Euronews on the broken Irish property market

[Abhannmor]

Did anyone else see the Euronews segment on the property market here this morning? They certainly didn't pull any punches

There was an interview with a woman who has bought a canal boat to live in. This is quite a serious option now.

The commentary was in French but with English subtitles. People across Europe will see this . Our reputation for compassion and even common sense being trashed Good. We deserve it.
' Local people told us that successive governments have done nothing to relieve the situation , preferring the status quo' *

In conclusion they said they had asked the Irish government to comment but got no reply. Evictions now exceed those during the Great Hunger of the 1840s.
Bravo Euronews. You don't get this on RTÉ but foreign stations are not beholden to the Landlord Dáil.

• quoting from memory

But that's only viable short term for these lads , packed like sardines and sleeping in shifts. We did the same in London and Sydney. Try to save a bit - then offski...back home. There's a haulage firm near me that has East European drivers in mobile homes. It comes out of their wages of course. Everything works for the boss class doesn't it?

Exactly, we are back to the idea of workers/labourers cottages.

Except these aren't even actual houses, but caravans, or just a room in a house - so it's not like they could even raise a family there.

Indeed. Do as you're told or you'll be homeless as well as unemployed. There should be legislation against this kind of abuse. Tied cottages are so 18th Century.

We learnt all about the Land League at school. The struggle for Fair Rent and Fixity of Tenure. Oh those heartless English landlords. Now here we are back at square one - doing it to ourselves.

There's a housing crisis everywhere, not just Ireland. Did you not see the reports on housing in Portugal? Young people can't afford to live in Lisbon. It's inflation along with a rising population. Unfortunately the government can't guard against all these factors at the same time. I'm not an apologist for any particular political party, but they can't wave a magic wand. People need to be realistic too. I saw a report on RTE and a woman was complaining about private rents. Her occupation was part time actress and she was middle aged. Unfortunately people need to take some responsibility for themselves too and realise that they need to support themselves adequately. It is very tough at the moment but banging the drum about politicians is childish. The world is facing formidable obstacles and it's just starting to bite.

If, as I am reading, Sinn Fein is on course to be in Government after the next election, what will they do? Will they solve the housing problem do you think?

Seems to me that there is an endless pot to house refugees (which is a good thing), but not enough to house non refugees. Would that be correct? I believe Sinn Fein is very pro immigrant which is fine, as long as they have a parallel system for everyone else. Be interesting to see what happens.

This didn't just fall out of the sky in 2023 @Gizmostar . We had a crazy house price bubble from the 90s. A brief pause post crash - which was no use since so many had either lost their jobs or emigrated.

We learnt precisely 0 from that disastrous period. Now here we are again....all boasting and bantam strutting about our massive budget surplus and refusing to accept tax from multinationals.

No Long term thinking. 25 wasted years . What's the plan lads , we have record levels of homeless , hospitals at breaking point and a joke of a transport system. Oh , there's a lot of spare dosh so you will cut tax ahead of the election? Grand so , carry on as before. It won't be your kids emigrating.

Indeed, Ireland is hardly unique in grappling with this. I have friends in Prague and it is as bad there and they are on about half our salaries. We are a high price but also a high wage economy.

A factor which I don't think is highlighted enough is that there are real people, sometimes ourselves, sometimes family, friends and neighbours who are choosing to charge these astronomical rents. Cause 'the market'. People who inherited houses or who bought them at low prices aeons ago or whose mortgages are small. Irish people gouging other Irish people. There's a couple in our village, very nice people but they inherited a very basic 3 bedroomed house which they immediately put on the rental market for 1500/month, vastly beyond the means of most of the local young people. That was pure profit for them. That house is rented out to a non local couple on professional salaries. I think when it comes to the 'give 50 euro to X local charity' kind of generosity, Irish people are very generous but when it comes to decision making around our own personal finances or indeed around the broad thrust of how society is funded etc, we are actually quite cut throat and venal. I got mine and fuck the rest. I got my house valued recently and it had increased far in excess of what I expected. The auctioneer couldn't understand my lack of delight. But what's the point if my own children, their friends, every other young and not so young person and most especially the lower paid workers who keep the whole show on the road in area like retail, driving, care work, etc can't afford to rent our buy? What was the Celtic Tiger but a giant ponzi scheme, largely perpetuated by Irish people. Politicians may be a 'landlord class' but if their values are wrong, they don't have to look far to find plenty of other Irish people exactly like them.

