# Swords population over 68,000. Number of rental properties available 4 !!!!



## landlord (13 Apr 2017)

Swords Co Dublin has a population of over 68,000 and is apparently one of the fastest growing towns in Ireland. A quick search on Daft this morning (13/04/17) reveals only 4 properties of any description available in the whole of Swords. From regularly checking over the last few years, I can remember this figure being over 250 a few years back. This is absolutely shocking. Other landlords who have rented properties recently in any area will confirm the demand is unbelievable. Renting a 1 bed recently in Swords on the daft website resulted in my mobile battery running out of charge midday due constant email vibration alerts. The words "we are desperate" cropped up on numerous occasions. 
The government have on their hands a crisis which is spiralling out of control. I believe they have absolutely no idea how severe the situation is. 
In my opinion supply of rental properties needs to be addressed immediately and this should come by way of radical incentives for perspective landlords to buy and current landlords (accidental or not) to stay in the market.


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## Delboy (13 Apr 2017)

landlord said:


> In my opinion supply of rental properties needs to be addressed immediately and this should come by way of radical incentives for perspective landlords to buy and current landlords (accidental or not) to stay in the market.


To buy what? 
And making current landlords stay in only increases the number of potential tenants looking to rent.

The only answer is to build more. Build higher. But that will still need to be done in an orderly number so as to ensure we're not building rubbish and doing it in the wrong places.

I also believe a major contributor to our housing crisis is mass immigration. Its never really talked about in this context, especially not by the liberal media. But if you essentially have an open door immigration policy, an economy growing at high rates creating thousands of jobs, a large black economy, a generous welfare system...all in a small country. 
Well then your always going to have a housing crisis, either through housing shortages in the good times or a glut of vacant properties when the downturns kick in. That's the way of the world now and it will only get worse as globalism continues to exert its's influence.


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

landlord said:


> radical incentives for perspective landlords to buy



+1

And also restore derelict properties and invest in new builds.


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## Sarenco (13 Apr 2017)

Delboy said:


> And making current landlords stay in only increases the number of potential tenants looking to rent.



How would removing disincentives to remaining in the residential letting business increase the number of potential tenants?  Are you arguing that these tenants would all become owners as landlords exit the business?  Frankly, that sounds like the kind of logic that fuelled the sub-prime crises in the US or our own property boom and subsequent bust.

It should be obvious to everybody that we need to increase the housing stock.  However, if potential owners are not in a position to buy, without resorting to unsustainable levels of credit, then this is a circular argument.


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## landlord (13 Apr 2017)

Delboy said:


> To buy what?



"Cheesecake". ?????!!!!!!!
Sorry I couldn't help myself

"radical incentives for perspective landlords to buy".........residential investment property !!!



Delboy said:


> And making current landlords stay in only increases the number of potential tenants looking to rent.



I don't understand this.
The reverse of this from your statement would be to force All current landlords out of the market which would eliminate all potential renters from looking to rent. ???
Some people choose to rent even if they can afford to buy.

I agree that building more is vital, but developers have to be confident that demand is their to purchase their properties. Certainly on the investment side due to the governments draconian policies on landlords, demand has been stifled.


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## Delboy (13 Apr 2017)

landlord said:


> "Cheesecake". ?????!!!!!!!
> Sorry I couldn't help myself
> 
> "radical incentives for perspective landlords to buy".........residential investment property !!!
> ...


Cheesecake all you want! 
I mean houses as you well know. There are none/very little being built. So incentivising potential landlords to get into a market with no supply is just adding fuel to the fire. 

What more evidence do developers need that demand exists! Rents at record levels, house price growth in double digits, CB and Govt changing the rules previously brought in and FF possible just 1 more crisis from getting into Govt!


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

Delboy said:


> Cheesecake all you want!
> I mean houses as you well know. There are none/very little being built. So incentivising potential landlords to get into a market with no supply is just adding fuel to the fire.



The country is full of builders who are sitting on their hands and keeping themselves fed and watered by doing small-time mickey-mouse jobs. As soon as demand materialises for new-builds and derelict property restoration, these guys will meet it. Temporary incentives can and will trigger this demand.  Everyone wins.


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## Delboy (13 Apr 2017)

How much more materialisation of demand do we need to see???

