"Rents are at a record high – so why are private landlords selling up?"

Purple said:
Everything points to a proper residential property tax as a key part of the solution.
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That would have a further negative effect on supply especially rentals.

But since the official stats don't reflect any supply problems guess we'll keep turning the heat up on the market.
 
Lies, damn lies and statistics as the saying goes, If you drill down into the stats behind that report, you'll see that the average sqm per person in a household in Germany is 47m2, in Denmark it is 56 and in Ireland it is 36.5 whilst in Japan it is 22m2.

There is no doubt that in parts of Ireland that there are massive "macmansions" that really are not needed and I do wonder sometime what people do with them. The other side of the coin is I recall looking at so called 4 and 5 bedroom houses in the Celtic Tiger era where you might get a cot into the extra "bedroom" but you'd struggle to get a bed in. Also it's interesting how the size of gardens in new estates is far smaller then in older estates. That doesn't mean to say the older estates are a waste of land, to me it reflects a "race to the bottom" mentality when it comes to house building in Ireland and how do we cram the most "boxes" onto an area so the developers can maximise their profits with no thought to the social impact of what they are doing.

What covid really brought home is the lack of joined up thinking in Ireland when it comes to house building. I recall being on holidays in Northern Spain a few years ago. We rented a City Centre Apartment. The Ground floor of every apartment block was given over to shops and businesses so that there were facilities for people living there. The apartments were well built, properly sound proofed and had large balcony's for people to use as well. There must have been a dozen playgrounds and play areas for kids and they seemed to be all properly maintained.

Here we find a field in the rear end of nowhere and stick up 6 and 7 story blocks with no facilities worth talking about. I know Spain did the same in places but rather then focusing on the number of rooms, the size etc, should we not focus on the quality of what we are building and build communities and not rabbit hutches?
 
AlbacoreA said:
That would have a further negative effect on supply especially rentals.
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How so?
Triple the existing property taxes to stimulate more trading down, freeing up family homes where the infrastructure for children is already in place. If you are sitting on a house worth a million plus you are rich, even if you have a modest income.
AlbacoreA said:
But since the official stats don't reflect any supply problems guess we'll keep turning the heat up on the market.
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We've been stimulating the demand side in the hope that supply would follow but it's not an open market so normal market forces don't apply.
There is a supply side constraint on land and labour and massive costs associated with State inefficiencies.
 
Landlords will pass on taxes to renters increasing tents, and people won't upsize to avoid taxes. Putting even more pressure on smaller affordable housing. People won't downsize because of the supply issues you've just caused.

There's no supply problems of expensive property.
 
AlbacoreA said:
The rooms and houses are smaller too. Not just families.
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What about all the McMansions that have been and are still being built the length and breadth of the country, that only started in the 2000s , in the 70s and 80s it was just a bog standard 3 bedroom bungalow. These houses consume alot of materials and labour and result in less units being built, you don't see that anywhere else in Europe
 
That's true. When I visit outside the city I'm staggered by the size of properties that have been built all over the place.
 
Yes, another example of where the State is causing the problem. Ribbon development should never have been allowed.
 
Purple said:
They are expensive because there’s a supply problem.
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It's not as simplistic as that. If I want a mansion or grand large estate they are for sale. Want a modest sized apartment or average size family home almost nothing for sale in some areas.

"...In its report, Daft noted that the total number of properties available to buy on its website – as of June 21st – was fewer than 12,500, up slightly from the March total (11,900), but down by more than 6,000 on the same period last year..."

When it comes to supply of so called "affordable" housing by the govt"

"...Just 400 affordable homes will be delivered next year under a government scheme launched three years ago that is supposed to deliver 6,200 homes to buy or rent...."
 
There's a big difference between a large home and an expensive home. Average 4 bed semi's with small gardens in places like Terenure in Dublin (ugly pebble-dashed houses) are selling for €750k-€800k. By no stretch of the imagination are they grand or could they be described as mansions.
 

They are still in short supply. In many cases older properties also need extensive refurbishment in the order of 100k+. Even if you can get a builder to do it.

But it makes no financial sense to spend that amount on a modest size increase vs adding an extension, which is what many are deciding to do in cities. Also the bang for buck is extremely poor compared to buying out side the cities. The divide between urban and rural is ludicrous.
 

AlbacoreA said:
And all of this is having a knock on effect on landlords and rentals.
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I agree with you but people want to live near friends and family, children want to stay in local schools etc. If you are relatively well off you have to move out of your locality to have a reasonably nice house. If you are very rich or moderately poor you can live where you want as you can either buy a house or have one given to you.
 
From the Q2 2021 RTB Rent Index -

On an annualised basis, rents grew by 7.0% in the second quarter of 2021 on a nationwide basis. This growth rate is higher than that of the previous quarter (4.4%) and the highest since Q1 2019 (which recorded growth of 7.4%).

At the same time, there has been a huge decline in the number of tenancies registered with the RTB in Q2 2021 (13,884) compared to Q1 2021 (16,085).

The puzzling thing is that I have yet to hear a single politician state the obvious - rent controls are hurting renters.
 
There are more renters (votes) than LLs. Also even amongst people are neither of those, the LLs are the bad guy in all this. So more votes again.

If they can shift the political fall out to LLs. It give the politicians a free pass.
 
AlbacoreA said:
There are more renters (votes) than LLs.
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Yes, but not by much. Most landlords have one property, very few have more than two. I would say the ratio is something like 3 landlords to every 5 tenancies. That's not massively lopsided.

To alter Bill Clinton, "it's the tax, stupid". Gross rental yields are very high in Ireland so what is putting landlords off is the 52% tax that most of them pay. Also a lot of BTL mortgages have been paid down so there isn't a high interest bill to offset against tax for many any more.
 
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