D
Duplex
Guest
The State of the Irish Ship of State
A few facts;
1. Irish House to Income ratios (The ratio of the average annual salary to the average home price) is in the region of 10:1. From my research I believe this to be the highest ratio of any country in the world.
2. Ireland has the highest per capita new home development of any country in Europe by a considerable margin. It may be the case that we have the highest housing development per head of population in the world.
3. The housing boom is responsible for the employment of approximately 20% of the working population. The Central Bank estimates that 12% of the workforce is employed directly in the construction industry.
4. Rents and yields continue to fall in the residential investment market, the DAFT rental index has recorded falls since 2002. There are no records for average void periods.
5. The Irish are the largest per capita investors in foreign real estate in the world. Much of the capital for this investment is coming from mortgage equity release from Irish residential property.
6. The current supply of zoned residential land equates to a supply equivalent to 300,000 new housing units. The recent relaxation of land use planning for local needs in rural areas may possibly swell the supply by 50,000. In theory the supply of land for local needs is only limited by the number of qualifying individuals. If you assume an average household size of 2.6 persons this would equate to a supply of residential land sufficient to house 910,000 people.
7. The Irish banking system has performed astoundingly over the past decade, shareholders expectations for continued stellar fiscal feats have possibly influenced the ethical behaviour of these institutions if regular news reports in the nations media are any indication.
Ireland’s ship of state has had favourable following winds, while other larger ships in the global fleet are becalmed. At the vanguard, the fleet’s leviathan the SS America has been steaming full ahead for some time, consuming coal at a fantastic rate and borrowing ever increasing amounts of fuel from ships that follow in her wake. However Chief Engineer Greenspan has warned Capitan GW Bush the master of this titanic vessel that the engines “can’na take it any longer!” he has eased back on the regulator afraid that the boilers will explode at any moment, meanwhile on deck the passengers and crew are consumed in a riotous party oblivious to the frantic machinations on the bridge.
In the distance the Irish Rover, a small old fashioned ketch can be seen surfing the bow wave of the giant America. The Rover’s motley crew whoop and holler as the old sea dog rides the colossal wave like a dolphin. The skipper a gnarly salt by the name of Ahern glances up at the main mast a new fangled alloy built rig called a M50, he has not got around to finishing the mast and is concerned at the way it bends under the load of the billowing mainsail. His crew are not bothered they had long ago given up casting their nets, now they busy themselves in carving little houses out of whalebone supplied by the master of the lumbering SS Deutschland. The Rovers crew buy and sell these crude little sculptures amongst themselves, and at any opportunity buy the rudely hewn efforts of other crews. Ahern looks aft, across the vast expanse he sees the top sails of the clipper Australia which seemed to have tacked into the doldrums, and in the near distance he spies the old tramp steamer Great Britain visibly slowing, steam venting through her stack . Ahern returns to whittling a three bedroom duplex from a rib bone of a pilot whale.
With apologies to Melville.
A few facts;
1. Irish House to Income ratios (The ratio of the average annual salary to the average home price) is in the region of 10:1. From my research I believe this to be the highest ratio of any country in the world.
2. Ireland has the highest per capita new home development of any country in Europe by a considerable margin. It may be the case that we have the highest housing development per head of population in the world.
3. The housing boom is responsible for the employment of approximately 20% of the working population. The Central Bank estimates that 12% of the workforce is employed directly in the construction industry.
4. Rents and yields continue to fall in the residential investment market, the DAFT rental index has recorded falls since 2002. There are no records for average void periods.
5. The Irish are the largest per capita investors in foreign real estate in the world. Much of the capital for this investment is coming from mortgage equity release from Irish residential property.
6. The current supply of zoned residential land equates to a supply equivalent to 300,000 new housing units. The recent relaxation of land use planning for local needs in rural areas may possibly swell the supply by 50,000. In theory the supply of land for local needs is only limited by the number of qualifying individuals. If you assume an average household size of 2.6 persons this would equate to a supply of residential land sufficient to house 910,000 people.
7. The Irish banking system has performed astoundingly over the past decade, shareholders expectations for continued stellar fiscal feats have possibly influenced the ethical behaviour of these institutions if regular news reports in the nations media are any indication.
Ireland’s ship of state has had favourable following winds, while other larger ships in the global fleet are becalmed. At the vanguard, the fleet’s leviathan the SS America has been steaming full ahead for some time, consuming coal at a fantastic rate and borrowing ever increasing amounts of fuel from ships that follow in her wake. However Chief Engineer Greenspan has warned Capitan GW Bush the master of this titanic vessel that the engines “can’na take it any longer!” he has eased back on the regulator afraid that the boilers will explode at any moment, meanwhile on deck the passengers and crew are consumed in a riotous party oblivious to the frantic machinations on the bridge.
In the distance the Irish Rover, a small old fashioned ketch can be seen surfing the bow wave of the giant America. The Rover’s motley crew whoop and holler as the old sea dog rides the colossal wave like a dolphin. The skipper a gnarly salt by the name of Ahern glances up at the main mast a new fangled alloy built rig called a M50, he has not got around to finishing the mast and is concerned at the way it bends under the load of the billowing mainsail. His crew are not bothered they had long ago given up casting their nets, now they busy themselves in carving little houses out of whalebone supplied by the master of the lumbering SS Deutschland. The Rovers crew buy and sell these crude little sculptures amongst themselves, and at any opportunity buy the rudely hewn efforts of other crews. Ahern looks aft, across the vast expanse he sees the top sails of the clipper Australia which seemed to have tacked into the doldrums, and in the near distance he spies the old tramp steamer Great Britain visibly slowing, steam venting through her stack . Ahern returns to whittling a three bedroom duplex from a rib bone of a pilot whale.
With apologies to Melville.
