"43,000 landlords exiting the market..." but how many are buying in?

[Purple]

Yet they made shedloads of money when delivering many tens of thousands of new housing units during the 2000s.

Are they stupid or is there something else outside their control preventing them from repeating this feat?

They are well capable of delivering housing as long as there is lots of available labour, lots of credit and very little enforcement of standards, as there was during the boom. The problem is that as a sector they are very labour intensive because they are using the same building methods as they used 40-50 years ago.
I work in manufacturing. My industry has changed completely since the 2000's. Robotics, process automation and large amounts of capital have more than tripled our labour productivity in the last 20 years. That's how we've remained competitive and efficient because our competition is in Germany and America and China and Costa Rica etc and they've done the same things we did. If we're uncompetitive we don't get a reduced VAT rate or other subsidies, we just go out of business. And we're just tradesmen too.

The construction sector haven't bothered their backsides doing that. Instead they've invested their time and energy whinging and moaning and lobbying instead of, well, getting their house in order.

 

[T McGibney]

They are well capable of delivering housing as long as there is lots of available labour, lots of credit and very little enforcement of standards, as there was during the boom. The problem is that as a sector they are very labour intensive because they are using the same building methods as they used 40-50 years ago.
I work in manufacturing. My industry has changed completely since the 2000's. Robotics, process automation and large amounts of capital have more than tripled our labour productivity in the last 20 years. That's how we've remained competitive and efficient because our competition is in Germany and America and China and Costa Rica etc and they've done the same things we did. If we're uncompetitive we don't get a reduced VAT rate or other subsidies, we just go out of business. And we're just tradesmen too.

The construction sector haven't bothered their backsides doing that. Instead they've invested their time and energy whinging and moaning and lobbying instead of, well, getting their house in order.

We know all that, but there was plenty of available labour throughout the 2000s, when as if by coincidence there was decent margin between on the one hand the cost of land, materials and labour required to build a house or apartment and on the other hand the achievable sale price of that house or apartment.

Note that this wasn't the case pre-1995, and from 2009 to circa 2014, when even land, materials and labour costs were on the floor, yet we have in more years reverted to a situation where building has become uneconomic despite economic buoyancy. But it's okay, it's the stupid builders' fault, and has nothing to do with heavy taxes, crippling regulations, the hostile planning environment etc.

None of your points above refer even remotely to estate agents by the way.

 

[Knuttell]

Or someone like RB in his prime.....I'm actually struggling to think someone but I can't.

 

[Purple]

We know all that,

Grand so. That's my point. A grossly inefficient sector should get their act together when trading conditions tighten rather than whinging.

but there was plenty of available labour throughout the 2000s, when as if by coincidence there was decent margin between on the one hand the cost of land, materials and labour required to build a house or apartment and on the other hand the achievable sale price of that house or apartment.

Lots of available labour kept labour prices down.
QE has caused materials prices to go up internationally.

Note that this wasn't the case pre-1995, and from 2009 to circa 2014, when even land, materials and labour costs were on the floor, yet we have in more years reverted to a situation where building has become uneconomic despite economic buoyancy. But it's okay, it's the stupid builders' fault, and has nothing to do with heavy taxes, crippling regulations, the hostile planning environment etc.

We've been around the block on this one a few times.

I'm not suggesting that "it's all the stupid builder's fault" or that taxes, regulation or planning aren't major factors too. You're quoted posts I've made on those topics so you know my views on that.
Therefore please stop misrepresenting what I'm saying. You don't like it when people misquote you or misrepresent your point.

None of your points above refer even remotely to estate agents by the way.

I agree. I was talking about builders in the post you quoted.

 

[T McGibney]

I agree. I was talking about builders in the post you quoted.

While it's good to get the perspective of someone other than the State and those involved in the homelessness Industry it's also the case that Builders and Estate Agents are hardly neutral parties in this.