when we moved back to Ireland we were both working and that was the only way we could afford to rent the place we were in. I put my kids in the local school which was filled to the brim and had lost all their facilities due to having to squeeze kids in everywhere. The Board of Education refused more accommodation on the grounds that it had capital funding issues which was unfathomable really given the govt boasts about how rich it is. On top of this , the school couldn’t get supply teachers because the supply teachers couldn’t afford to live in the area. There were teachers leaving to go abroad because of the price of houses. The area needed more housing and infrastructure but there were bans on new planning permissions being granted - how is that the answer? No forward planning at all.
I then lost my job - sacked on the spot with no reason or notice (no idea about the employment laws) by the company that brought me and my family to Ireland in the first place. It was pure ruthless and nothing I’d ever experienced in my profession in the 17 years I’ve been working in it.
Then the Landlord pushed the rent up by 15% even though the house is in a RPZ. It seems like everything was against us and it was difficult to make things work. It was so disappointing that after 17 years away my coming “home” was so negative - it wasn’t helped by the greed of the Landlord taking advantage of a dire situation. I know people need to make money but the greed was hard to comprehend. Then when we were leaving the Landlord tried to screw us over by claiming we owed them money for maintenance of the house - a Landlord we know owned about 20 houses across Dublin and was a millionaire. It was really hard pill to swallow. I guess it happens everywhere but I found the environment there let people take advantage of others and it’s really hard to make things work. It’s such a shame because the country doesn’t need to be like this - there is more than enough room there for more people - the #Irelandisfull is because the Govt has failed the country so badly and has allowed the rich to get richer and the poor poorer. No where is perfect I get that but surely a country purportedly as rich as it is should not be having this issue. People are leaving again and people are putt off from returning and the vicious cycle starts all over again.

@Gizmostar on your point of people adequately providing for themselves - as an example my husband and I both moved back last year with our kids. Both professionals earning high wages but our rent was €4000 per month for a family home plus bills on top. That meant for us to just cover our rent one of us had to be earning nearly €100k per year before tax. This wasn’t even in the centre of Dublin. So we were both working adequately to try to sustain living in an inadequate housing system. The only reason that has been allowed to happen is not because because people are not adequately providing for themselves but purely because the dire lack of supply of housing and the environment that allows multi house ownership and the idea that a house is an asset and not a home. There should be deterrents on multiple house ownership, the Govt/ planning authorities need to have urgent expedition of affordable/social housing, they need to prioritise infrastructure and services - if Ireland with all its money cannot do this then the rest of the world has no hope. What has happened is that the greed has allowed for little to nothing to happen in the past ten years to change the housing situation because their is no incentive from those in power to make change because they are making so much money from the situation. And yes, this included family and friends of mine who own more than one house and exploit the dire situation to line their own pockets. People are working hard and earning lots of money but still can’t afford to rent / buy.

I'm really gutted for you @JustAMum2003 and your experience confirms my own and the points made by others like @theleafandnotthetree .

Reminds me of a conversation I had with my uncle decades ago about my grandad. What a hard life he had. Wounded in WW1 then later fighting the Tans , sleeping in barns etc.
But why did he bother , not one of his family can afford to live in the place , said my uncle. Makes me so angry reading about your situation. What kind of people are these rack renting landlords. Have they no self respect? Or basic decency. You'd think theyd appreciate the struggle you are making to live in and rear children in your own country. Such patriots.

One of my sons friends inherited enough money to put a deposit on a home and she asked him if he knew someone trustworthy to have as a tenant.
' Yes , me!' he replied . ' I'm fed up sofa surfing '
'Aw. But I couldn't rent to you - I'd hate to to exploit you' she said

' Well here's an idea then , don't exploit me. Just charge me a reasonable rent?'
But no ...it was all ' I've got to pay my mortgage blah ...'
And she has all the right progressive credentials.

