"Election proposals may make the housing crisis worse"

AlbacoreA said:
Panic over. It's only one factor in demand. I don't know how they estimate demand from other sources.
Click to expand...

Housing demand is a function of:

  1. Growth in population
  2. Change in average household size

Population change is simply births-deaths+immigration-emigration. The first two are easy to estimate and lead to about a 30k increase per year, the other two far less so - bear in mind Ireland had net emigration from 2010-2014.

Irish households are very large by European standards, and I think will need to fall a lot. The population will age and older people tend to live alone, and Ireland's divorce rate is still quite low, and as this changes more adults will need to live alone.

Housing also does not last forever either (which many commentators tend to forget) and even depreciation of 1% per year means 20k new dwellings needed just to stand still.

Medium term, Ireland needs something more like 40k dwellings per year. But if the migration pattern changes then all bets are off.
 
Ireland needs far more 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. We probably have enough houses. We certainly have enough social houses but we need lots more social apartments and, most importantly, different tenancy rules so that the State can use it's social infrastructure for the greatest public good.
 
Purple said:
Ireland needs far more 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.
Click to expand...

Exactly, a lot of houses in Ireland have unrelated adults living in them and are better designed for people with children.

More new apartments for single people frees up houses for families with children.
 
During last boom lots of people started single in small apartments but grew into families which then found the apartment too small and the location unsuited. But ended up unable to move from it. So be cautious about buying too specialised property. We also built apartments too small back then also.
 
AlbacoreA said:
During last boom lots of people started single in small apartments but grew into families which then found the apartment too small and the location unsuited. But ended up unable to move from it. So be cautious about buying too specialised property. We also built apartments too small back then also.
Click to expand...
We need apartments in areas where there is existing social housing so that single occupants of 2, 3 & 4 bedroom social houses can be moved to free up those houses for families. It is unfair to ask an elderly person to move out of a house into an apartment in a different area. It is unfair to leave them in that house if there is an apartment available in the same area when there are homeless families.
 
AlbacoreA said:
During last boom lots of people started single in small apartments but grew into families which then found the apartment too small and the location unsuited. But ended up unable to move from it. So be cautious about buying too specialised property. We also built apartments too small back then also.
Click to expand...

On the continent e.g. Copenhagen there are family friendly apartment complexes, with storage and common play areas...
I suppose insurance costs would rule some of that out here!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top