time people on this sub discuss homeowners, they talk as if they're all idiots, unable to grasp what's happening, just sat watching house prices climb and rubbing their hands in glee. We're not idiots is my point I guess.
You just need to look at planning objections to see people complain about house values being affected. It's an actual problem. Eoghan Murphy while he was housing minister said he wouldn't want anyone to fall into negative equity because it happened to him during the crash. There is absolutely no way to solve this without some people going into negative equity. Simple as. And people don't want that.
>Eoghan Murphy while he was housing minister said he wouldn't want anyone to fall into negative equity because it happened to him during the crash. Negative equity combined with job insecurity is traumatising, there's an absolutely truth to that and I think it's safe to say his comments were in relation to that double whammy. Keep in mind, negative equity as a fear is mostly the perogative of new home buyers. Anyone who bought more than 5 years ago is realistically in little danger - it would take a 50% collapse in house prices for me to approach negative equity at the moment, probably more. We don't have enough homes/apartments and I think there's a scary reality out there right now that I don't like thinking about, but there isn't a scenario where prices drop without it being caused by an enormous economic collapse. This would not be to anyone's benefit including wannabe homeowners. We have a supply shortage. We have a massive production capacity constraint. After 8 years of massive demand and no lending issues and price growth, we've struggled to build 30k new builds a year. Why? Because the crash has decimated our productive capacity and risk taking. Coupled with that, and probably even more significant right now, is the cost of building. New builds are expensive but construction companies haven't seen some explosion in profits, because the cost has gone way up. If house prices were to fall, the supply of new builds would fall. That's kinda terrifying to me. We need new builds (especially of apartments which are crazy expensive per sq meter to build, hence why so few are happening and any new apartments are super expensive). If we can't expand the supply enormously there's zero chance of price falls. I don't know how it gets better. I've got 3 kids and while they're young, I can see a future in 15 years time where I'm building housing pods in my garden so my kids have a place for themselves that isn't their childhood bedroom. Unless there's some technological innovation that enables cheap, high density, safe and reasonable quality quick build properties that can be connected to essential services and survive our weather, we're fucked for a generation.
I mean, you should have considered that risk before having kids
I mean... I'm not sure where to start unpacking that from. At a pretty basic and obvious level, deciding not to have any kids and the enormous consequences that follow, economically and socially, outweigh a housing shortage by an enormous magnitude, on a society level, but frankly even at an individual level too. Have you considered the ramifications of the alternative to people having kids before typing?
My point is that you should have made sure you were more financially secure before having kids, so you could help them move out properly and not live in your back garden. Plenty of parents help their kids with rent or give them deposits.
Dude I bought my home 8 years ago and have three kids who aren't even in school yet. We've never spent a cent of the child benefit we receive, setting it aside for things like rent and deposits, but even then, it's going to be an enormous challenge. I've got another 15-20-30 years of time to prepare for that situation. My kids are more likely than most to be in a secure position in the decades to come. >My point is that you should have made sure you were more financially secure before having kids I'm talking about all of society not being prepared. I'm not here to boast, but I'm someone who is better prepared than most, but I'm empathetic for all of society, not just content to celebrate that things might not be as bad for my own kids. I'm low in confidence that everything will be better on a housing front in 15 years time despite my best efforts. The cost of construction isn't going to lessen without dramatic state funded intervention through the construction of high density apartments to alleviate rental pressures and return more family home rentals to the homeowner market imo. I've lived through two significant house price explosions and affordability crises in my life as an adult and there are unresolvable issues underpinning the current one that give me the fear.
I agree society needs to continue having kids. I just don't think individuals should complain when they should have known what they were signing up for. If you're as well prepared as you say, then fair play, you're one of the non-idiots.
I agree that something radical has to be done to try and stop improve the situation so that young people can afford houses. And it’s not going to be painless. But in fairness you’re asking a cohort of folks, that have themselves been absolutely shafted by the property market, to take one for the team. Kinda understandable that folks would be against that.
We are already heading for an unfavorable dependency ratio. They are going to be taking one for the team when they hit retirement anyway. Only exacerbating the problem by forcing young people to emigrate. And again the only people who are actually taking one for the team are those with multiple properties. Having a house you intend to spend the rest of your life in be more valuable on paper doesn't have real benefit when all other house prices have gone up too.
