european wide housing shortages

AlbacoreA said:
Everyone I know who invested in property in Spain or similar or Eastern Europe has lost on it at best and many are caught in legal wrangles or scams.
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Not my experience - sold in Eastern Europe after 15 years ownership and made a small profit. The process was totally transparent and highly efficient.
 

There is a study from someone in UCD about the decline in govt investment in social housing stock in other countries. I think Austria is one of the exceptions.

I think you are right there was a move away from housing as basic provision in a society. In particular at the affordable end. If you are wealthy you can still buy what you want.
 

Is there not a case for local authorities to employ builders directly, I think that is what happened before when the bulk of council housing was built. I mean employ builders as local authority staff, it would be attractive for builders and there is a huge amount of work to be done even just renovating derelict council housing.
 
I imagine it will be impossible to get builders and tradesmen considering they are in big demand at the moment.
 

Yes, and that is what the government is having to revert to. But because the building of social housing was effectively outsourced to private sector, budgets for building were slashed.
The government is playing catch-up now, having to give additional monies to house building budgets.
 
joe sod said:
Is there not a case for local authorities to employ builders directly,
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The public sector is struggling to employ people in many areas where it is currently active. Nurses and teachers for example, I cannot see it suddenly getting its act together to employ builders.

There are many areas of economic activity which find it difficult to employ people. Some sectors find innovative solutions, imported workers on UK farms, slaves on fishing vessels.

For capable and ambitious people there are many new economic opportunities, far more than there used to be. Capable and ambitious people don't go into building, or let us face it teaching.
 
That's a bit harsh, I am a capable and ambitious builder for many years, however to to excessive regulation and taxation have decided enough is enough, anybody can become a building contractor in the morning and tender for contracts. The sector needs to be regulated.
 
It is all down to planning ,I would say there are more low Income workers Employed in Ireland in 2019 than ever before,

What is your take on wages levels, The problem Ireland has We have a lot of high earners not worth what they are getting ,If they were doing the same job overseas they would be on lower money, We have lots of UK Farm Syndrome Type operators everywhere you look in Ireland,[/QUOTE]
 
Cottage Industries of high earners have sprung using regulation to choked the life out of people who drove progress in the past,

In other words everywhere you look you will find we have employed every kind of over paid under worked so called expert to make sure nothing can gets done without there say so,

It is supposed to work the other way round, we employ people to put/throw a spanner in the works,
 
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It hasn't been with 'us' in Ireland before. Especially over the past 15 years.
And remember under this 2040 plan, another 1m people on the Island, most of whom will inevitably end up in the greater Dublin area.
 
Delboy said:
It hasn't been with 'us' in Ireland before. Especially over the past 15 years.
And remember under this 2040 plan, another 1m people on the Island, most of whom will inevitably end up in the greater Dublin area.
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The Country has being operating like a Ponzi Scheme for some time 2040 is an attempt to extend it for as long as possible,

I remember looking at the Austrian plan if I remember correctly they have around 8.5 million at present there plan is to grow a lot slower they will avoid the kind of problems we are having at present,

we are adding lots of people on low flat lifetime wages needing lots of tax transfers,
 
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Delboy said:
It hasn't been with 'us' in Ireland before. Especially over the past 15 years.
And remember under this 2040 plan, another 1m people on the Island, most of whom will inevitably end up in the greater Dublin area.
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I agree population growth is a factor, but it doesn't explain why there is a housing crisis, at the same time, across many countries.
 
Folsom said:
I agree population growth is a factor, but it doesn't explain why there is a housing crisis, at the same time, across many countries.
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It's a fair point. House-building is sluggish everywhere except Germany, even in places where prices have returned to pre-crisis levels.

I think building codes and planning law (pretty much ratcheting up everywhere) have something to do with it. It can't all be down to bank lending.
 
There's a few things going on at a general level...
Population profiles have changed - smaller households and less 2.4 children means requirement for more separate units. Migration patterns feed into this also creating surges in demand.
Building codes and planning laws - new builds are more expensive and more land is closed off to development.
Monetary policy - QE and focus on fight against inflation creates a distortion favouring asset holders versus wage earners.
Government policy - stepping back from actually building housing.

Specifically in Dublin, we shoot ourselves in the foot with over zealous regulation in certain areas(such as heights and apartments, banning bedsits) while being useless at protecting buildings actually worth protecting, and making best use of state owned land:
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Almost half of all County Dublin residential development land is State-controlled and between NAMA and Local Authorities there is the capacity for 71,425 dwellings (1,212 hectares). These figures exclude holdings owned by the Housing Agency and other State and Semi-state bodies. In Dublin City three out of every four vacant residential zoned sites are either owned by Dublin City Council or NAMA debtors.
 
odyssey06 said:
Monetary policy - QE and focus on fight against inflation creates a distortion favouring asset holders versus wage earners.
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But the whole point of QE was to make money cheap, so that people would invest more in (presumably) new housebuilding.

This has worked. Retail interest rates are - by any measure - lower than 2006 in Ireland and incomes are about the same.

Yet a dramatically lower number of dwellings are being built.
 

Doesn't seem to have worked then? Wherever the cheap money is going, it seems to be favouring purchase of assets - then watch them rise in value due to cheap money; than to new construction.
 
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