 

[AlbacoreA]

When listening to LV talking about the eviction ban in the dail, it seemed to me it was all about political point scoring, and very little about housing people. I don't think the govt are alone in that. The opposition seem to be mainly concerned about saying whatever wins them votes in the next election even if it makes the crisis worse. Playing the fiddle while rome burns.

 

[Purple]

You asked about builders. Let's not take another thread down.

 

[lff12]

They are well capable of delivering housing as long as there is lots of available labour, lots of credit and very little enforcement of standards, as there was during the boom. The problem is that as a sector they are very labour intensive because they are using the same building methods as they used 40-50 years ago.
I work in manufacturing. My industry has changed completely since the 2000's. Robotics, process automation and large amounts of capital have more than tripled our labour productivity in the last 20 years. That's how we've remained competitive and efficient because our competition is in Germany and America and China and Costa Rica etc and they've done the same things we did. If we're uncompetitive we don't get a reduced VAT rate or other subsidies, we just go out of business. And we're just tradesmen too.

The construction sector haven't bothered their backsides doing that. Instead they've invested their time and energy whinging and moaning and lobbying instead of, well, getting their house in order.

Its very striking that up til a couple of years ago we still had adverts telling people that concrete homes were "better", when literally most of the rest of the world has been about 50 years ahead. In mid 2005, for example, when timber framed homes only made up about 1/4 of the market, the https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/concrete-lobby-turns-up-the-heat-1.516704 (concrete federation here put out a glossy 4 page ad in industry publications claiming that timber framed homes had led to an avalanche of arson attacks in Scotland).
Many of our construction workers learned primarily on-the-job, perhaps 20, 30 or even 40 years ago. You can see why such a cohort would be reluctant to shift to higher skilled, high tech and probably far more economic modes of building and design.

 

[AlbacoreA]

My experience of early timber framed houses back 20yrs were thinly built, cost saving with all sorts of problems. Poor sound insulation is what many remember.

Are there really that many old timers left in building. I thought the crash in 07/08 made a lot leave and then the slow down since especially in house construction would have thinned the ranks of old timers even further.

A lot of problems with construction is the abysmal enforcement of inspections.

 

[Bronte]

Here's my take as a long term landlord.

- I have never ever seen the market so lacking in rental supply
- I've never seen it so costly to renovate
- The RTB has never functioned properly, it's has gone from one new IT system to anther, each one as bad as the previous one, they spend an amazing amount of staff time on creating complications.
- You cannot rely on any figures from them, I'm on their systems in various guises to deal with getting around their systems.
- They've told me their systems are awful
- I had to re register a tenancy this year to unregister it, that cost me so now I've two listed that don't exist as I could not be bothered.
- no idea about other ones as now I'm in the latest incarnation of their system
- All landlords hate the RTB
- they may have proper figures on landlords leaving due to the new notification system, but I doubt it.

 

[lff12]

- All landlords hate the RTB
- they may have proper figures on landlords leaving due to the new notification system, but I doubt it.

I've heard some very, very hostile commentary on RTB from former landlords so agree to first point. That said, I think a regulatory system is unfortunately necessary here, due to high levels of poor practice and the relative power gap between actors in the system. It would make a lot of sense to separate regulatory duties from the registration system. (Why do we even need a registration system anyway?)

In my experience of renting I found that very few landlords actually registered, including my last tenancy, which lasted for more than 10 years and I only left in 2022, so I would imagine that it isn't unusual to simply not register at all. In that development there was typically around 10-14 tenancies at any one time, but I never saw more than 5-6 of them registered at any time.

 

[Greenbook]

Here's my take as a long term landlord.