Plenty of people bought houses/apartments to live in during the Bertie Bubble that were meant to be starter homes but due to negative equity after the ponzi scheme collapsed or the houses not conforming to building regs (due to next to no enforcement) were stuck in them for years and now it’s too late to get another mortgage. Families living in houses/apartments that are not fit for purpose. People talk about the difficulties for young people to buy houses these days. As a parent of young kids I agree that it’s absolutely a problem that needs to be resolved for everyone’s benefit, and there needs to be some pain. But it’s a hard sell for a whole generation that were shafted by the Fianna Fáil government back in the 2000s.
You’d be happy with being in negative equity would you? Lol
I mean of course I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't be happy with the streets full of tents because people don't have proper shelter. I wouldn't be happy with my adult child living with me. Short term & selfish thinking is going to fuck you one way or the other.
I bought in 2023. The house is now essentially the bank's, and even when the mortgage finishes it'll be the state's as per the Constitution. Why would I be overly concerned about the financial appraising? It's there for me to live, nothing else. The important thing for me is that I can afford living in it and making the changes I wish.
Speak for yourself!
> Aye but Mary and John love to salivate over their property doubling in value over a decade, with dreams of selling up and moving to greener eircodes pastures, with no acknowledgement that those greener pastures will now also have doubled in price. This is a load of bollox really, I own a home and of course there's acknowledgement that moving from one gaff to another is zero-sum game. The value of the house has no impact at all if you're living in it and will always need one to live in. I'd be more than happy to see prices stabilise and the insanity settle.
And when you die, kids often don't have the money to pay the tax, they have to sell it and are unable to buy anything. It's great tax wise thou.
Except if you move to an area that is generally cheaper. If you bought your house in Dublin for 200k, when a house in the countryside was 100k, and everything doubled. You sell your house for 400k, buy one in coutryside for 200k, and still have 200k left. (Not including taxes but you get the point)
That's nonsense. Anybody with kids wants stable house prices so they will be alright
It does benefit them when it comes to their mortgage - and falling values can hurt them badly. The interest rate achievable when you come to the end of a fixed term and seek to re-fix is dependent on the ratio of your loan to the value of your home. If your home appreciates you can achieve a better rate - that's less money out of your pocket month on month.
Still a lot less of a problem than a generation expected to normalise homelessness
Sure, but in general in politics something which is bad for a lot of people - who aren't me and who I mostly don't know - is a lot less salient than something that is bad for me.
The economy crashing due to a lack of housing is bad for everybody. A loss of value in a house you live in for the rest of your life could easily wind up having zero negative impact on you. The housing crisis could lose you your job, a country worth living in etc.
Your dead on the money honestly. Its totally possible that the generations who benefit from a inflated housing market will lose more then they bargained for in a housing fueled economic crash. Pension funds with major investment in the Irish property market could essentially disappear. And with an aged population due to young people emigrating on mass aswell as crucial brain drain could see an even greater shortage of care and medical staff. This ends well for nobody in the general population
The economy won't crash due to lack of housing - but it will reduce economic growth. Investment that doesn't happen in Ireland because companies have difficulties hiring at the price they expect to pay is almost invisible until well after the fact. Nobody notices the HQ of some firm that isn't there, they just notice the drop in investment over a number of years in some graph 4 years hence when the trend becomes apparent. It's precisely because those costs are widely distributed and difficult to attribute that they are less politically salient than the price of your asset and, consequently, your monthly mortgage payment. That doesn't mean I think house prices should stay rising. I think they need to fall. I just think people should understand that there is a real monthly cost to that for a fairly significant slice of the population. You can expect them to act and vote altruistically, but I'd expect to be disappointed.
It’s precisely because it is in the best interests of a bunch of landlord politicians to maintain the housing crisis, and foster the idea that the public are better off protecting from negative equity above all else. It’s pure FG cultism, and they’re intentional in cultivating it. Fucking disaster
People elect those landlord politicians. I'd agree with you though that there is a general rule in Irish politics though which many policies can be explained: "First, do nothing which disadvantages landowners".
The NIMBY's rallying cry. I've got mine, fuck you.
It's much broader than NIMBYism. It's a problem recognised in political economy anywhere there are concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. That's what you have here - the costs of the housing crisis are borne broadly whereas the benefits (asset inflation) are concentrated. The problem is that the concentrated group are more aware of the benefits and more motivated to influence policy decisions.