Basically, what's been said here is either higher house prices (more debt for the house owners, more profit for the builders) or taxpayer funded breaks to the developers. And in Dublin where house prices are growing at close to double digits currently


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

Delboy said:


> How much more materialisation of demand do we need to see???
> 
> Basically, what's been said here is either higher house prices (more debt for the house owners, more profit for the builders) or taxpayer funded breaks to the developers. And in Dublin where house prices are growing at close to double digits currently



Nothing's going to happen nationwide until market prices exceed the cost of building and leave sufficient room for profit and contingencies. Short-term incentives can help bridge that gap. In Dublin, the obstacle of land costs can be addressed by planning changes to permit tighter densities including high-rise.


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## Leo (13 Apr 2017)

So only 4 properties available for rent in Swords, but more than 300 available for short term let on AirBnB. The fact that these short term lets are so much more attractive than longer term leases is a huge factor affecting availability. Or more accurately, the fact that letting a property as a landlord is so onerous as to put so many off is a huge factor. Typically there's more overhead required for AirBnBs in terms or admin, communications, cleaning and handovers, yet this if far preferable to becoming a landlord under the current legislation.

Excluding holiday homes, there are ~200,000 vacant properties around the country, 20,000 of these in Dublin. Making even half of these available for rent would go some way to addressing the issue. Again we need to look at why owners are choosing not to make these available, or if there are issues in how the CSO is gathering and reporting this data.

Addressing the cost of building here is something that doesn't seem to be looked at. The percentage of build costs that go to the various government coffers should be looked at, along with construction methods employed here. The CIF and other vested interests ensure modern alternatives are looked down on here.


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## mathepac (13 Apr 2017)

Leo said:


> Excluding holiday homes, there are ~200,000 vacant properties around the country,


259,000


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## Delboy (13 Apr 2017)

More sticks, less incentives!


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

Leo said:


> Excluding holiday homes, there are ~200,000 vacant properties around the country, 20,000 of these in Dublin.



These figures are based on CSO official statistics which are a mile off.  When I examine the CSO register [broken link removed]  for areas near me, the figures are laughable.

Corr, a townland in Cornafean, is recorded as having 16 empty houses and 2 empty holiday homes(!).  The small village of Kilnaleck, with a population of around 100 (which houses a small immigrant community who work in local food production) is supposed to have 91.  There are barely 91 buildings in Kilnaleck, let alone empty dwellings.  Arva, a similar small village, is supposed to have 108.  Kilgolagh, a townland next to the Westmeath border at Finea, has 33. The village of Crossdoney has 63, but it doesn't have 63 buildings.

These figures could be as much as 90% wrong.


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## Sarenco (13 Apr 2017)

Delboy said:


> More sticks, less incentives!



Well, I certainly agree that we should have a more meaningful property tax (which should have been structured as a site value tax in the first place) to encourage a more efficient use of existing stock.

However, if (potential) landlords cannot make a reasonable (after-tax) return of a property, then higher property taxes will ultimately lead to the abandonment and dereliction of these properties.


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## Leo (13 Apr 2017)

mathepac said:


> 259,000



The 259k figure includes 61k recorded as holiday homes.


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## Leo (13 Apr 2017)

T McGibney said:


> These figures could be as much as 90% wrong.



I've no idea of the real accuracy. The CSO were questioned on the numbers at the time, and they defended them saying houses were only classified as vacant if neighbours were unable to confirm whether anyone was living there and they showed signs of being unoccupied such as overgrown gardens after multiple visits including over weekends. The numbers reported in the CSO tables includes surrounding townlands as well though, so with Cavan as the axample, every dwelling in the county is covered by one of the 100 regions.



> *Cavan *
> Housing Stock (Number) 33,875
> Vacant holiday homes (Number) 992
> Other vacant dwellings (Number) 5,170
> ...


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

The figures are still a mile wrong. They state 233 empty homes in Virginia, as per the census a year ago. There are currently no houses or apartments available for rent in Virginia and the situation wasn't much different 12 months ago. No way is there 233 empty properties in or anywhere near the town. There might be a dozen vacant commercial properties and there are a few long-derelict houses on the Main Street. That's about it. 

I don't believe for a second that the CSO are repeatedly calling to houses with overgrown gardens up and down the country to check whether or not they are occupied.