Then we had the Phillipines government advising nurses not to take employment in Ireland because rents are too high. Ugh....

@Abhannmor thanks for your kind words - it means a lot. It was and still is very hard to comprehend what happened to us - naively I thought after 17 years away (I went to uni in Ireland and had to emigrate for work) that bringing my and my husband’s profession back to Ireland would be welcomed. We got involved in the schools, clubs and community- giving loads of help but everywhere we turned it felt like it was against us as it felt like an environment out to make a quick buck (“before the next crash mentality”) and little to no help when the times got bad when I lost my job. Make hay and all that at the expense of others. We have returned to where we came from and even though it’s hard having to accept what happened (personally I felt kicked on the way out), it’s easier because we can afford a house here to make our kids feel more settled and I don’t need to earn nearly €100k just to cover rent. It feels such a shame that this has happened - maybe we were just unlucky but I have heard similar stories. I hope it does get sorted some way or the other because as you say our ancestors fought long and hard for their future and it just feels at the moment a bit set up against the future people.

@Abhannmor and sorry to hear about your son’s predicament. I hope he gets sorted with somewhere to live and can feel settled . There’s nothing worse than the anxiety of being unsettled and not belonging and knowing where your future lies. Take care

I just don't understand the greed of some Irish landlords. It makes me so
Their ancestors would be spinning in their graves with shame.
Not that long ago the Irish were at the mercy of greedy, rackrenting and absentee landlords.
Surely in our folk memory we remember and couldn't possibly do this to people.
But some obviously can. Fe*kers

I don't think the situation is as simple as is being represented here.
Small landlords are leaving the market in droves. 40% of residental sales in the last quarter of 2022 were landlords selling up and leaving the rental market. Why would they do that if they're all earning vast profits for very little work (as people apparently think)?

Actually I think part of the problem is that we now have fewer of the small landlords with links to the local community and we've seen the growth of institutions buying vast amounts of our rental stock, Ires Reit etc. Small landlords pay huge amounts of tax, the institutions don't for reasons I'm not clever enough to understand.

Lots of pension funds invest in the rental market by the way. Anyone who has a pension should check where their own money is being invested before condeming landlords, because the chances are they are one too, albeit indirectly.

@JustAMum2003 I am a lurker and I don't normally comment at MN but I felt compelled to chime in. I am so sorry to hear about the truly abysmal treatment you received when you tried to return home to Ireland.

What happened in your workplace is not only unethical but also a terrible betrayal - but sadly, it does not surprise me. From what I have experienced myself, and heard second and third hand from others, this kind of bullying is now the norm in many Irish workplaces, and has gotten considerably worse in the last 5+ years. How can adults act this way???

Turning a blind eye to the suffering of those around us in every aspect of life is now normalised - and even seen as a strength(!) - in Ireland. How did we get to this point as a culture?

We have a very high rate of suicide and antidepressant use (I wonder why? Hmmmm...).

Daily I struggle to understand what has happened to the Irish people as a whole to turn so many of them into cold, selfish, greedy zombies toward not only strangers but toward friends and loved ones, including those like yourselves who were giving and caring toward your local community; I am on the fence about leaving here myself for these very reasons. I should also add, I would have loved to have had you as a coworker or neighbour, since there are so few like you over here anymore 💐

I believe small landlords are leaving the market in droves; there are way too many risks attached to being a small landlord in Ireland. Government policy appears to be designed to drive them out of the market. The bad landlords get all the press and the good ones get tarred with the same brush. I believe this is by design.

@Abhannmor You hit the nail on the head. So many Irish people love to point to our government as bring corrupt and greedy, but I believe this is to distract from the three fingers pointing back at themselves. Every day when I see examples of this selfishness I ask myself "what the heck is wrong with people?"

@theleafandnotthetree I agree 100% with you - the greed and myopia are ubiquitous in Ireland. I believe it's largely a product of social engineering to make people feel secure and superior to others because "my house is now worth xxxxx" It's like a powerful drug that causes them to turn a blind eye to any form of adversity and human suffering around them and prevents from seeing life in Ireland as it really is. And I say this as a long-term homeowner like yourself!