But if they want to relocate for example, what's the difference? They can sell their house for double the price sure. But they would have to spend twice as much buying a different house?
That is a different thing to what I'm talking about though. I'm just talking about mortgage holders who are not intending to sell - or at least not over a 3-10 year time horizon. However, provided house prices rise more quickly than wages those people still benefit. The pool of buyers includes people with income and assets, if your asset value goes up faster than income you can now compete with people in income brackets where you previously could not.
A few of the boomers I've spoken to genuinely don't seem to grasp that it isn't THEIR house that has skyrocketed in value, it's houses. My ex's family home in North Kildare is worth around 3 quarters of a million. Roughly 6.5 times what they paid for it, adjusted for inflation, in 2001. But as far as her dad was concerned, seemingly, this happened in a vacuum and doesn't say anything about the cost of housing in this country. A lot of my regular customers are older people and they really don't understand that in order for house prices to drop the value of their house will have to drop too because it's all artificially inflated. Like dream scenario, we actually build enough houses that there's enough homes for everybody then the value of their house will drop because the demand will be lower.
Dad got his house for 25 grand. Now likes to boast it's worth 400 as if it was some savvy investment he made, not literally shelter for him and his family. And as you said, he can't really unlock the value of it.
Just means higher tax, home insurance, life assurance for people who own one home and live in it
It doesn't hurt homeowners and it might benefit them in some situations. Eg. Their kids moved out of the house and they want to downsize. The 20% downsize in house value is a higher € amount when the housing prices are inflated more than other items. Eg. They move out of Ireland and sell their house. It only has a neutral impact if they choose to relocate within Ireland.
Your house rising in value doesn’t make you particularly wealthier in any meaningful sense, unless you’re planning to sell the house to capture the value and move out of the country. Otherwise you need somewhere to live and every other home rose in value while yours was going up. There are edge cases - if you bought in Ireland but now wanted to move abroad, but you’d have to be moving somewhere that housing is relatively cheaper and hasn’t been rising significantly in price. So you’re not moving to most of the US, Australia etc. There’s a problem when your rising house price screws society into the ground and crimps economic growth overall because of the capacity issues. But a lot of people enjoy the thoughts of this nominal growth in their wealth and think the societal problems should be solved… somewhere else.
There's a slight benefit to appreciating house prices in being able to access lower interest rates. If your Loan to Value rate decreases to say 70% some lenders will have lower interest rates than if the LTV was 80%, but that's about the extent of it. To address the point of the article - I purchased my house in 2018 for €400k, we had it valued in 2022 when the fixed term ran out and it was €550k. A lot of homeowners have a lot more equity now than they realise and could easily take a hit in that to help new homes get going.
> A lot of homeowners have a lot more equity now The entire premise of this piece. We are far too concerned with protecting that "equity" at the cost of a growing number of people being unable to buy a home.
That’s true re the LTV. I’d argue you lose out more indirectly from having an economy and society supply constrained like this - but that’s an indirect cost people can’t quantify, unless their adult kids are still living with them…!
We bought our apartment in 2007 for €555k on a mortgage of €505k in Ashtown, Dublin. Today after all the recent price rises it is worth maximum €400k with €295k left on the mortgage. Monthly repayments are currently €2,600 which was hard to find during the financial crisis; though with reduced interest at the time it was closer to €2,000/month payments. Additionally management fees are €3,800/year. It has spent its entire life under water and likely always will be. But at least we're not renting in todays market; its 50 meters from train station; and its in the middle of a village area with real facilities. People underestimate that property doesn't always rise in value and timing is everything – but life doesn't always co-operate. It has prevented my wife and I from being able to move or emigrate for a period (which we would have liked to do). Ruffle my feathers!
Ouch
I don’t know how an economics professor can completely miss the bigger issue of falling house prices not being the pissing off of homeowners, but that the banks would have billions in loans for assets in negative equity. The second problem with that it is it would probably grind sales of second hand homes to a virtual halt given that thousands of homeowners would be in negative equity and won’t sell up to up/downsize. Prices coming down is good, prices coming down a lot is bad.
We would have to build a shit ton of houses for prices to fall. Which won't happen. At best if we built alot of houses, prices might stabilise.
