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The rent in Ireland is insane for the quality you get. My GF and I are currently living in my parents house. Collectively we earn ~€200K. New homes are in limit

The rent in Ireland is insane for the quality you get. My GF and I are currently living in my parents house. Collectively we earn ~€200K. New homes are in limited supply. Existing homes are poor quality but demand has increased the prices dramatically. We were looking at a new development and they increased the price by €80K. For a lot of people owning a home is becoming unrealistic.

CalRobert 3y ago
We did a new build and the planners were a bunch of fossils who were horrified by the idea we didn't want a mouldy pile of concrete blocks. After we built it, the neighbours marveled at how warm a timber home could be - and beautiful. We ended up moving to the Netherlands but remarkably there were so many homes for rent compared to Ireland it felt easy. I'm in a 5 bedroom house a 20 minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal for about the price of a 4 bed semi-d in Tullamore. And I don't need a car here. Ireland's a mess.
ericmcer 3y ago
This seems like a global phenomenon. What is happening? Is this related to globalization? It feels wrong to blame any countries internal policies when it seems to be happening in every country simultaneously.
- quacked 3y ago
  The rate of immigration to developed countries far outpaces the rate of building new dwellings in developed countries. Net growth YoY for places like the US, Canada, UK, Australia all tell the same story. Several traditionally less-developed countries are also seeing the rural hinterlands drain and immense internal migration to urban areas.
  - denismi 3y ago
    So we tested this in Australia. We shut our borders suddenly and unexpectedly for two years, going from a long-run rate of over 1% net immigration to negative overnight. Meanwhile, we kept development approval and construction going largely unperturbed. Our housing market responded with a two year long bull-run. As convenient as it is to blame immigrants, I don't think it's true.
    - LegitShady 3y ago
      I would guess that corresponds with printing a lot of money for COVID, so everyone with capital stuck it into property since they couldn't wait to get out of cash and lots of businesses couldn't operate.
    - ajxs 3y ago
      There were other factors at play. Many professionals transitioned to a permanent work-from-home arrangement, which caused a large interest in more affordable property outside of the major cities. Since things have gone back to the 'old normal' the rental prices in Sydney have gone absolutely insane. The average price for even mediocre apartments close to the city is around $1000 a week.
    - tick_tock_tick 3y ago
      2 years can't make up for decades of being behind schedule. Throw in low interest rate and government's throwing money everywhere it'd be much more shocking if anything else happened.
    - quacked 3y ago
      Are you suggesting that immigration has had no effect on the price of dwellings in the developed world, and that two years of low immigration during a period of unprecedented economic slowdown and intense inflation was enough to prove that?
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Rents tell the supply demand story. Renting means you need somewhere to live. Buying can mean many things: need somewhere to live, investment. Also prices can go up due to constrained number of transactions. People ain’t selling factors.
    - JambalayaJim 3y ago
      Yes but market forces did not expect immigration to stop permanently. 2 years is a short time overall.
- jk20 3y ago
  [dead]
- Matticus_Rex 3y ago
  The biggest factors end up being about political incentives, and it's not happening in every city and country in the developed world, the majority of them end up with some level of one key dynamic: People who already own property in an area tend to have relatively high political sway in that area, and have a vested interest in things that limit the new supply of housing. It may be explicitly because they want to keep the value of their property high, or because they want to "keep the character of the area" through things like limits on the number of floors new buildings can have, or open space requirements that require a certain amount of space be left open, or to limit multi-family dwellings. Ultimately even the property owners are also paying the increased cost of living that comes from these things, but the fact that they're not directly connected and take place in the future (i.e., you don't get an invoice for the next decade of increased rent prices when you vote for a proposal to require that apartments be limited to 4 stories) means that the vast majority of people don't consider them. People who don't yet own property are either people who already live in the area but who tend to have less sway than property owners (even assuming they know what policies to oppose), or people who are coming from outside the area and have had no prior influence on the politics there. How effective this dynamic is at stopping new housing construction in a particular area (often because of how its laws are structured, but also because of the policy choices pushed by its local politicians) is one of the primary determinants of how much rents and housing prices in an area will rise. On one end of the spectrum, you've got the Bay Area's huge number of patchwork municipalities, where interests are highly-entrenched, and where any meaningful reform would have to go through every individual municipality or come from the state level, and in which many of the politicians are themselves specifically anti-housing reform. On the other, you have more centralized city governments like Minneapolis with pro-reform politicians that can handle it at the city level (so there's only one war required to get meaningful reform). Minneapolis rents are actually decreasing because they passed housing reform. Often housing reform will merely stabilize rents (because prices also rise some due to inflation and economic growth increasing demand for land in the area, even if lots of housing is being built). Sometimes it can do enough to actually bring them down. In a sane world where property owners can't hijack the local government, you'd expect prices to rise some with economic growth and inflation, but significant increases in demand would spur building more housing and increased density. And increased prices due to mild inflation and economic growth are fine -- wages will generally increase to compensate for that (and some of the increase comes from nicer housing being built as the economy grows). Hopefully the housing reform movement will continue bringing us toward that saner world.
- ovulator 3y ago
  We added a billion people to the planet last decade.
  - smeej 3y ago
    The snarky part of me wants to comment that all those people are under 10, then, and should really be living in houses that were already otherwise occupied by older people, but I take your point.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      The previous 10 year olds become 20 year olds and so on. Having kids generally increases the amount of sqft you desire and can live with.
  - balfirevic 3y ago
    My country lost around 400 000 people (out of roughly 4 million) in the last 10 years and that doesn't seem to have made any difference.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      That sounds like a bubble then
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rurounijones 3y ago
  BlackRock and co trying to buy every house they can get their hands on are not helping.
- Tade0 3y ago
  What's happening is people around the world parking their money in real estate. In my corner of the world it got to a point where things like blocks of just studio apartments are built, which were all bought out back when the project was still a hole in the ground. It's most pronounced in China, where over 70% of household wealth is in real estate, because everyone and their grandmother is investing.