- I have never ever seen the market so lacking in rental supply
- I've never seen it so costly to renovate
- The RTB has never functioned properly, it's has gone from one new IT system to anther, each one as bad as the previous one, they spend an amazing amount of staff time on creating complications.
- You cannot rely on any figures from them, I'm on their systems in various guises to deal with getting around their systems.
- They've told me their systems are awful
- I had to re register a tenancy this year to unregister it, that cost me so now I've two listed that don't exist as I could not be bothered.
- no idea about other ones as now I'm in the latest incarnation of their system
- All landlords hate the RTB
- they may have proper figures on landlords leaving due to the new notification system, but I doubt it.

I'm not surprised they were showing increasing numbers of tenancies and landlords over the years. Pre the current system, I thought in my innocence that when I send in a new tenancy registration, they would take now the old one. That wasn't the case at all, so one property could have 3 or 4 tenancies hanging out of it. That would only be picked up when the 4/6 year renewal came around.

The current system is probably more accurate, but, yes I would take their figures with a pinch of salt. especially as how they operate is so chaotic.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Here's my take as a long term landlord.

- I have never ever seen the market so lacking in rental supply
- I've never seen it so costly to renovate
- The RTB has never functioned properly, it's has gone from one new IT system to anther, each one as bad as the previous one, they spend an amazing amount of staff time on creating complications.
- You cannot rely on any figures from them, I'm on their systems in various guises to deal with getting around their systems.
- They've told me their systems are awful
- I had to re register a tenancy this year to unregister it, that cost me so now I've two listed that don't exist as I could not be bothered.
- no idea about other ones as now I'm in the latest incarnation of their system
- All landlords hate the RTB
- they may have proper figures on landlords leaving due to the new notification system, but I doubt it.

My experience was broadly the same. Including having to register to unregister a tenancy that overheld and went through their process, and was ended. But still one hand isn't talking to the other in there.

I don't hate them. They've been useful in disputes to backup the landlord and told the tenant they were in the wrong. That has ended a lot of messing. But that was a while ago. Not sure that's still true.

 

[Bronte]

I've heard some very, very hostile commentary on RTB from former landlords so agree to first point. That said, I think a regulatory system is unfortunately necessary here, due to high levels of poor practice and the relative power gap between actors in the system. It would make a lot of sense to separate regulatory duties from the registration system. (Why do we even need a registration system anyway?)

In my experience of renting I found that very few landlords actually registered, including my last tenancy, which lasted for more than 10 years and I only left in 2022, so I would imagine that it isn't unusual to simply not register at all. In that development there was typically around 10-14 tenancies at any one time, but I never saw more than 5-6 of them registered at any time.

Why is it so complicated to register. To go in and change anything is off putting. So I never bothered. The rents on there are all wrong as most landlords will not go into their website to change anything. Compare it to revenue LPT, so easy to navigate and control.

Last year they put up a new system, it was, again, a complete disaster. Didn't work half the time. Now they make you pay and will refund you later, that's how mad their system is. Because they couldn't cope with the new requirement for landlords to register every year, they changed their own rules on that about 5 times.

Nowhere did I suggest a regulatory system was undesirable. But I don't think the RTB changed anything. Just added another complication to evicting tenants. All those lovely judgements they give, not worth the paper they are on. Every so often you see a headline news of one bad landlord. And all those about the bad tenants, they never pay anything. Which the RTB knows, and refuses to fund landlords to take court cases. Completely biased against landlords.

It's a pretty stupid landlord not to register if you've a mortgage.

What exactly do you think the RTB has done positively?

 

[lff12]

Why is it so complicated to register. To go in and change anything is off putting. So I never bothered. The rents on there are all wrong as most landlords will not go into their website to change anything. Compare it to revenue LPT, so easy to navigate and control.

Last year they put up a new system, it was, again, a complete disaster. Didn't work half the time. Now they make you pay and will refund you later, that's how mad their system is. Because they couldn't cope with the new requirement for landlords to register every year, they changed their own rules on that about 5 times.