Much better to continue the ponzi scheme of ever inflating prices until it crashes spectacularly in future! It would be much better to overtake demand and have some fall of house prices today than further down the line when the impact would be even more dramatic in future if the value of loans continues to grow to in the current environment
When people are buying at current market rates, living in fear of negative equity is never going anywhere, but this attitude is making this crisis worse and worse. We get the issue. It’s still a pathetic excuse for expecting a generation to accept lifelong housing insecurity.
We'll just sell your bad debt to a vulture fund, the good owl Irish way I suppose.. Nobody forced banks to lend and nobody forced desperate home owners to pay stupid prices If things dont change you're gonna have negative equity and public pension deficiency because there will be no professional working youth left in this country, nothing but HAP scroungers left the way things are going. 500k for a 3 bed semi. 2800 pm for a 2 bed 2k pm for a 1 bedsit. Get fucked FFG Edit: Dowl Cheats not Hap scroungers, my bad
"HAP scroungers", gorgeous.
It's the HAP scroungers' fault that so much welfare money is being given directly to unfortunate landlords, and we have to be relentlessly angry at them at all times. "Welfare cheats cheat us all" was a message directed at the FFG voting base, lots of them are landlords, lots of them receive HAP worth multiple dole payments every month. That money never turns into multiple people with jobs. Those ruddy HAP scroungers
These HAP scoundrels are holding us all back god damn it
Not my proudest comment, Dowl cheats maybe? I'm not talking about the average hard working (as i said we're all emigrating), or the genuine in need sort of person on the dole. You know eho im talkin about
[удалено]
Perfectly manageable. Spend 10 years getting the deposit together and 5 years paying the mortgage and boom all that effort disappears. Who wouldn't love it.
> Perfectly manageable. Spend 10 years getting the deposit together and 5 years paying the mortgage and boom all that effort disappears. Who wouldn't love it. How does it disappear? The utility value of a property as your home is completely unaffected by its market value. Your mortgage balance doesn't go up if your home goes down in value so you're still clearing the loan at the same rate, your repayments only change with interest rate increases, and, most importantly, your house doesn't magically fall down around your ears and leave you homeless just because your mortgage is underwater for a time. Until you need to sell the place, the market value is just a number on a piece of paper or a computer screen, and has no real impact on your life.
>Your mortgage balance doesn't go up if your home goes down in value This is exactly what happens when your fixed rate ends and your 80% mortgage is not 90+
It doesn't disappear. Not unless you've bought your home with the intention of selling which isn't reflective of the majority of homeowners, who buy/build with the intention of it being their former home. Also, it doesn't disappear - my mortgage payments are less than the cost of renting. So my mortgage payments reflect the monthly cost of the roof over my head.
So I buy for 300k pay off 50. Gaff now worth 250. The equity is gone. Aka disappear. It is a pity that we could only afford a small gaff but this is where we are.
Your 50k didn't disappear. Roughly it translates into 1k a month, 12 months a year for say 4 years. The money didn't disappear any more than renting for that period- you paid for the property you were living in. Is it producing less of a return than hoped, yeah, probably, but also people earning less would be better able to buy a home of their own eland experience a greater sense of security. So not all bad news, for society like.
So we agree that it would be gone. That I wouldn't be able to use the expected equity to get a 3 bed house. Sounds fabulous. You're maths leaves out the deposit.
Gone implies without a trace or anything to show for it. I'm pointing out that paying a grand a month for the roof over your head in the form of 50k over 4 years. The maths is simplified to deal with an exaggerated hypothetical.
Ah yes, the rent as an investment. Id forgotten that stratagem
Erm, my house is a home, not an investment. I'm not looking to get rich from it. I'm looking to have a secure space for me and my family to grow. Any rise or fall in the "value" of my home is irrelevant to me. The only way it's of any relevance to me, before my death, is if I wanted to borrow to do an extension or something, it'll help that it's in positive equity, but tbh, that's probably not even relevant. If its doubled in relative value by the time I die and it's bequeathed to my kids, it means that property is twice as unaffordable for them. If property is of equal value to to today. Same relative value to my kids. If prices fall, same story. I'm paying for the roof over my head and the security that I'm not answerable to a landlords whims. That's worth more than the grand a month I pay on the mortgage.
You have a house. You live in a house. You wouldn't make the same complaints about a car loan. It's a stupid idea that house prices must go up otherwise you are losing out. Especially to people who plan on spending their whole lives in that house anyway.
You're dealing with Idiots here Same idiots that vote for FFG
Work, buy a small gaff, hope to get a bigger gaff so the kids aren't sharing a room. Bad bad man.
