To extend the eviction ban or not — that was the question being hotly debated recently. (The ban’s planned expiry date is March 31). The ideal(istic) solution being to never evict anyone and have secure, permanent tenancies with affordable rents. But it’s also simplistic, because landlords aren’t indentured to prop up the State’s delivery of social housing with their private property.
Landlords aren’t obliged to provide housing. They rent out property to get a return on their investment. Or a pension, if they’re ‘mom and pop’ investors. If that return falls too low or managing their investment becomes too onerous, they walk. And when they do, rental supply shrinks.
And god, we appear to hate them for it. People Before Profit TD Mick Barry advised renters to resist evictions and fight to stay on site. It seems to me that the far left views housing as a form of class warfare, where those of the landlord ‘class’ are to be vilified simply for owning a property and renters should have the right to stay in that property, irrespective of whether they pay rent, engage in anti-social behaviour, or the landlord needs to move into it.
The media and many politicians use a certain rhetoric when discussing housing. Large-scale landlords, the kind we claimed we wanted before they arrived, are referred to as vultures and cuckoos. Landlords in general are spoken of as if they were the aristocracy in pre-Revolutionary France, abusing the peasants. It’s the appropriation of oppression. In Ireland, the majority of us are middle class-ish. Landlords are generally ordinary people like butchers and publicans.
They worked hard to buy often one property to give them a bit of security in their old age. Many got caught in the crash with negative equity and became trapped as landlords because they couldn’t sell. They share the same burdens, like mortgages and cost-of-living hikes, as the rest of us.
But within the far left — which is never dissected or seen as a societal threat in the way the far right is, despite them having an equally scant regard for democracy — there are many who believe people should be allowed to break the rule of law, seize property and claim it as their own, in flagrant disregard for other people’s assets, values or constitutional rights.
So ask yourself, are you too hoping for class warfare? Where the squeezed middle is expected to give away its right to hold property, in the pursuit of a socialist utopia? Or do we need some balance? If we can’t indenture landlords in the punitive manner some would like, then we need to work with them to encourage them to continue to offer property to rent.
I know ordinary people who have a rental property they’ve left vacant rather than renting it, because they fear there’s a bias against landlords. They aren’t vultures; they’re your newsagent, your plumber or your kid’s teacher.
The faux narrative adopted by populists is of an Ireland peopled by the oppressed, preyed upon by the elite. This is not a reflection of fact. There are many more in the middle than on either end of the scale. Demonising landlords has done little except drive them out of the market. But who cares about that when there’s so much right-on political capital to be made by the appealing ‘landlords, bad; tenants, good’ schtick?
I’m of the opinion that once a landlord rents a home, there should never be any no fault evictions… want to get out of landlording? sell the house with tenants or wait til tenants move of their own volition. Thats your investment risk.
There are no risk free investments and tenants, lives are held to ransom in Ireland when they never know how long they can stay in place..will they be evicted, will they find somewhere else, will they be homeless, can they commit to having more things than they might be able to take with them in an eviction..or pets..what about having kids?
Being a tenant in Ireland, means constantly feeling stressed and worried because there’s no garantuee your home..and yes..it is a tenants home while they rent it..won’t be taken from them, with no fault of their own. Do you buy that new mattress to help your back pain.. you wont be able to take it with you.. you could be out money at a landlords whim.
A landlord isn’t losing their investment if they can’t kick people out…as I said, they can always sell up **with** tenants, if they need to.
Tenants are human too and deserve protections and security and stability.
edit: here comes pro landlord downvotes, whi think tenants are second class citizdns that exist just to secure the landleeches investment
All fair but the idea that landlords are the squeezed middle is laughable and wrong.
The squeezed middle is now in its 30s and still housesharing or living at home.
Landlords are not the squeezed middle. Fucking dope 🤣
Imagine acting like the person who owns multiple homes is “the squeezed middle”, and not the people in their late 20s/30s, paying a grand to rent a room in a shared house.
These people are so detached from reality…..
Are big landlords paying independant journalists to run a narrative that all landlords are just people who moved home to their morhers and are renting because they can’t afford the mortgage.
You don’t want them to lose the house do you. They put a deposit of five months of your rent down for the place, if they were to lose that they would become rent losers just like you. You don’t want that do ye. Your son that you gave money for a deposit becoming a rent loser. All of us here at First Landlord Bank Incorporated Vulture Funds and Sons are just like you. We are the squeezed middle.
on the continent a landlord might own a whole block of apartments or those continental style apartment houses so its a permanent business. Whereas in Ireland- a lot are amateur or accidental. with maybe one or 2. Im in the accidental group and rent out out 1 apartment (for well below market price) but then I’d be very picky about who I rent to. In a few years one of my kids might want to use it or in the future I might want to use it and sell my house.
If Ciara Kelly is coming it to defend you, you should realise you are probably the baddies
Ciara Kelly is an awful dose. Trying her best to emulate her auld buddy George Hook with right wing shock jock nonsense.
The squeezed middle are families where parents are in their 50s, kids in college who don’t qualify for any grants at all, one house that they live in and still paying the mortgage on.
Lol. Remember lads, the systematic upward transfer of wealth isn’t class warfare, but complaining about it is.
A cynic might say the concept of the ‘squeezed middle’ was invented to distract from the similarities between the poorest and those who would otherwise qualify as middle class
Ciara Kelly enough said
Yes well done, turn the middle class against the working class so we’re distracted from the heinous acts of the truly wealthy.
