JFC hace we hit a point where even politicians have priced themselves out of buying a home and see nothing wrong with it?

22 comments

  1. Sure didn’t FG’s Emer Higgins got elected after having videos of herself talking about how despite being a cllr and having a big job as “chief of staff of global operations for PayPal” she [couldn’t afford a mortgage](https://i.imgur.com/VZs7Od2.png).

  4. It is important to remember that the FG Senator was talking about needing the shared equity scheme to afford a house in Waterford.

    Not in Dublin or a commuter county.

  5. That Tony Groves is a joke. Why do we have to have idiots representing our side.

    All he was doing was looking down at his own notes and then when he got to speak he was all over the place, couldn’t make sense of what he was saying as he was throwing out 100 words a second and saying “I didn’t interrupt you, so you don’t interrupt me” despite him interrupting the other guy loads of times.

    Another twat who knows his audience on twitter.

    Oh and he supports putting the right to housing into the constitution.

  7. Tony Groves is the closest thing we have to Vincent Browne nowadays, RTE / Virgin should give him his own show.

  10. My take home is 21000 a year and I’m in my 30’s, if that doesn’t depress reading that people who are privileged in regards to the status of their job and pay struggle don’t know what else will. He’s got connections that will take him far he can’t deny that auctioneers will favour him hoping for a favour too down the line

  11. Painful listening to FG Senator John Cummins continually describe how the the shared equity scheme will help young people “get on the ladder”.

    They still remain fully convinced that house prices will only ever go up. As if that’s sustainable. That there’s no amount of debt not worth taking on for young people. And if the banks can’t lend because of some pesky rules from 2008, then why doesn’t the state just jump in and add debt steroids.

    And what happens if house prices are in fact over inflated and fall. It’s not a ladder then, it’s a slide. Just like 2008 when people were stuck paying back for homes that didn’t suit them but they bought just to “get on the ladder”.

    But the most painful thing is knowing John Cummins is an FG Senator representing *Labour* panel in this country. There are only like two left wing senators out of the 10 elected.

    Edit: added ‘panel’ to distinguish from Labour party.

  13. Politicians don’t fully control the price of a house. Yes they could reduce prices by lowering standards, bypassing planning processes, and loosening lending rules…. but there are very good reasons for having all of these in place. Outside of that the price of housing is shooting up due to lack of construction workers and energy costs.

  14. Having a monthly “allowance” of €3,145 to equal to an annual taxable income of €51,000

    So his salary is actually €121,168

    “Lads we can’t be saying we have salary of 121K, it will make all the poor Gobshite voters jealous”

    “Ok, let’s rig the numbers do we say we have a salary of 70k and then hide the rest as an allowance, that’ll fool most of the electorate!”

    They are playing us as fools

  17. Wordy train of thought rant, but this is a bugbear for me.

    Government policy is so skewed towards bringing more people into the net for purchasing (i.e. increasing demand) rather than meaningfully tackling the supply issues facing the sector.

    Help to Buy and the shared equity scheme allow more people on to the ladder, in theory that sounds good. But there’s nothing stopping the industry for pricing up accordingly in response to the additional funds available to people – something HTB in particular is criticised for, not to mention the associated deadweight of it benefitting people who’ve already saved a sizeable deposit. Shared equity scheme sounds marginally better, although I need to refresh myself on how that’s supposed to work again. But it fans demand too – not supply. We’ve got no shortage of demand across the board. Demand doesn’t need to be tended to right now. Demand would hold up, even if 300,000 homes at market prices dropped from the sky ready to be sold tomorrow – because as those people get their keys and move on, there’d still be people who would like to own their own home. They’re just currently priced out, or scuppered in their ability to save/get mortgage approval. Reducing prices/increasing supply would be far more meaningful for these folk. If they’re currently searching within a price bracket, a bigger issue for them is getting outbid by buyers with more capital.

    Land costs are a doozy and will always skew high in an urban area, but that’s a whole other can of worms. But why do we never hear about reducing construction costs where possible? The costs of complying with regulation? The red tape involved, which often involves length court proceedings due to issues with planning and objections? Undoubtedly priced into all these developers’ accounts, when they’re setting a cost (with acceptable return) on new builds?

    Even lenders – is anything being done to try and get the capital lending requirements for banks lowered to something closer to the EU average? It’s no longer 2008 – the banks are strictly regulated now, as much as people still side eye them here (understandably). That would further open up competition for new mortgage lenders/banks too.

    None of that is as sexy or as marketable as the government handing people extra money to go off and buy a house, but damn it, they’ve been pursuing that plan for years. Things are only getting worse.

    The bandaid needs ripping off. Actual reform isn’t pretty, nor would some of it be popular with government voters. Such as restricting the grounds for appeal of ABP decisions, or mandating minimum height limits in urban areas where there are presently none – two tiny examples in what would need to be a massive toolkit of solutions to address the housing shortage.

    No one in government is willing to go in and do what needs to be done, because 1) it’s likely impossible to complete the job in just four-five years of a government term and 2) it could make that person/party deeply unpopular. Also, new politics makes single-party majorities unlikely in Leinster House. It took the guts of a year in cabinet for FF-FG-GP to start playing nice together. In future, expect that to take even longer – whether it’s a SF-led left leaning cabinet, or a rehash of the civil war parties + whoever’ll prop them up.

    But there’s no vision or ambition to try, which is the depressing thing. No drive to do the right thing by the many, not just keeping the noisiest complainers happy. That’s tragic in itself, not to even start on the suffering caused by the housing crisis in the first place.

  18. how harvey norman and pc world arent booming this morning with new telly sales is beyond me. how i didnt smash it in, serious restraint i guess. claire the zombie, sat there letting them talk over each other. i turned to my missus and said i hope you didnt pay for that license. FG are really deperate if cummins is the only one volunteering to go national on this subject. and the poor lad on just over 100k, suffering like the rest of us. how do people sit in an audience and not lynch him? brave man. her how many decades does FG need was straight outta my mouth though. that bit was class. im fucking furious lads.

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