T McGibney
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"Some sane ideas to fix this housing madness"
- Thread starter Brendan Burgess
- Start date
Profiteering, the practice of making or seeking to make an excessive or unfair profit, especially illegally or in a black market.
Are you seriously suggesting the State is doing that? If not then edit your post or find some sort of a hyperbole filter.
I absolutely think that the State should be charging more for social housing and Tenants who have the means to do so but fail to keep up to date with their rent should be fined and have the money taken directly from their wages or welfare. The State should absolutely make sure it makes a profit on social housing.
I'd also evict anti-social tenants. If their children end up homeless that's their parents fault. If that's a problem take the kids into care.
There's absolutely no way people renting in the private sector should find themselves worse off than people who are in State provided housing, funded by the taxes of those same people renting in the private sector.
That should be the cornerstone of our welfare system; you won't be better off on welfare than working.
I'd have an immediate ban on the State buying any private housing. If they want to provide social housing they should build it.
I'd also cut HAPS, it's pricing working people out of the market. It doesn't provide a single extra home, it just distorts the market.
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Should people doing up their PPR have to show that they actually need that new bathroom or kitchen?
What's wrong with the paint they have on the wall at the moment? My parents just spend €40k on a new kitchen even though the old one was perfectly functional. Should they be punished for doing so?
I agree with all of this and would add:
I would prohibit children who grew up in social housing from remaining in the house when they're parents kick the bucket. Their parents have already won the lotto by living in a house at practically no cost, time to give another family in need a go, in the interest of fairness n'all
I just sold and am waiting to buy so I hope you’re right!
Paul O Mahoney
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This is another doozy brought in and as you say never created anything or solved anything. HAP spend in 2020 was almost €500m to support 60,000 families.
Edit, made a mess of your quote and don't know how to fix it.....bus posting .
Citation needed to show that there was a hugely increased demand by Irish people for Irish costal property due to Covid? The IT/Daft had prices up by 23% up to June 21. It's a bit higher than that now.
Price of coastal homes ‘soars in wake of pandemic’
Properties near sea 23% more expensive than before Covid-19 – report
T McGibney
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Wasn't that phenomenon nationwide?The IT/Daft had prices up by 23% up to June 21. It's a bit higher than that now.
Price of coastal homes ‘soars in wake of pandemic’
Properties near sea 23% more expensive than before Covid-19 – reportwww.irishtimes.com
And the piece suggested they're not being used as holiday homes at all.
And your claim that all or many of these properties required extensive renovation?
Paul O Mahoney
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Yep we are trying to find something coastal and the price difference between same size houses is a least 20%, on average, more than inland houses.Citation needed to show that there was a hugely increased demand by Irish people for Irish costal property due to Covid? The IT/Daft had prices up by 23% up to June 21. It's a bit higher than that now.
Price of coastal homes ‘soars in wake of pandemic’
Properties near sea 23% more expensive than before Covid-19 – report
One house was on the market for €600k in North Wexford we got an interior designer and engineer in to estimate what would a renovation cost roughly and to our requirements both reckoned 100k to 120k not including the pool
T McGibney
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The argument isn't that coastal properties command a premium (we all know they've done so for donkeys years) but that there's so much work being done on second homes near the coast that tradesmen can't be got for love nor money in those places, compared to places like Dublin, Meath and Kildare that don't have a preponderance of second homes and hence no tradesmen shortages.
Paul O Mahoney
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I'm in Maynooth and its impossible to get any trade person the electrician might get to us before our holidays which is 23rd of July and hes a personal friend, plumber laughing said hows 2023 sound Paul, again have shared pints of an evening.
Sister in law getting a new kitchen November this year earliest shes in Midleton
The shortages of tradesmen is national but I did notice in North Wexford and indeed west Waterford that an awful lot of building one offs and or renovations.
The engineer we used is local here and he did mention that he had clients in coastal areas and he said and I quote " I hope ye aren't in a hurry as things are manic now," and he too knew people.
