The issue of buring €1.5 billion has been discussed at length earlier in this thread. My main point was that such comments damage the credibility of the person making the comments.
"IRELAND WILL see more demolition than construction of houses over the next decade..." The full article is no longer available online.
The discussion on Askaboutmoney after the above article was interesting.
Bronte:
They demolish property in the US and rebuild continuously as far as I know. I believe a lot of the apartments built in the last 10 years are likely to be demolished and rebuilt. They were not built large enough for families and the future will be to demolish these and build with more thought as to storage, space and amenities. Maybe that sounds crazy but I believe it will happen.Also what is going to happen with the many estates that are semi finished. Eventually something will have to be done to them and probably the local councils will end up razing them to the ground.
Yoganmayhew
Look at all the houses in the countryside that are demolished every year as the site is more valuable than the house on it. Will it get to the stage that the agricultural land under rural housing estates is worth knocking the houses to access? I hope not. Will it get to the stage that the unsold houses are outdated (in insulation and heating terms) and that it would be cheaper to knock than retro-fit them? I don't see why not.
Raskolnikov made the same point.
Bronte, Yog and Raskolnikov make very valid points in moderate language. I will pay much more attention to them than to someone who appears to be sensationalist just for the sake of it.
Morgan Kelly may well be right that we will demolish more houses than we will build over the next decade. We won't know for ten years.
There are ghost estates which will have to be demolished or abandoned.
Will there be more houses demolished than built? I don't know the answer to that. I have been through different booms and busts. When things are very gloomy, we feel that we will never recover.
I am sure that we will recover. I have no idea how long it will take. 2 years? 5 years? 20 years? I do think that there is some risk this time, that the state could become insolvent, if the government does not keep its resolve to cut public expenditure.
In this
thread, I have dealt with the issue of guys like Kelly and McWilliams having interesting things to say but losing credibility because of the language they use. And as I said in that thread, I am trying to overcome my reluctance to listen to them.