Must.... Own....property....

[Bennyton]

They are nice houses alright. Lots of character.
You do seem to get good value in the North compared to the Republic, but the job market is very different, and one also has to pay rates on houses.

The guts of €5k a year for the ones you linked, as an example.

Aye, tell me about it man, my bill is due this week, it's a dose.

 

[FSG OUT]

I have no doubt Ireland has been in bed with the construction industry and landlords. That's been true for decades and led to ruin in the Celtic Tiger era.

I really hold no candle for the current government.

But it does look like that at least in the last year or two, things are improving.

The root cause of the housing and rental crisis that is being experienced in many western markets hasn't been properly understood by the economics community generally. Certainly the wealth inequality aspect of it hasn't been appreciated widely.
I think that has changed in the last couple of years.

I never said it was right, but again, you seem to think a house should not be more than 200k.
How can that be if a builder cannot build one for anywhere near that?

The median wage in Ireland is approx €45k a year.
Most households have 2 people working, which makes €90k in household income as an average.
Then it's all about servicing that debt used to buy a property.
90*4 = €360k

360k+10% deposit is approx €390-€400k
It is simply economics that is driving this.

You mention the Celtic Tiger.
Can I ask, what was the median wage in 2008?
A lot lower than now.

Having LTV of 4.0 is actually quite conservative given our EU neighbours and others in the Western world.
In OZ, it can be as high as 8/9/10.
That is one of the reasons the average price of a house in Sydney is the guts of $1.7 million (approx €1.1 million)
Same issue in NZ
Same issue in Canada
Same issue in many parts of the US
Same issue in greater London
Same issue in Sweden
Same issue in Holland
Same issue in... you get the point

Even in today's crap Irish market, the average couple can buy something half decent in many cities (maybe exl Dublin) and certainly in most counties.
The issue really isn't about the price of a house in many parts of the country, it's the lack of supply of houses. There are just too many people on good salaries chasing too few houses.
Fix the supply issue and the rest will look after itself in time.

I agree that this Macro issue is having a big impact on the social contract and is causing intergenerational issues. Have a peep at South Korea and see why their birth rate is the worst in the world. Countries the world over have gotten rich post WWII and some generations have done well from rising asset prices, good jobs market, and globalisation. The under-40's though, have gotten the bad end of the stick and politics has yet to catch up.
But this is an insanely complicated issue and populist rants wont fix it.

Not so long ago one wage was enough to buy a house, have 2 cars, raise a family, go on holidays etc.
This median wage is nonsense talk.
It takes years to get anywhere near that.
"The average couple can buy something half decent"
What about single people?
What about people on minimum wage?
We're a tiny little dot of a country.
There is no way houses should be so expensive on a tiny island.
Never mind what we pay on mortgage rates, electricity prices etc.
Fleeced absolutely everywhere.

 

[Bennyton]

Is that HAP?
Would you be in favour abolishing it completely and letting the free market do its thing?

No, but add some rent controls to grade the place A-G, by location, and by sqft would mean you could control how much you're paying out on HAP, and using that cash to build more gaffs.

Change policy to remove vulture funds, prevent them buying up whole housing developments that will ultimately rinse people of their hard earned cash.

Let the government setup a vulture fund itself, use the national pension reserves for it, have them build and charge sustainable rents.

Have local housing tenants pay realistic rents, tied to their salary, I know people living in council gaffs who pay near zero, but have a better standard of living than I do, five or six trips abroad annually, etc, that person can afford to pay more than a token rent of 50 quid a week for a 3 bed house.

 

[Stacky]

Not so long ago one wage was enough to buy a house, have 2 cars, raise a family, go on holidays etc.
This median wage is nonsense talk.
It takes years to get anywhere near that.
"The average couple can buy something half decent"
What about single people?
What about people on minimum wage?
We're a tiny little dot of a country.
There is no way houses should be so expensive on a tiny island.
Never mind what we pay on mortgage rates, electricity prices etc.
Fleeced absolutely everywhere.

You only value your own home at 200k and that is a great start and if you can just convince everyone to sell their house at a massive loss then the problem is solved.

The "tiny dot" has to purchase items like steel and fuel on the international markets and it leads to input costs and higher energy costs as an island off an island off a continent.

 

[slick fingers]

get some Turkish lads in to build a few new towns.

More than half of the employees in the Irish construction Industry are foreign nationals and the majority of them are earning 40% less than their Irish counterpart. Alot of them on minimum wage doing semi-skilled work compared to the Irish person earning €22/hr.

 

[outdagap]

Not so long ago one wage was enough to buy a house, have 2 cars, raise a family, go on holidays etc.
This median wage is nonsense talk.
It takes years to get anywhere near that.
"The average couple can buy something half decent"
What about single people?
What about people on minimum wage?
We're a tiny little dot of a country.
There is no way houses should be so expensive on a tiny island.
Never mind what we pay on mortgage rates, electricity prices etc.
Fleeced absolutely everywhere.

That same not so long ago is literally a futile argument. In the mid 80s we had 17% unemployment, and a quality of life to match.

 

[How bad boy]

Not so long ago one wage was enough to buy a house, have 2 cars, raise a family, go on holidays etc.
This median wage is nonsense talk.
It takes years to get anywhere near that.
"The average couple can buy something half decent"
What about single people?
What about people on minimum wage?
We're a tiny little dot of a country.
There is no way houses should be so expensive on a tiny island.
Never mind what we pay on mortgage rates, electricity prices etc.
Fleeced absolutely everywhere.

If that was ever true, it was only a brief time. Certainly wasn't possible in Ireland before the mid 90s. Maybe true from about 1995-2000.

 

[How bad boy]

Irelands population was 4.58m in 2011, today it's a little over 5.2m, and I don't think that accounts for refugees or old houses that have been taken off the list, etc.

Raise the capacity like, get some Turkish lads in to build a few new towns.

Or even better, raise the density of Irish cities with good quality mid density housing.

 

[outdagap]

More than half of the employees in the Irish construction Industry are foreign nationals and the majority of them are earning 40% less than their Irish counterpart. Alot of them on minimum wage doing semi-skilled work compared to the Irish person earning €22/hr.

Whether that is true or not, loads of Brits from NI are flooding into our country, earning double the money here that they'd earn in their shithole. We don't have enough construction workers for the amount of construction work needed to be done, and that will continue for the next 5 to 10 years minimum.

 

[slick fingers]

Whether that is true or not, loads of Brits from NI are flooding into our country, earning double the money here that they'd earn in their shithole. We don't have enough construction workers for the amount of construction work needed to be done, and that will continue for the next 5 to 10 years minimum.

Yeah, there's being a serious fall in construction employment. The problem in the industry is lack of skills.

Anyway we-need-to-do-more-to-tempt-people-into-construction