Solving the HOUSING CRISIS in Ireland

Episode 137 - In this video I explore the various solutions being applied in different European markets to provide for their social housing requirements. Netherlands leads the way with Austria in second place and Ireland languishing way behind. What do you think? Leave a comment below...

An audio version of this podcast can be found on Behind The Facade Episode 137. Can the Housing Crisis in Ireland actually be fixed?

PLEASE NOTE: The discussion has been broken out into Chapters/Timestamps allowing you to jump to the sections you may like to watch first

Check out Gavin's other channel – @GavinJGallagher

Connect on social media @gavinjgallagher

Chapters/Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
2:36 Quick Shout Out
3:17 Movember Update
3:39 Fixing the housing crisis
4:07 Lets focus on solutions
5:11 The history of social housing in Ireland
7:37 Various models being adopted across Europe
7:51 Rebuilding post-WWII Britain
9:02 Independent non-profit organisations
9:44 Public sector waste
14:45 Private sector challenges
18:55 Government performance to date
22:51 Learning from The Netherlands and Austria
23:03 Potential solutions
24:42 (1) Capital grant schemes
28:49 (2) Subsidised lending
30:32 (3) Discounted land provision
31:53 (4) Fiscal benefit support
34:27 (5) Housing allowance payments HAP
36:49 What about the low hanging fruit?
40:47 What do you think?
41:09 Shout out to @shaneflemingre
42:06 Join Behind The Facade Community
42:15 Gavin's Website
42:32 Cool Theme Music

#realestate #realestateinvesting #realestateinvestor

[frankellymusic]

Hello there. All very interesting. A peculiar twist in the tale of failed government policy around private residential property was recently bought to my attention by an estate agent. My very good tenants moved back to uk in January 2024 and thereby vacated my property. I had not raised the rent from the initial amount agreed in 2016 because I was happy to have great tenants. However, now that the property had become available again, I was advised to leave it vacant for two years or AirBnB it during that period so that I would be free to charge market rents at the end of the two years. Also, and this is the interesting bit, I was advised to charge as much as the market would tolerate for two reasons; 1. To accrue the maximum return 2. In the event that my circumstances changed, for example, say in 5 years time and I wished to vacate my tenants, they would be more likely to vacate if the rental was high and there were more properties within their budget for them to move into. In other words, if I charged them a lower rental rate, that represented exceptional value in 5 years time, they would be much less likely to vacate into a rental market that may be even harder for them at that time. In the circumstances I’m another property owner deciding to leave my property empty rather than take the risk of renting. Policy is so skewed in favour of tenants, good and bad, that the rental landscape has become too treacherous to contemplate for property owners when the option arises. I believe that this is down to the conflict between the two very uncomfortable bedfellows, politics and economics. What would be the right thing to do economically would be a political hot potato and so we drag on deeper into out crisis due to lack of political will to do what will fix the issues. Frank

[aviewoftown]

This topic needs even more attention. Lives are being put in limbo when you can't find or buy a home

[frenk_expat]

I think you forgot to mention automation and more modern ways to build houses, so you don't need to import more labour and also high rises that could house many more people on land already owned by the state.

[paulmccormack]

maybe making it easier for people who have a reasonable size plot of land that their existing house is on to build 2 bed granny flat style acomodation that can be rented out, or at least easier for extended family to have their own little place on existing family site

[biulaimh]

Those Aer Lingus nixers sound like HSE consultants. We need a Ryanair version of the HSE.

[johnnyocvinylrecords]

Really good channel and super that you are addressing this... am a UK resident but would like to own an investment property in Leinster. Need a 50% deposit to get going. 200k cash. Renters need rental property but not easy for small time investors to provide that type of property unless very wealthy

[Bundy]

Gavin, Australia has a similar problem. BTW I enjoy your videos, they're extremely informative, thank you.

[parikoaladashvili]

Not all Ukrainians are the problem. Moreover, we can be a part of a solution. It took me two years to register with the Irish Medical Council. The amount of negligence, red tape and absolute absence of responsibility I had to deal with is insane. I know a lot of people who have already acquired certificates to work in different industries, often on ones where the demand is insane, and they still can't find a job due to corruption and inefficiency of the system. The majority is willing to work and contribute, yet everything is done to keep us on welfare so the politicians could trim the money. It doesn't help us, it doesn't help the Irish and it puts a lot of pressure and possibility for conflict.

[biulaimh]

It is government policy to keep house prices inflated. In other words, they borrowed and spent 200 billion euro re-inflating the bubble that popped following the 2008 credit crunch. Now they are terrified of anything that might cause house prices to fall because it will not only mean they blew 200 billion euro and have nothing to show for it but it will also mean the inflation that went into housing will be released like a dam breach on the rest of the economy. Yet that is precisely what the economy needs. Such an event will de-distort the housing market, making the construction of new homes more affordable, making existing housing stock more affordable and in short it will solve the housing crisis without the need to spend anything on social and affordable housing. If the market crashes, housing will become affordable all by itself. So what could cause the housing market to crash? One way would be if the government did what it doesn`t want to do, i.e. removing the legal impediments to the swift sale of houses in default. Removing the cement levy from cement. Bringing back the stricter lending standards that they compromised following the rise in interest rates by the ECB, and so on. The other way is a reckoning in the bond markets and/orstock markets along with a Trump victory in the US Presidential election which could trigger a spate of new legislation in that country, the upshot of which would see a mass exodus of multinationals from Ireland back to the US. If that were to happen, the only thing the Irish government might be able to do would be to persuade the multinationals to render their Irish operations separate Irish companies, with new brand names for the purposes of evading US law. The premises are owned by the IDA and the staff are already here so if the multinationals were not interested, it may be possible in some cases for these businesses to continue to operated just as western owned businesses in Russia continued after the sanctions and counter sanctions came into play. Furthermore, Ireland could join BRICS, there is no downside to that if western economies start collapsing. It would still be a shock to the economy of course but there will be no avoiding that. Either way, a major downturn will overwhelm the government`s ability to keep the housing market rigged. Finally, the government will never build enough social housing, not because they can`t but because if they did, it would lower the demand for houses on the market and that is not what the government wants. They want house prices to keep going up.

[nelkfullsend]

We had 50 years of social housing from the 1930s to the 1980s

[theshapeupmentor]

I see that gov are now srambling to house refugees by building modular homes etc. Thats great to help people who are clearly in need but cannot help wonder why they didn't scamble to do this years ago in the housing crisis too. Modular homes are great by the looks of it.

[seamuscork]

Lower any and all government levies and taxes on building materials, lower council fees for building... I am building in west waterford where there is no water no sewer and roads barley maintained and I have to pay waterford council 3500 or maybe more just to build on my own property... also let's have more grants for solar panels and small wind turbines instead of trying to destroy the landscape with huge wind farms...

[seamuscork]

Going from 55 percent public housing to 9 percent means the people of ireland got wealthier and learned to take care of themselves