Again this is anecdotal and we have put off for a year and buy something that will fulfill all our needs and minimise any work
You asked for a "citation" saying that costal prices had increased due to the pandemic.
Also in anticipation of a predictable misrepresentation I said "It's not the main reason clearly but it's one smaller reason." you seem to be implying I said it's the only reason.
But it's a visible reason, also while it depends where you live, you'll see they're tying up the more reputable builders for longer than average projects.
Taxing second homes will not solve "the housing crisis" - but if you're taxing vacant sites then in the interest of fairness and a possible minor improvement then I don't see how you can not tax second homes as well. Let's say someone has a house in Dublin and West Cork, introduce the second home tax and because Irish people hate avoidable taxes maybe they decide to sell the Dublin one. Now instead of getting a wreck of a vacant site that may not be currently viable to renovate you get a ready to live in home added to the market. What's not to like?
T McGibney
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No, I asked for a citation to support the following assertion
"During the pandemic there was a huge increase in demand for costal detached property, basically any money that might instead have gone to places like Spain and France went instead to the Irish coast."
The piece you quoted didn't do that. It suggested that the spike in demand for coastal properties was driven by the switch to remote working and not, as you asserted, a rush to acquire second homes.
The subsidy I've seen mentioned would be a lot less than the cost of deep-retrofits that would be required on many of these. It's far more efficient to deliver a development at scale in a place with public services where people want to live.
Paul O Mahoney
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Ok ,and that's another consideration however we really don't know if it would be more expensive as a detailed analysis hasn't been done and I accept that it probably won't ever be done, theres little by way of income from renovation of existing properties and this as an opportunity cost would also inflate the cost of renovations.
The other point regarding public transportation and adequate community infrastructure, the past isn't kind to this been done adequately, we both could name areas where houses were built first and a generation later the necessary services followed.
Existing vacant homes would in general be in areas that all the infrastructure is in situ, of course supplying these to any new builds will have a considerable cost for decades ahead and would also be put into the hopper and see what is the overall cost of providing these to new builds.
What I'm trying to do here is highlight the complexity of the issue and I'm saying it's not a black and white situation the entire problem needs to be looked at in detail.
We've had citizens conferences on all types of issues except one on trying to drag Ireland into some kind of country where families are not housed in hotels, B&Bs and other unsuitable accommodation.
Nothing is free in life, but for a country to be so bereft of ideas to solve this issue or any other social issues really should have us collectively ashamed.
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Sophrosyne
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I don’t know why the Government don’t treat housing as an emergency – in common with health and climate change. Successive Governments have lacked ambition. Piecemeal fixes have cost a fortune and achieved little.
Why doesn’t it start from the premise of what people can reasonably afford and then work backwards from that with all of the connected trades, professions and Government departments?
It should work to a fixed time limit to concentrate minds.
It would start with the zoning of land. The government should develop the land. It would be less expensive because of economies of scale. The developed plots would be reflected in their cost, but it would work out cheaper than each developer having to carry out that work.
Then intense expert input would be needed to plan the site. We need to aim higher than featureless cookie cutter housing lacking appropriate infrastructure and then wonder why we have social problems.
Unfortunately, expertise is not sufficiently valued in Ireland and is never included at project start-up.
Nowadays, very little construction needs to be on-site as @Purple and others have been saying for some time. There is a raft of new construction materials available that do not cost the earth.
Precision built housing with expert oversight would be infinitely more desirable and cost-effective than the wasteful practices I have witnessed over the years on various construction sites. My late father used to refer to the breed of builder typical of the Celtic Tiger era as slapdashopithecus.
How people live should not be an afterthought, but rather it should be upfront before anything is built.
Suitable plot sizes, access to fresh air, storage, safe zones for children, distance to retail, health facilities, schools, transport, and other amenities, etc., need to be considered.
