David McWilliams: Without a rapidly expanding supply of houses, the number of newcomers means prices can’t stabilise
by Reaver_XIX
David McWilliams: Without a rapidly expanding supply of houses, the number of newcomers means prices can’t stabilise
by Reaver_XIX
24 comments
People were called fascist Nazis for holding this opinion 2-3 years ago.
When even McWilliams is saying it you know something is up.
Where do people (open-border advocates) expect the net-immigration figures akin to the city of Galway to live? in the shrubs?
Why does construction capacity need to be a hard constraint? Is that not something that we can scale up with investment, and, dare I say, immigration?
Also seems slightly odd to talk in such depth about the economics of housing and not mention investment funds?
I still don’t understand why we can’t attract people with building trade skills to the country, we have the money to do it.
For the first time a man that was extremely pro immigration now said it needs to be limited to certain jobs if you’re from outside the EU and the UK.
Easiest way to limit it is to up the minimum salary requirements for non EU or UK citizens from €30k a year to €44k a year the median income.
That will up the salary for most jobs with a third level requirement in Ireland improving the distribution of wealth.
For a man who claims that data is important, the analysis in the article is shoddy at best.
Every time the topic of housing comes up it’s incredibly popular in terms of comment engagement. Meaning the Irish people feel very strongly about their thoughts on the matter. And many ideas are touted with varying degrees of realism and viability. Many would require an entire shift in government policy and occasionally constitutional amendment. But that does not make them ideas worth disregarding entirely, or ideas that should die in the comment threads. We need more voices heard at government level
In general discourse on social media is much more creative than anything we are hearing out of government, whose only modus operandi is “which policies will kick the can down the road while ensuring house prices continue to rise?”
And public discourse for the large majority disagrees with the approach of government (the actual decisions they make, not their election promises, which are of course billed in the most flattering possible light)
It’s time for a citizens assembly on housing. The people’s voice needs to be heard at oireachtas level not just TDs, of whom the 35% are landlords (2% is the proportion of landlords in the general population) and while I can’t find stats on how many TDs own their primary residence with or without a mortgage, I suspect the vast majority, pushing 100%, are home owners. 66% of the general population live in homes they own (and of that 66% the split is about 50:50 with/without a mortgage).
But 1/3 of the population live in accommodation owned by somebody else, and that number is rising. And this 1 out of every 3 citizens do not have representation for their interests at government level, at least not with a personal stake
Let citizens have our say and put it to the government to either accept public input or reject what we have to say.
This year so far we’re at a record low of housing commencement notices since lockdown of just 6325 too, so unless immigration levels are dropped very significantly compared to previous years, which so far is not the case, we’ll be in a much worse position next year than we already are in this year.
The UK had their record immigration rate last year. Ireland’s was 50% higher than theirs, per capita. For more than the last decade, according to the Savillis report, Ireland have only built 1 house for every 4 people added to the population, almost exclusively through immigration. The levels of mismanagement and imbalance between both the housing and immigration systems is absolutely insane.
If this doesn’t stop, people are going to be pushed into poverty and home ownership or even renting will be unattainable for a majority of people.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/historic-low-just-6325-house-commencement-notices-this-year-the-lowest-rate-since-lockdown/a1138348502.html
https://www.savills.ie/blog/article/365469/ireland-articles/irish-population-growth-exceeds-new-home-delivery.aspx
Hold the press supply and demand shocker.
Why doesn’t the planning authority issue a group of plans with pre approval similar to the old bungalow bliss book. It can specify what build is approved for particular development zones. Surely that could speed up the approval process somewhat.
It always amazes me that people don’t understand basic concepts such as supply and demand.
It’s always been a supply and demand issue.
If you increase demand prices go up.
If you increase supply prices will go down.
So it’s OK for a posh economics pundit with floppy hair to say there’s too many people in the country…
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What an odd way to phrase a combination of two factors as the fault of immigrants
Sure we can’t even connect the recently built apartment blocks to the bloody electric grid at the moment
A common sense approach given that supply is dead in the water.
Continues policy tweaks and amendments have played havoc over the last few years. A planning process that shows no signs of speeding up efficiency but don’t worry all is not lost they’ve rebranded An Bord Pleanála to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
Infrastructure constraints across the country meaning water, wastewater and electricity are limited and in need of upgrading before any future developments can be connected.
Development finance out of reach to SME developers bar the HBFI and at that they’ve become overtly cautious unless the developer has an exit agreement with an LA/AHB for social housing prior to putting a shovel in the ground.
Add to the above, that if an SME is able to get financing then they run into labour shortages. Not an issue for the large scale developers/contractors but definitely an issue for SMEs, which leads to building programmes being significantly delayed.
Construction and development costs make it unviable to build homes at scale in certain counties for the private market, Longford being an example.
We need to reduce our annual immigration burden to non-EU individuals so that we can actually catch up on our infrastructural deficiencies otherwise we will continue to see the current crisis exacerbate.
Tax the vulture fund rental income out of sight so they have to start selling off.
If you want to know how to solve it, follow Rory Hearne
McWilliams stating the obvious again.
we don’t want them to stabilise they’re unachievable we want them to go down 🥴
The government doesn’t and didn’t want prices to stabilize anyway.
Wow , and he’s paid all that money to tell us the obvious!!
No shit. People have been saying this for years but have been called racist for being able to do primary school maths.
Why would house prices ever go down?
David McWilliams pointing out what he thinks are consequences, without realising it’s actually the plan.
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