Nowhere did I suggest a regulatory system was undesirable. But I don't think the RTB changed anything. Just added another complication to evicting tenants. All those lovely judgements they give, not worth the paper they are on. Every so often you see a headline news of one bad landlord. And all those about the bad tenants, they never pay anything. Which the RTB knows, and refuses to fund landlords to take court cases. Completely biased against landlords.

It's a pretty stupid landlord not to register if you've a mortgage.

What exactly do you think the RTB has done positively?

1. Minimum standards - up until 2004 councils never actually did any inspections. Since RTB came in inspections have happened (I bought an ex rental a year ago and recently got a letter from council asking the "tenant" to arrange an inspection). Also, prior to RTB if there ever was an inspection it was entirely between landlord and council, nothing to do with tenant, and at first hand experienced the negative impacts of this as they never spoke to the tenant. In contrast, a friend who rents had an inspection recently, and the company doing it asked her "honestly, is there anything you want to tell me. If you are happy here, I am not going to create any problems." That's EXACTLY how things should be - they should be looking only for stuff that actually matters.
2. Real way of enforcement around repairs - prior to RTB I spent up to 1 year fighting landlords over relatively minor repairs (eg broken freezer door discovered on moving in, broken down water pumps, broken heating systems) - RTB puts clear & realistic expectations around this. There is somewhere to go now if the landlord simply refuses to fix something that should be fixed - and conversely a tenant demanding something they are not entitled to will get short shrift from RTB.
3. Fair notice periods and enforcement of evictions. In 2001 I saw two evictions in places I was either living in or beside. One was perfectly justified & done correctly (mix of anti social behaviour, not paying bills & arrears, notice given, tenant left), the other was an entirely unjustified "get out today" kind of eviction levied simply because the landlord discovered that the tenant was a lesbian (I kid you not). I saw 2 more evictions in 2004 which had justification but one tenant was given 2 days to leave - absolutely solid reasons for eviction but he was entitled to more than 2 days notice. I'm fairly sure what I saw around me was not unique.
4. Clarification of responsibilities - lots of templates & advice on their site for both tenants and landlords.
5. Data collection - notwithstanding the issues around rise/fall in numbers of actual registrations, there's a large body of data there that 20 years ago was simply guesswork.

The flip side has been beauracracy & reduction in landlord power - but its like the law, if you are doing the right thing, you've nothing to fear from it.

 

[Greenbook]

RTB Annual Report 2022 says that there were 246k private tenancies registered with them at the end of 2022. This is down from 297k in 2020 ie. a decline of nearly 20%. The 2023 number will likely be lower.
RTB Annual Report 2022

 

[ClubMan]

RTB Annual Report 2022 says that there were 246k private tenancies registered with them at the end of 2022. This is down from 297k in 2020 ie. a decline of nearly 20%. The 2023 number will likely be lower.
RTB Annual Report 2022

You left out important context about that drop that is outlined in the report. "This is due to a number of factors ...".

 

[AlbacoreA]

You left out important context about that drop that is outlined in the report. "This is due to a number of factors ...".

I'm losing interest in the why. Is there a problem? Yes. Are they genuinely trying to ix it? No.

I glanced at that report, looks like they talk about their system problems etc, one for the tea break later.

 

[Greenbook]

One problem seems to have been old tenancies still on the register.

Astonishingly, though the RTB has been in existence for nearly 20 years, it seems that up until now we never had any accurate idea of how many registered tenancies we had. Previously figures of 319k and 297k etc. included tenancies which had ended but had not been taken down. Technically, it was the landlord's responsibility to tell the RTB that the tenancy had ended and many didn't. But it is still astounding that the RTB itself did not notice that one 2 bed apartment had, say, three registrations attaching to it and revise their count accordingly. Apparently, they did not realise this was happening at all until annual registration came in.

 

[Brian McD]

Guaranteed the RTB are not calculating the data correctly. Change over to their new IT system was a shambles, records of previous tenancies lost on transition to new system , if landlord didn’t re- register on new system then RTB has no idea that tenancy exists