14 comments
To extend the eviction ban or not — that was the question being hotly debated recently. (The ban’s planned expiry date is March 31). The ideal(istic) solution being to never evict anyone and have secure, permanent tenancies with affordable rents. But it’s also simplistic, because landlords aren’t indentured to prop up the State’s delivery of social housing with their private property.
Landlords aren’t obliged to provide housing. They rent out property to get a return on their investment. Or a pension, if they’re ‘mom and pop’ investors. If that return falls too low or managing their investment becomes too onerous, they walk. And when they do, rental supply shrinks.
And god, we appear to hate them for it. People Before Profit TD Mick Barry advised renters to resist evictions and fight to stay on site. It seems to me that the far left views housing as a form of class warfare, where those of the landlord ‘class’ are to be vilified simply for owning a property and renters should have the right to stay in that property, irrespective of whether they pay rent, engage in anti-social behaviour, or the landlord needs to move into it.
The media and many politicians use a certain rhetoric when discussing housing. Large-scale landlords, the kind we claimed we wanted before they arrived, are referred to as vultures and cuckoos. Landlords in general are spoken of as if they were the aristocracy in pre-Revolutionary France, abusing the peasants. It’s the appropriation of oppression. In Ireland, the majority of us are middle class-ish. Landlords are generally ordinary people like butchers and publicans.
They worked hard to buy often one property to give them a bit of security in their old age. Many got caught in the crash with negative equity and became trapped as landlords because they couldn’t sell. They share the same burdens, like mortgages and cost-of-living hikes, as the rest of us.
But within the far left — which is never dissected or seen as a societal threat in the way the far right is, despite them having an equally scant regard for democracy — there are many who believe people should be allowed to break the rule of law, seize property and claim it as their own, in flagrant disregard for other people’s assets, values or constitutional rights.
So ask yourself, are you too hoping for class warfare? Where the squeezed middle is expected to give away its right to hold property, in the pursuit of a socialist utopia? Or do we need some balance? If we can’t indenture landlords in the punitive manner some would like, then we need to work with them to encourage them to continue to offer property to rent.
I know ordinary people who have a rental property they’ve left vacant rather than renting it, because they fear there’s a bias against landlords. They aren’t vultures; they’re your newsagent, your plumber or your kid’s teacher.
The faux narrative adopted by populists is of an Ireland peopled by the oppressed, preyed upon by the elite. This is not a reflection of fact. There are many more in the middle than on either end of the scale. Demonising landlords has done little except drive them out of the market. But who cares about that when there’s so much right-on political capital to be made by the appealing ‘landlords, bad; tenants, good’ schtick?
I’m of the opinion that once a landlord rents a home, there should never be any no fault evictions… want to get out of landlording? sell the house with tenants or wait til tenants move of their own volition. Thats your investment risk.
There are no risk free investments and tenants, lives are held to ransom in Ireland when they never know how long they can stay in place..will they be evicted, will they find somewhere else, will they be homeless, can they commit to having more things than they might be able to take with them in an eviction..or pets..what about having kids?
Being a tenant in Ireland, means constantly feeling stressed and worried because there’s no garantuee your home..and yes..it is a tenants home while they rent it..won’t be taken from them, with no fault of their own. Do you buy that new mattress to help your back pain.. you wont be able to take it with you.. you could be out money at a landlords whim.
A landlord isn’t losing their investment if they can’t kick people out…as I said, they can always sell up **with** tenants, if they need to.
Tenants are human too and deserve protections and security and stability.
edit: here comes pro landlord downvotes, whi think tenants are second class citizdns that exist just to secure the landleeches investment
All fair but the idea that landlords are the squeezed middle is laughable and wrong.
The squeezed middle is now in its 30s and still housesharing or living at home.
Landlords are not the squeezed middle. Fucking dope 🤣
Imagine acting like the person who owns multiple homes is “the squeezed middle”, and not the people in their late 20s/30s, paying a grand to rent a room in a shared house.
These people are so detached from reality…..
Are big landlords paying independant journalists to run a narrative that all landlords are just people who moved home to their morhers and are renting because they can’t afford the mortgage.
You don’t want them to lose the house do you. They put a deposit of five months of your rent down for the place, if they were to lose that they would become rent losers just like you. You don’t want that do ye. Your son that you gave money for a deposit becoming a rent loser. All of us here at First Landlord Bank Incorporated Vulture Funds and Sons are just like you. We are the squeezed middle.
on the continent a landlord might own a whole block of apartments or those continental style apartment houses so its a permanent business. Whereas in Ireland- a lot are amateur or accidental. with maybe one or 2. Im in the accidental group and rent out out 1 apartment (for well below market price) but then I’d be very picky about who I rent to. In a few years one of my kids might want to use it or in the future I might want to use it and sell my house.
If Ciara Kelly is coming it to defend you, you should realise you are probably the baddies
Ciara Kelly is an awful dose. Trying her best to emulate her auld buddy George Hook with right wing shock jock nonsense.
The squeezed middle are families where parents are in their 50s, kids in college who don’t qualify for any grants at all, one house that they live in and still paying the mortgage on.
Lol. Remember lads, the systematic upward transfer of wealth isn’t class warfare, but complaining about it is.
A cynic might say the concept of the ‘squeezed middle’ was invented to distract from the similarities between the poorest and those who would otherwise qualify as middle class
Ciara Kelly enough said
Yes well done, turn the middle class against the working class so we’re distracted from the heinous acts of the truly wealthy.