House prices won’t fall until the tsunami of investment flowing into the market eases off, for example by tightening mortgage credit, or if the pool of buy-to-let investors shrinks

7 comments
  1. What do housing & Bitcoin have in common? Both exploded in value & became financialised assets that deliver capital gains far in excess of people’s ability to earn income from work, or from investment in the real economy & speculators are convinced that prices will continue to rise for ever. They won’t, of course.

  2. I’ve been hearing that interest and inflation is only going up, the housing bubble is not set to burst any time soon. Even with the ridiculous prices right now, it’s probably better to buy now rather than wait any longer. I was even told that it’s a terrible time to sell, wait if you’re selling but get a move on if you’re buying! Less than ideal market conditions as a result…

    I didn’t come up with this advice, it was told to me. I trust who told it to me. She’s a fairly successful business woman. As far as I remember she’s never been wrong about these things, she mentioned the 07 crash long before it was in the news. I hope she’s wrong.

  3. I think it’s an oversimplification to point to one thing and say that’s what is causing high house prices. Speculation from investment funds is playing a part, as is the cost of materials, land and labour.

    Playing down the lack of supply of housing is a sign of ignorance. Calling it stupid sounds agenda driven to me. Whether it’s because of vacant buildings or new homes not being built fast enough or a combination of the two, the fact that there aren’t enough places to rent and buy is fuelling a lot of the unsustainable prices we’re seeing.

    If the market cannot or will not provide housing that the average worker can afford, then it falls to the government to build homes and sell them or rent them to people at cost. There’s proof this can work. It just needs to be scaled up and we can deal with a major cause of the housing crisis.

  4. Saudi Arabia is building a giant city called Neom which is built in a line and will house millions of people.

    We can’t merge Coillte into the Dept of Agri.

  5. Correct, but it doesn’t mean we *shouldn’t* build more than 50k units a year. We just need to regulate how those properties make it into the hands of the residents.

  6. Institutional investors in real estate should be banned. People need to protest massively over this. Why should a bank be able to own 50,000 houses in Ireland to itself? Those are homes that people could own. Instead, they jack up the price and make it unlivable.

    Why is a single individual able to buy 30 homes and rent them out as a slumlord? Also should be illegal.

    Why is an investment firm able to do the same?

    Protest this! Get specific about the housing crisis. It would be solved over night if these practices were made illegal.

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