CalRobert 3y ago

We did a new build and the planners were a bunch of fossils who were horrified by the idea we didn't want a mouldy pile of concrete blocks. After we built it, the neighbours marveled at how warm a timber home could be - and beautiful. We ended up moving to the Netherlands but remarkably there were so many homes for rent compared to Ireland it felt easy. I'm in a 5 bedroom house a 20 minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal for about the price of a 4 bed semi-d in Tullamore. And I don't need a car here. Ireland's a mess.

ericmcer 3y ago

This seems like a global phenomenon. What is happening? Is this related to globalization? It feels wrong to blame any countries internal policies when it seems to be happening in every country simultaneously.

quacked 3y ago
The rate of immigration to developed countries far outpaces the rate of building new dwellings in developed countries. Net growth YoY for places like the US, Canada, UK, Australia all tell the same story. Several traditionally less-developed countries are also seeing the rural hinterlands drain and immense internal migration to urban areas.
- denismi 3y ago
  So we tested this in Australia. We shut our borders suddenly and unexpectedly for two years, going from a long-run rate of over 1% net immigration to negative overnight. Meanwhile, we kept development approval and construction going largely unperturbed. Our housing market responded with a two year long bull-run. As convenient as it is to blame immigrants, I don't think it's true.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I would guess that corresponds with printing a lot of money for COVID, so everyone with capital stuck it into property since they couldn't wait to get out of cash and lots of businesses couldn't operate.
  - ajxs 3y ago
    There were other factors at play. Many professionals transitioned to a permanent work-from-home arrangement, which caused a large interest in more affordable property outside of the major cities. Since things have gone back to the 'old normal' the rental prices in Sydney have gone absolutely insane. The average price for even mediocre apartments close to the city is around $1000 a week.
  - tick_tock_tick 3y ago
    2 years can't make up for decades of being behind schedule. Throw in low interest rate and government's throwing money everywhere it'd be much more shocking if anything else happened.
  - quacked 3y ago
    Are you suggesting that immigration has had no effect on the price of dwellings in the developed world, and that two years of low immigration during a period of unprecedented economic slowdown and intense inflation was enough to prove that?
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Rents tell the supply demand story. Renting means you need somewhere to live. Buying can mean many things: need somewhere to live, investment. Also prices can go up due to constrained number of transactions. People ain’t selling factors.
  - JambalayaJim 3y ago
    Yes but market forces did not expect immigration to stop permanently. 2 years is a short time overall.
jk20 3y ago
[dead]
Matticus_Rex 3y ago
The biggest factors end up being about political incentives, and it's not happening in every city and country in the developed world, the majority of them end up with some level of one key dynamic: People who already own property in an area tend to have relatively high political sway in that area, and have a vested interest in things that limit the new supply of housing. It may be explicitly because they want to keep the value of their property high, or because they want to "keep the character of the area" through things like limits on the number of floors new buildings can have, or open space requirements that require a certain amount of space be left open, or to limit multi-family dwellings. Ultimately even the property owners are also paying the increased cost of living that comes from these things, but the fact that they're not directly connected and take place in the future (i.e., you don't get an invoice for the next decade of increased rent prices when you vote for a proposal to require that apartments be limited to 4 stories) means that the vast majority of people don't consider them. People who don't yet own property are either people who already live in the area but who tend to have less sway than property owners (even assuming they know what policies to oppose), or people who are coming from outside the area and have had no prior influence on the politics there. How effective this dynamic is at stopping new housing construction in a particular area (often because of how its laws are structured, but also because of the policy choices pushed by its local politicians) is one of the primary determinants of how much rents and housing prices in an area will rise. On one end of the spectrum, you've got the Bay Area's huge number of patchwork municipalities, where interests are highly-entrenched, and where any meaningful reform would have to go through every individual municipality or come from the state level, and in which many of the politicians are themselves specifically anti-housing reform. On the other, you have more centralized city governments like Minneapolis with pro-reform politicians that can handle it at the city level (so there's only one war required to get meaningful reform). Minneapolis rents are actually decreasing because they passed housing reform. Often housing reform will merely stabilize rents (because prices also rise some due to inflation and economic growth increasing demand for land in the area, even if lots of housing is being built). Sometimes it can do enough to actually bring them down. In a sane world where property owners can't hijack the local government, you'd expect prices to rise some with economic growth and inflation, but significant increases in demand would spur building more housing and increased density. And increased prices due to mild inflation and economic growth are fine -- wages will generally increase to compensate for that (and some of the increase comes from nicer housing being built as the economy grows). Hopefully the housing reform movement will continue bringing us toward that saner world.
ovulator 3y ago
We added a billion people to the planet last decade.
- smeej 3y ago
  The snarky part of me wants to comment that all those people are under 10, then, and should really be living in houses that were already otherwise occupied by older people, but I take your point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    The previous 10 year olds become 20 year olds and so on. Having kids generally increases the amount of sqft you desire and can live with.
- balfirevic 3y ago
  My country lost around 400 000 people (out of roughly 4 million) in the last 10 years and that doesn't seem to have made any difference.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    That sounds like a bubble then
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rurounijones 3y ago
BlackRock and co trying to buy every house they can get their hands on are not helping.
Tade0 3y ago
What's happening is people around the world parking their money in real estate. In my corner of the world it got to a point where things like blocks of just studio apartments are built, which were all bought out back when the project was still a hole in the ground. It's most pronounced in China, where over 70% of household wealth is in real estate, because everyone and their grandmother is investing.