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## Leo (13 Apr 2017)

The houses being recorded as unoccupied are just that, unoccupied. For the most part they are not being rented, and the CSO make no differentiation between empty houses that are on the market for sale, up for let, or just plain left empty for the long term by the owners for whatever reason.  

The Virginia region covers 1,866 properties, so a lot more than just the town, I'm not there that often and I know a few that are empty. I can't speak for everywhere, but the enumerator in my area called to me several times trying to confirm a couple of unoccupied properties over a few weeks.


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## T McGibney (13 Apr 2017)

I suspect that a lot of people for whatever reason dodged the enumerators when they were doing their rounds.


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## mathepac (13 Apr 2017)

Ah now the "hiding Irish phenomenon". They seek them here, they seek them there, they seek them everywhere. The empty houses are only empty because 200,000 people are living in confession boxes or holy wells.


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## Leo (13 Apr 2017)

T McGibney said:


> I suspect that a lot of people for whatever reason dodged the enumerators when they were doing their rounds.



True, and potentially a number of enumerators who used Garda-like methods for recording visits!


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## Bronte (19 Apr 2017)

T McGibney said:


> The small village of Kilnaleck, with a population of around 100 (which houses a small immigrant community who work in local food production) is supposed to have 91.  There are barely 91 buildings in Kilnaleck, let alone empty dwellings.  .



That's very interesting Tommy, so the figures are wrong.  On empty houses around the country.  How do they count them I wonder.  I must say like the OP I've noticed on daft that where I have my rentals there is hardly a thing now to rent.  City not county.  But I also know there are plenty of derlict houses that are crying out for renovation but there's no way I'd take it on as there is no incentive to do so.  If they let me write off the renovation costs I'd do it.  In another city I could build two units to house four if planning was easier and they changed the rules on density.


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## Bronte (19 Apr 2017)

Leo said:


> . The CSO were questioned on the numbers at the time, and they defended them saying houses were only classified as vacant if neighbours were unable to confirm whether anyone was living there and they showed signs of being unoccupied such as overgrown gardens after multiple visits including over weekends. The numbers reported in the CSO tables includes surrounding townlands as well though, so with Cavan as the axample, every dwelling in the county is covered by one of the 100 regions.



This is how the CSO counts housing?  Someone is physically calling out to areas and talking to neighbours.  Surely a list of every house with electricty and usage or non usage would immediately tell you this information.  This reminds me of Irish water and them not able to figure out one house from another and one mad story about identifying them by the colour of the door or some other madness.


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## Bronte (19 Apr 2017)

T McGibney said:


> The figures are still a mile wrong. They state 233 empty homes in Virginia, as per the census a year ago. There are currently no houses or apartments available for rent in Virginia and the situation wasn't much different 12 months ago. No way is there 233 empty properties in or anywhere near the town. There might be a dozen vacant commercial properties and there are a few long-derelict houses on the Main Street. That's about it.
> 
> I don't believe for a second that the CSO are repeatedly calling to houses with overgrown gardens up and down the country to check whether or not they are occupied.



Today there are 3 houses for rent in Virginia.  A one bed, a three bed and a 4 bed.  There are 85 properties for sale (surprisingly large houses on a cursory glance).  But one would assume there are people living in those houses.  And we're supposed to believe there are anolther 233 empty houses as well.  How big is Virginia?

I only used Daft.


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## Bronte (19 Apr 2017)

Leo said:


> The houses being recorded as unoccupied are just that, unoccupied. For the most part they are not being rented, and the CSO make no differentiation between empty houses that are on the market for sale, up for let, or just plain left empty for the long term by the owners for whatever reason.
> 
> The Virginia region covers 1,866 properties, so a lot more than just the town, I'm not there that often and I know a few that are empty. I can't speak for everywhere, but the enumerator in my area called to me several times trying to confirm a couple of unoccupied properties over a few weeks.



Leo the houses you know that are empty, are they up for sale, why are they empty, in general?  How does the enumerator get your phone no?


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## Bronte (19 Apr 2017)

http://www.independent.ie/business/...building-stats-insists-minister-35628267.html

Funny my mention of the ESB, it seems:

_The minister said figures from his department showing 14,932 new units in 2016 were accurate, despite reports the actual number could be less than half that. 

Mr Coveney said his statistics were based on the same criteria as has been used by governments for decades, which is the number of new ESB connections_.


