Owner left 43 homes empty for two years to avoid rent caps and sell for higher price

36 comments
  1. Should be something you’d be terrified to do, for fear of serious sanctions coming down from the authorities.

    The loopholes to allow this kind of investment were very much a feature of the government’s legislation and are why the rent caps haven’t worked

  2. When people come on here and argue against certain ‘obvious’ policies and get shouted down as government shills, they are ofter warning that these policies create a perverse incentive and will actually make the situation worse by reducing supply.

    This isn’t exactly a textbook example of incentivising the opposite of your intended goal, but it’s certainly in the ballpark.

  3. How the fuck is housing policy in this country so dysfunctional? We seem to lead Europe in being the biggest guagers for a place to live

  4. This is why even San Francisco allows rent to reset to market rate when the tenant changes. Rent caps in Ireland encourage rbis type of bad behavior.

  5. I’ve seen people insist I and others were imagining this being done.

    Is the new line going to be that this chap is the only one who thought of it…?

  6. It’s crazy but it’s a side affect of all the new rental laws the government brought out. The property is worth 12 to 15 times rental income. If it’s in a rent pressure zone the only legal way to increase the rent is major refurbishment which makes it 25 percent bigger. A massive energy upgrade and change of layout but the rtb might decide its not enough. Or don’t rent it for two years. And it pays them to leave it empty. The flip side of this is why there is nothing to rent. And why so many are selling. If SF introduced indefinite tenancies 100s of k will be wiped of property values. Better to sell now.

  7. I was walking past an apartment building yesterday in Bray, and I noticed one of the apartments still has a big Christmas tree illuminated with bright white Led lights. Weird. I wonder if it was an Airbnb left empty since Christmas.

  8. Im sorry but they should make the following law:

    the more houses you own the more % of taxes of rent you should have, to the point it even surpasses 100% (housing should not be viewed as an asset but as a foundation to a stable life)

  9. Nobody should be able to stack up that amount of homes purely by getting others to pay for them. Every house after primary residence and 1 rental should get taxed higher and higher rates to the point that this shit is wiped out permanently

  10. It’s a great example of how the current laws encourages people not to rent out their spaces though.

    These are money men and people expect them to rent out of the goodness of their hearts? The system encourages you to tear out your own heart

  11. On this week’s episode of “Great Moments in Unintended Consequences”, weird laws that financially incentivize keeping houses empty, passed with the best of intentions, leads owners to … keep their houses empty. Who could have predicted? Only a competent economist! Or an accountant! And where could you find one of them. Certainly not in the Irish Government.

  12. In Portugal, the government have recently brought in a law where if you own a second home inside an urban area, and it’s liveable and unoccupied for more than 1 year, you are obliged/forced to rent it out. Yet to be put into practice but food for thought

  13. Well yeah. Our incentives are messed up. Just wait until they say the derelict sites grant is open to landlords where the premises is vacant for two years. Lose what, 40k rent and get 80k grant to renovate…I

  14. but people on here told me this never happens and that every apartment and house in the country is full 100% and the only empty ones on are on Achill Island.

    Next I’ll be told we don’t need to keep building office buildings in Dublin when we have hundreds of finished office buildings.

  15. People wanted rent caps despite the overwhelming evidence from Berlin and other countries that they do not make the situation better as they stifle supply because it creates vacuum accommodation like this that sits idle.

    This is the end result of that policy. Reap what you sew.

  16. That law is largely good, and largely necessary, but has awful negative externalities this is one. But there are others. It is very hard to make a rent control law that doesnt either get abused or lead to some bad outcomes.

    My OH (American) recently asked me would we move to Berlin for a while. It didn’t work for us at that moment so I asked why. She said he friend was leaving and had an awesome rent controlled apartment she could pass over to us. It’d be 800 a month, two bedroom, beautiful, and her friend had it to herself.

    She didn’t mean any harm by it, and hadn’t really thought about it, but it was demonstrating a clear problem with rent control. When rent control gets too strong apartments get passed between mates instead of on the open market. And people stay in homes that are larger than they need because they can’t afford to downsize. You can’t make hard and fast rules to solve these, but any administration body that solves on a case to case basis gets clogged. It’s a shit show.

    Too many bad actors in housing imo. Ban landlords.

  17. “stupid government policy leads to reduction in available housing during housing crisis. This landlord is just one example.”

    A headline which makes you think about the actual problem.

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