I’m a Canadian who lurkes on this sub. Ireland and Canada both suffer from a blight of REITs. We need some solidarity with regular people trying to find a home.
We shall not rest in our battle against landlords big and small until the 850 rentals available on Daft becomes 0.
Same in Florida where I live same in Ireland where I’m from originally.
Well said, great post. It’s incredible the spped of which these REITs have spread around the world since the global financial crisis. So depressing
Are there even that many REITs in Ireland? I’m aware of Ires and Hibernia REIT but thats about it? They are distinct from other types of investment funds which may also purchase real estate, except they tend to be more diversified so real estate doesn’t make up 80%+ of their assets under management.
Irish REITs haven’t been around that long. Like 2013?. Our property woes go back a lot further than that. They also fund construction projects which is a net positive but it tends to be the high end stuff that they can potentially make a fat wad on rental income. I don’t know who is paying 3 or 4 grand in rent a month though. Nobody that lives in my universe thats for sure.
Good god finally someone talking about this.
Concise and to the point. He directly addresses the failings in government regulation that led to this point. He explains the origin of the major issue facing society today and posits a corrective action for the future. This is what politicians are supposed to do.
REIT’s themselves aren’t the real villains in our housing crisis, the government and global financial system are. REIT’s are the only reason we’ve built *any* apartments in the past decade as construction companies can’t get funding to build anything without the security of having a buyer in place.
The fundamental issues are that the government have handed our entire housing provision over to the profit driven private sector who are understandably only interested in building expensive properties that’ll make them a good profit and that the global financial system is reliant on property as an investment vehicle where prices need to outpace inflation, REIT’s are just a by-product of that system.
If you want to invest in Real Estate, you as the investment company must do two things.
​
1. You must build the apartment complex/housing estate.
2. You must then be subject to rent prices set by the government. So rent may be more expensive in Dublin compared to Limerick, but the rent would be calculated on rooms in said apartment/house and apartment/house size.
Perhaps the rent could be a max percentage of full time minimum wage.
If these REIT’S can buy vast amounts of property and the likes of daft and myhome can be complicit in this whole charade of no housing out there. If these funds can afford to buy and leave either the houses sitting idle and/or drive local rents up, then slowly drip feed the market as the price continues to increase. This is how you make lots of money because you are fucking over everyone. REIT’s, all the associated estate agents, government lobbying pricks & the government = CUNTS FUCKING OVER EVERYONE.
This needs to be the dividing line in Irish politics- housed v unhoused. All the existing parties v some new political entity whose only aim is either wholesale or incremental changes to the current setup
Houses need to be linked to a PPS number, not a corporation.
Only people should be allowed buy houses. If some rich lad wants to buy 1000 and rent out, that’s their risk/gain. But a mega corporation with endless pockets can not be allowed to manipulate what is the basic human right to shelter.
Corporations can be free to build and rent out though.
Look at this. A politician that explains the problem clearly and produces a plan to fix it.
A rare sight indeed.
Good video, although a lot of focus on social housing by that Canadian politician, private buyers and private renters have been fucked over even more by the problems with the housing market.
The truth is there’s no housing shortage and no housing crisis in Ireland… this is the result of very deliberate policies to prop up the housing market by giving free reign to REITs, such as favourable taxation policy and easy access to cheap credit. The private buyer simply cannot compete. The narrative by mainstream media is that there’s a housing shortage, but they always fail to mention that supply is severely restricted by the REITs as they deem fit, thereby effectively creating an artificial shortage.
The government could resolve the ‘housing crisis’ for both social housing tenants and private purchasers overnight if it really wanted to, but they couldn’t give a fuck about you. The sad thing is even if SF get elected, I don’t think they have the experience or the ambition to fix this issue!
He’s only talking about REITs though when it’s so multifaceted you’d need to spend years analysing the market at any one point in time to try and figure out what the problem is, and when you do get down to it the problem has changed.
In Dublin, the only people getting housing at the moment are those who are either extremely rich or extremely poor.
Local authorities and approved housing bodies are actively outbidding first time buyers in order to clear their lists. They don’t build anything of note, just a few small builds in the outer city of very small number so they need to go to the market to buy, and very often what they’re buying is houses they had actually been paid to be built back in the 50s and 60s.
At the upper end, you have workers in tech and professional services earning six figure salaries. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t make a blip in a functioning market but because we’ve now gone 14 years where nothing was built and people oppose building at every turn, they are effectively the only people who can now buy.
The rest is rent, and you have two choices; either pay exorbitant rent in a damp house or apartment to a culchie landlord to pay for his/her pension or take on a professionally managed BTR from a REIT.
That’s it in a nutshell. Until we build more and more and more we’re stuck with this for 20 more years.
16 comments
I’m a Canadian who lurkes on this sub. Ireland and Canada both suffer from a blight of REITs. We need some solidarity with regular people trying to find a home.
