56% of Dublin households are too wealthy to qualify for a housing subsidy but not wealthy enough to afford market rate housing.
56% of Dublin households are too wealthy to qualify for a housing subsidy but not wealthy enough to afford market rate housing.
36 comments
Found this on twitter via Ronan Lyons.
Two points I take away from this is of course our housing situation is utterly decrepit. Which is no surprise to many of us.
Secondly, there’s a striking number of households earning less than 40k. Which really highlights the inequality in our society. Despite claims that we’re one of the richest countries in Europe, you do not see this low level of household income among our more well-heeled supposed peers in Europe- Switzerland, Norway etc.
Edit: also anyone that advocates for policies (Croí Conaithe, FTB grants, shared equity nonsense) other than those aimed at driving prices down is not tackling the core issue. Either that or they increase everyone’s income by 30%
It’s hard to believe that €100,000 a year is part of the forgotten middle
What is the Y axis?
Could you use a bar chart not a line graph to show the different numbers in each income bracket ?
Let me just put this on my widescreen telly to read it.
Aaaaand this is why I’m emigrating.
Nice. We fall into the shit category. While both earning and owning a house the mortgage plus childcare is crippling in the extreme. Add insurances, healthcare, bills and we’re one disaster away from being fucked.
Edited for spelling error
Wealth is how much money has been accumulated. This looks at salary, not wealth. If government looked at wealth instead we would be in a much more equal world…
So what you’re telling me, is most of the country is on a wage that is downright impossible to live properly om, because that’s what I see.
I see an extraordinary amount of homes makes less than 50k a year. We have the highest GDP in the world. Something isn’t adding up.
Isnt this also the case with health care? I have a lot of friends that can’t even think of affording health care but dont qualify for a medical card either.
Too poor to afford being poor
I’m in that weird in between feeling of thinking
‘why the fuck did I pay so much for a semi detached house’ and ‘thank fuck we bought when we did because there is no way I’d pay current prices for a semi-detached house’.
It’s kind of like, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Work hard in school and college, get a degree, get a good job, work hard and then you still won’t be able to afford your own house. Do badly in school and college, get no degree, work the lowest paying jobs with the worst conditions, rent in house shares for life, die in poverty and debt.
Genuinely concerned about the 200,000 Ukrainian refugees predicted to roll in over the next month. I’m 100 percent supportive of bringing them in and I love how Ireland has responded to the war but seriously, an increase in our population by 1 percent at a time when housing is already so scarce. How will we manage this?
I know a lot of these people will be living under roofs with Irish families but what about when they get jobs and move out? This will surely be a huge burden on an already crippled system? Again I’m all for looking after our Ukrainian friends.
Alot of people I know have good jobs and still cant get a mortgage, added to that a good 50% of them are waiting for the auld pair to kick the bucket so they’ll gain the family home, 25% are in the same boat but will have to sell the family home and split the gains due to their siblings and still believe they wont get a mortgage from bank. The other 50% are ether looking to leave Ireland / have accepted renting will be a way of life. A very small fraction have been living in vans for the past 3/4 years
I was today years old when I found out that revenue doesn’t care if you’re paying rent, they only care about you paying for a mortgage. apparently being too poor to afford a mortgage is not a qualifying factor to apply for some help from the government. good to finally find that out after 5 years of living here, living un different flats, paying rent on contracts signed by hand and all sort of other dodgy affairs, after I got everything in order and signed for a house I get hit with this. what a joke.
But whenever someone builds market rate housing people bitch and moan that it isn’t social and affordable – so they’re mad that someone like me might be allowed to at least try to buy it.
I call this phenomenon, the no gaff zone
Good thing we get great value for money for all that tax we pay /s
The trouble is in this country once you get your house no matter what price you pay for it, you pull the ladder up and you no longer fight for the right to own a house.
We never get together and fight for everyone just for ourselves and when we get what we want it becomes “not my problem”
Go look a the citizens information page on rent supplement, absolute joke of a system.
Housing market at the moment is like going into Funderland but all the rides have a max height limit of 34cm.
Unless we see significant political and economic changes, most Irish people have nothing to look forward to except a slow creep into poverty.
Lovely stuff, don’t you love when you go from barely living with a shit wage/no wage while studying, to… wait a second *checks notepad* barely living with what should be a good wage?… feck
Ireland, truly the 2nd best country to live in the world for sure!
It’s been like this with medicine in Ireland for a long time. In 2017 I made 21k a year, which was too much to qualify for a medical card, but not enough to afford €130 a month for medicine I needed for Asthma (which, by the way is not considered a long term illness in this country) every single month.
I’m an American home owner and I don’t make enough money to rent a home at market rate. That… shouldn’t be the case. Ever.
Here’s something to consider:
Have you ever heard of a problem *for the rich/powerful* that did not become an accommodation for them? No, they get it changed, whatever “it” is, right?
So the fact that *whatever* “it” is in *our* lives is fecked up, it’s that way because *that’s the way the rich/powerful WANT it to be*.
Think about it.
How is 101,000 grand ‘middle’.
I’ve sat down with my best friend who I live with. We have the same job and I’m paid a euro more than here as I have been there longer. We worked out that if we went part time, we’d qualify for HAP and still would have the same money post bills.
I know people joke about it but honestly the less you do in this country the better off you are
Killing the middle class and creating a parasitic landlord class to control and oppress the poorest is exactly what Fine Gael want and have achieved.
Well looks like I’ll be an ex-pat forever then. Ireland’s become too hostile an environment to return to. Best of luck to you all.
The forgotten middle is a real thing. You are entitled to zilch but don’t quite make enough to have anything nice.
It’s this exact cohort we should be implementing the Vienna Model of housing for:
60% of people in Vienna rent from the government or government-backed housing bodies
A 2-bed close to the city costs about 700 Euros a month
These apartments are built to a high standard and, crucially, the rent collected stays within the system – i.e. it’s not sent abroad to REIT-invested hedge funds
Vienna has had a massive population increase in just the last few decades
Once we implement the Vienna Model, even Irish people (or enough to support this model) will stop believing the nonsense that we are a nation of home owners by default. If you can rent a high-quality apartment >for life< at a decent price, why wouldn’t you? I think 60% of renters would agree.
Additionally, this will only make us even more attractive to employers.
FG and FF have been telling us for 20 years that you can’t fix this overnight. Well, what about the last 20 years?
SF sadly support Affordable Purchase which is basically selling off the family silver (housing stock) without even renting it out first. Who gains?
Whoever is in power next, I hope they avoid Affordable Purchase and implement the Vienna Model. It’s an utter shame NOT to implement the very solution that we know absolutely works.
Sounds like the means testing algorithm for university grants in the 1980s. Most PAYE earners above the ceiling for grants but still unable to afford the costs of fees and maintenance. Meanwhile the affluent self-employed bracket get full grants. (scratches head).
We have a family friend who spent the age of 30 to 60 on the dole drinking. Because he was unemployed for so long, he is currently getting nearly twice as much money as my retired mother gets from her pension, and she worked her whole life. And thanks to all the allowances he got and all that stuff, he is spending under 70 euro a week on all living costs. While I’m having to help mam out with bills and basic living costs.
“The forgotten middle” aka the landlords’ happiness curve.