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## Leo (19 Apr 2017)

Bronte said:


> This is how the CSO counts housing?  Someone is physically calling out to areas and talking to neighbours.  Surely a list of every house with electricty and usage or non usage would immediately tell you this information.  This reminds me of Irish water and them not able to figure out one house from another and one mad story about identifying them by the colour of the door or some other madness.



That data is gathered as part of the census.


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## Leo (19 Apr 2017)

Bronte said:


> Leo the houses you know that are empty, are they up for sale, why are they empty, in general?  How does the enumerator get your phone no?



I can't speak for all of them but quite a few are just empty, or very occasionally occupied be extended family. Not up for sale or rent. Like a lot of similar communities there are houses that used to be occupied by the elderly who have since moved into care or live with family. Some of these would require work to put them on the market for sale or rent.

They call *to *me, the don't call me. The last census the enumerator called asking about an empty house near me three times in the hope I'd heard something about whether anyone might be living there!


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## Leo (19 Apr 2017)

Bronte said:


> _Mr Coveney said his statistics were based on the same criteria as has been used by governments for decades, which is the number of new ESB connections_.



That's a good indication of new builds that are ready for occupation, but there's no accurate figure for houses with no connection that are not derelict. Also, minimal usage could mean a holiday home or a vacant house, so again meter connections does nothing to give you those numbers. Also, there are a growing number (albeit still very small I'd imagine) living off-grid.


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## T McGibney (19 Apr 2017)

Bronte said:


> That's very interesting Tommy, so the figures are wrong.  On empty houses around the country.  How do they count them I wonder.



I understand that if the local census enumerator records them as empty when they call around census time, they are officially regarded as empty.

Census enumeration is a thankless, underpaid and increasingly difficult job to do properly.

People who have done this work will tell you that it's next to impossible to track down the occupants of many homes, because of people working odd hours, difficulties in accessing apartments, and people who refuse point-blank to answer the door to strangers.

So it's perfectly understandable if enumerators are exaggerating the numbers of empty homes. It's not understandable or acceptable if the CSO and other state bodies are ignoring this obvious deficiency in their data.

Afaik, the CSO don't have access to ESB usage data.


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## T McGibney (19 Apr 2017)

Bronte said:


> Today there are 3 houses for rent in Virginia.  A one bed, a three bed and a 4 bed.  There are 85 properties for sale (surprisingly large houses on a cursory glance).  But one would assume there are people living in those houses.  And we're supposed to believe there are anolther 233 empty houses as well.  How big is Virginia?
> 
> I only used Daft.


Virginia's population was 2,282 per the 2011 census. It has about 5 pubs, a Supervalu, a recently-opened Lidl, a Costcutter convenience store, a newsagent and maybe a dozen or two more shops. It no longer has a bank nor, bizarrely, a filling station.


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## Sarenco (27 Apr 2017)

The Irish Times ran a similar story yesterday about the lack of advertised rental properties in Blanchardstown and other west Dublin suburbs -

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/...lation-75-000-properties-for-rent-3-1.3060939

Minister Coveney's rent caps are having the perverse, but entirely predictable, effect of actually reducing the supply of rental properties.


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## SirMille (27 Apr 2017)

Sarenco said:


> The Irish Times ran a similar story yesterday about the lack of advertised rental properties in Blanchardstown and other west Dublin suburbs -
> 
> http://www.irishtimes.com/business/...lation-75-000-properties-for-rent-3-1.3060939
> 
> Minister Coveney's rent caps are having the perverse, but entirely predictable, effect of actually reducing the supply of rental properties.


Coveney is some joker!


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## landlord (28 Apr 2017)

It really annoys me that the government is looking at the current "headline" rents as reported on daft and genuinely believe that landlords are making huge net profits. Sure why would current landlords (accidental or not) sell "their golden goose" when they are raking in the cash. Taking Swords again as an example, with 4 rental properties currently available on the Daft website and I would imagine thousands of properties currently being let in Swords, this average rent figure would only sample less than 1% of total rental properties. With extremely limiting rent caps in place I would imagine over 99% of properties currently being rented in Swords fall WELL short of these headline rents.  I am averaging 25% less. You think the government consider this??? NO
When you add on your Time, Tax and Tenant Traumas !!! You wonder what the attraction is ?????


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