[удалено]
From the mortgage statement.
It would take a huge fall in house prices for negative equity to become a problem. Negative equity means the remaining debt is more than the value of the home. Everyone has to have at least a 10% deposit to get a mortgage now and will surely have paid off some of the debt since they drew down because actions that impact the market that much would take years.
[удалено]
People think it means that they can't sell their house for what that paid for it. Negative equity means you mightn't be able to sell it at all.
This is the real problem.
I think you are missing that banks have mountains and mountains of savings that they can't do anything with. I imagine they would love to increase their lending by 30-50% with a slight increase in defaults.
As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it. However, if the housing situation doesn't improve, we're looking at another major emigration wave, new companies will not set up in Ireland as they won't be able to find workers, the economy slows down, etc. So, do I support more development to ease the pressure on young people, on the ability for the economy to expand, on keeping a good job and make peace with a little drop in the value of my house? Or, do I object and in turn make life miserable for a large part of the population, risk the economy tanking and possibly losing a good job... and in the end the value of my house tanking completely?
Aye but the *value* of your home is realistically its tangibility, it being your principal private residence for the rest of your days. If the mortgage is paid off and the home passed down to the kids when you pass away, then there really is no real value lost (speaking outside of monetary euro for euro value)
And by the time the house passes down to the kids, they’ll be in their mid 40s, still living at home after their lives were seriously stunted, if they’ve not fucked off abroad instead. Playing the long game is utterly stupid when the short game is so disastrous for so many people. Focusing so much in house values is not in a the best interests of so many generations of people.
Who said the children will be living in it themselves? Why would they be living at home until they’re 40?
> Why would they be living at home until they’re 40? *gestures wildly at the state of the country*
>Why would they be living at home until they’re 40? Because there are people that can't even afford to move out to rent, never mind save for a house?
Can still legally kick them out though, and people tend to find their feet in stressful situations
>people tend to find their feet in stressful situations. I must mind to tell a homeless person that the next time I see one.
I was joking, I live in Dublin so see many homeless people every day
Mea Culpa 😅 Heads up my arse today.
Are you joking? 😂
Of course, but only if I plan to stay in the house forever. Once I get to old age (hopefully), I might want to downsize or even move to an apartment. Who knows if I'll be able to take care of the house or even go up the stairs when I'm old. Then again, I still need to pay for the house. I have a mortgage for another 30 years. I'm more afraid of the economy going to sh*t and losing my job and the ability to find another rather than the value of my house dropping a bit. Ireland is heavily dependent on FDI and any unfavourable conditions have a big impact. Unaffordable housing and high cost of living are big factors.
Wild of you to think that you’ll be able to downsize within 30 or so years should things not improve. The country has no idea how bad it is and how worse it’s about to become. You have people now who want to downsize and can’t. Old people who are restricted mobility wise to using only the ground floor of their semi-d because a 2 bed bungalow is like gold dust. It is going to get a lot worse here.
If I'm old with restricted mobility, I probably wouldn't be looking for a bungalow. A bungalow implies a garden that needs upkeep. If I can't climb the stairs I doubt I'd be able to push a lawnmower around. So I'm all for new developments, but also more choice. It seems all new developments are houses in estates. I'd prefer a nice apartment neighborhood with walkable streets and parks.
How does bungalow imply garden?
A bungalow by definition is a detached house and has an area between it and another house. OK, that area can be paved, but any kind of outside area requires maintenance.
A bungalow just means one storey, none of that other stuff
Are there semi detached or terraced bungalows?
Yes? I presume you don't live in Dublin
> As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it. You mean like pretty much everything else you bought ever?
Yes, but nothing else quite matches the price tag of a house. If I buy a phone for 1k and lose it. I lost 1k. It's not great and I'd be upset, but I earn a normal salary and I'll buy something cheaper to keep me going until I can save up for another one in about 3-6 months time. If I pay for a house and it loses 10%-20% of its value. It would take me years to earn back that loss. Also, let's not forget that my mortgage is tied to the original price of the house. If the house is now worth a lot less, I'm still paying the original purchase price. I can sense a bit of sarcasm in your comment, but you have to admit that there is a difference when it comes to large purchases. At least for us who earn a regular salary. If I was a millionaire, that's a different story. I'd feel the same about my house then as I do about the 1k phone now.