There is no point in telling people to ditch their cars when things they need to access daily are miles away, involving the inevitable unhealthy choked up traffic due to poor planning.
Refurbishment should have more sensible regulation, which better reflects the practicalities of what can be achieved at reasonable cost.
Built infrastructure doesn’t need to be disgusting. People with little resources have the same aesthetic appreciation as the better off. We need better imagination and not more money.
As for social housing, the same standards should apply. However, to be housed at the taxpayer’s expense should be a privilege to be valued.
Neighbourhoods are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their properties and it should be intolerable that are dragged down and brought into disrepute by the anti-social behaviour of the few.
Therefore, there should be a contract enforced by a specialized branch of the court services that can deal with matters quickly. Anyone who has a problem with that should not be accommodated.
Rent and a reasonable maintenance cost should be garnished and although it wouldn’t thank me for suggesting this, responsibility for this should be given to the Revenue Commissioners. Revenue is excellent at collection; local authorities are notoriously bad.
This might seem a bit extreme, even in terms of cost, but anti-social behaviour has a much larger financial cost and reduces otherwise good neighbourhoods to pariah status so that no one wants to live there.
Why doesn’t it start from the premise of what people can reasonably afford and then work backwards from that with all of the connected trades, professions and Government departments?
It should work to a fixed time limit to concentrate minds.
It would start with the zoning of land. The government should develop the land. It would be less expensive because of economies of scale. The developed plots would be reflected in their cost, but it would work out cheaper than each developer having to carry out that work.
Then intense expert input would be needed to plan the site. We need to aim higher than featureless cookie cutter housing lacking appropriate infrastructure and then wonder why we have social problems.
Unfortunately, expertise is not sufficiently valued in Ireland and is never included at project start-up.
Nowadays, very little construction needs to be on-site as @Purple and others have been saying for some time. There is a raft of new construction materials available that do not cost the earth.
Precision built housing with expert oversight would be infinitely more desirable and cost-effective than the wasteful practices I have witnessed over the years on various construction sites. My late father used to refer to the breed of builder typical of the Celtic Tiger era as slapdashopithecus.
How people live should not be an afterthought, but rather it should be upfront before anything is built.
Suitable plot sizes, access to fresh air, storage, safe zones for children, distance to retail, health facilities, schools, transport, and other amenities, etc., need to be considered.
There is no point in telling people to ditch their cars when things they need to access daily are miles away, involving the inevitable unhealthy choked up traffic due to poor planning.
Refurbishment should have more sensible regulation, which better reflects the practicalities of what can be achieved at reasonable cost.
Built infrastructure doesn’t need to be disgusting. People with little resources have the same aesthetic appreciation as the better off. We need better imagination and not more money.
As for social housing, the same standards should apply. However, to be housed at the taxpayer’s expense should be a privilege to be valued.
Neighbourhoods are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their properties and it should be intolerable that are dragged down and brought into disrepute by the anti-social behaviour of the few.
Therefore, there should be a contract enforced by a specialized branch of the court services that can deal with matters quickly. Anyone who has a problem with that should not be accommodated.
Rent and a reasonable maintenance cost should be garnished and although it wouldn’t thank me for suggesting this, responsibility for this should be given to the Revenue Commissioners. Revenue is excellent at collection; local authorities are notoriously bad.
This might seem a bit extreme, even in terms of cost, but anti-social behaviour has a much larger financial cost and reduces otherwise good neighbourhoods to pariah status so that no one wants to live there.
T McGibney
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The State is generally terrible at doing things like property development and costs typically soar out of control whenever they attempt it. Look at the Children's Hospital fiasco for example
We only have a housing emergency because 13 years ago, our State's top decision-makers decided we no longer needed private residential property developers and enacted laws to put them out of business.
Brendan Burgess
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And at the same time, they stopped building social housing and told would be tenants to rent privately and the taxpayer would foot the bill.
Brendan