We shall not rest in our battle against landlords big and small until the 850 rentals available on Daft becomes 0.
Same in Florida where I live same in Ireland where I’m from originally.
Well said, great post. It’s incredible the spped of which these REITs have spread around the world since the global financial crisis. So depressing
Are there even that many REITs in Ireland? I’m aware of Ires and Hibernia REIT but thats about it? They are distinct from other types of investment funds which may also purchase real estate, except they tend to be more diversified so real estate doesn’t make up 80%+ of their assets under management.
Irish REITs haven’t been around that long. Like 2013?. Our property woes go back a lot further than that. They also fund construction projects which is a net positive but it tends to be the high end stuff that they can potentially make a fat wad on rental income. I don’t know who is paying 3 or 4 grand in rent a month though. Nobody that lives in my universe thats for sure.
Good god finally someone talking about this.
Concise and to the point. He directly addresses the failings in government regulation that led to this point. He explains the origin of the major issue facing society today and posits a corrective action for the future. This is what politicians are supposed to do.
REIT’s themselves aren’t the real villains in our housing crisis, the government and global financial system are. REIT’s are the only reason we’ve built *any* apartments in the past decade as construction companies can’t get funding to build anything without the security of having a buyer in place.
The fundamental issues are that the government have handed our entire housing provision over to the profit driven private sector who are understandably only interested in building expensive properties that’ll make them a good profit and that the global financial system is reliant on property as an investment vehicle where prices need to outpace inflation, REIT’s are just a by-product of that system.
Kind of reminds me of a speech another guy made. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RePSm6qf178](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RePSm6qf178)
oh well [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeezCdF4mk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeezCdF4mk)
I’ve a mad man solution, but hear me out yeah.
If you want to invest in Real Estate, you as the investment company must do two things.
​
1. You must build the apartment complex/housing estate.
2. You must then be subject to rent prices set by the government. So rent may be more expensive in Dublin compared to Limerick, but the rent would be calculated on rooms in said apartment/house and apartment/house size.
Perhaps the rent could be a max percentage of full time minimum wage.
If these REIT’S can buy vast amounts of property and the likes of daft and myhome can be complicit in this whole charade of no housing out there. If these funds can afford to buy and leave either the houses sitting idle and/or drive local rents up, then slowly drip feed the market as the price continues to increase. This is how you make lots of money because you are fucking over everyone. REIT’s, all the associated estate agents, government lobbying pricks & the government = CUNTS FUCKING OVER EVERYONE.
This needs to be the dividing line in Irish politics- housed v unhoused. All the existing parties v some new political entity whose only aim is either wholesale or incremental changes to the current setup
Houses need to be linked to a PPS number, not a corporation.
Only people should be allowed buy houses. If some rich lad wants to buy 1000 and rent out, that’s their risk/gain. But a mega corporation with endless pockets can not be allowed to manipulate what is the basic human right to shelter.
Corporations can be free to build and rent out though.
Look at this. A politician that explains the problem clearly and produces a plan to fix it.
A rare sight indeed.
Good video, although a lot of focus on social housing by that Canadian politician, private buyers and private renters have been fucked over even more by the problems with the housing market.
The truth is there’s no housing shortage and no housing crisis in Ireland… this is the result of very deliberate policies to prop up the housing market by giving free reign to REITs, such as favourable taxation policy and easy access to cheap credit. The private buyer simply cannot compete. The narrative by mainstream media is that there’s a housing shortage, but they always fail to mention that supply is severely restricted by the REITs as they deem fit, thereby effectively creating an artificial shortage.
The government could resolve the ‘housing crisis’ for both social housing tenants and private purchasers overnight if it really wanted to, but they couldn’t give a fuck about you. The sad thing is even if SF get elected, I don’t think they have the experience or the ambition to fix this issue!
He’s only talking about REITs though when it’s so multifaceted you’d need to spend years analysing the market at any one point in time to try and figure out what the problem is, and when you do get down to it the problem has changed.
In Dublin, the only people getting housing at the moment are those who are either extremely rich or extremely poor.
Local authorities and approved housing bodies are actively outbidding first time buyers in order to clear their lists. They don’t build anything of note, just a few small builds in the outer city of very small number so they need to go to the market to buy, and very often what they’re buying is houses they had actually been paid to be built back in the 50s and 60s.
At the upper end, you have workers in tech and professional services earning six figure salaries. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t make a blip in a functioning market but because we’ve now gone 14 years where nothing was built and people oppose building at every turn, they are effectively the only people who can now buy.
The rest is rent, and you have two choices; either pay exorbitant rent in a damp house or apartment to a culchie landlord to pay for his/her pension or take on a professionally managed BTR from a REIT.
That’s it in a nutshell. Until we build more and more and more we’re stuck with this for 20 more years.