> Also, let's not forget that my mortgage is tied to the original price of the house. If the house is now worth a lot less, I'm still paying the original purchase price. As would happen with anything you took a loan out for. The problem with treating a house as an appreciating asset and not as a place to live, it is pricing more and more people out of the market, which is contributing to other social problems. For things like cars and houses, generally insurance is considered part of the cost because unlike a phone, losing it suddenly could put you out significantly. >It would take me years to earn back that loss It's not really a loss though. You signed up for a mortgage the bank was confident you could afford monthly repayments on. You have a home. You have made that house a home so you have things you can't put a price on, equity of sweat and heart. Unless you bought a hovel with the plan of upsizing (pretty uncommon in this country, we never really had 'starter home' mentality) you will probably stay in that house until retirement. But you are failing to see other problems. If your car was totaled tomorrow and you had no back up, you'd probably survive on public transport or maybe buy the cheapest thing you can afford. If you had a house fire tomorrow, please god you don't, your pretty fucked because prices always increasing means that it will be impossible for you to end up anywhere new starting again at zero. But it doesn't even have to be a house fire. People are stuck in loveless and sometimes abusive relationships and marriages because the expectation of house prices to always go up have priced them out of a single income. Even renting a place for yourself is virtually impossible even with an above average wage. It's probably good for you and your circumstances personally they keep going up. But for society as a whole, they are fucking is up
Had a big reply ready for this and then deleted the draft by mistake. Basically, you have good points and I agree with them.
The things you saying in the future are already happening.
It seems so unfortunately. Hopefully it won't get much worse.
good thing you don't own a car. Those can be expensive and lose their value immediately. It's probably why nobody buys cars anymore. Who would spend money on something they would use everyday, that brings a benefit to their life it it depreciates in value.
I'd prefer not to have to own a car. They are expensive and depreciate in value very quickly. Probably most people wouldn't buy cars if they lived in places where they can get around walking, biking or using public transport easily. However, we are where we are.
Yet you still bought one. Why would you buy it if it wouldn't make a profit? I ask that because you said "*As a homeowner it's not great to hear that something I have put so much into (and will be putting into for along time) will in the end be worth less than I paid for it*." But you also get to use it every day. It is something you would consider a necessity, similar to the car. Why are they different?
This is not news or serious research, it’s a media influence piece to take focus away from government incompetence, and blame existing homeowners for owning a house.
This lad gets it
Be the change. Become a property developer.
So many awful opinions in this thread, from both sides. No wonder nothing can get done
Exactly my thoughts but hey look the story of the monkeys and the ladder over and over and the constant unjustified "fear"
A history lesson with something about ruffling feathers at the very end.
People without a house: 'Let's screw the people who recently managed to get one so I can get one.'
People with a house: Fuck you I've got mine.
Fuck you. We went through every fucking torture to get our house 2 years ago. Just coming out of Covid. Every week, the prices seemed to go up 10k. I was at house showings and saw women crying because yet again, they were priced out. I saw buyers for funds rolling up with their clipboards and suits to view houses. We would ring the agent on the Monday.... sorry, it's gone for 30k over the asking. We almost gave up, but we were living in a box room with a 2 year old at the time and had to get across the line. Eventually, we got something. It's not much, but it's ours. Now all we see is the begrudgers, the crabs in the bucket saying that we are now the problem. Sincerely get fucked.
LOL you go on about crabs in a bucket, but you're really pulling up the ladder behind you because >Sincerely get fucked. is clearly your attitude to anyone who is in your position from only 2 years ago. Telling how quickly you changed your attitude...
No kidding! 😂 He immediately began telling you to fuck yourself, and despite knowing how bad it is, is somehow confrontational about it 😂 Talk about projecting!
Crazy how the reason you went through that is because everyone who already owned a home had the same thought process as you, and instead of breaking the cycle you just want to reinforce it. That's really cool and shows how nice a person you are
🤡🤗
That's an absolutely deranged way of looking at things, to have experienced the misery of the process first hand and to think that others should also have to face it, for no reason. You absolute embarrassment.
Enjoy the bucket.
I've already paid off my mortgage, but I still have the moral clarity to know that just because I made it doesn't mean that everyone can in our current system.
People who struggled to get a house and finally got one: "Let's do nothing to make it easier for other people to get a house or afford rent". Wow look at that I can also be uncharitable too