Il governo avrà bisogno di finanziamenti internazionali per consegnare un obiettivo abitativo di 60.000 all’anno, afferma il ministro

So? Go for it.

Government: “We can’t cut tax because the shortfall would have to come from elsewhere.”

Government: *Declares billions in surplus tax each year*

This is paving the way to get rid of the rent cap.

It will be argued (accurately in my opinion) that because international investors will want to/expect to make returns on their investments they will be reluctant to invest into a country where they cannot adjust the rents upwards to account for the extra costs/inflation.

The Rent cap Should have been done away with years ago, I suspect if it had been the current problems wouldn’t be as bad as they are now. It has created a two-tier rental market, people who were already in houses and below market value rents will do anything to keep the current system whereas new people who cannot find houses to rent because of lack of supply want things to be rectified.

In almost every other country in the world were similar measures were engaged they were eventually done away with because of lack of supply from houses not being built.

The government at the start of the term and won’t be facing an election for a couple of years, if it’s going to happen it’s going to happen now. If there was an election next couple of months time there is not a hope in hell that they would do it because of voter backlash in the short term.

The academic thinking suggests that at supply goes up prices will fall. But I suspect that won’t happen because new demand seems to be increasing exponentially.

It would upset some people if I were to point out directly one of the main causes behind this new demand so I will leave it to the readers imaginations.

Suddenly a wild Chinese man appears……

If only we had built up like 40 years experience at attracting capital

Love the way they decided *not* to avail of basically interest free capital when interest rates were negative to do…anything, and now they’ve come to this conclusion when they’re up again. Utter incompetent bastards.

1) Deal with land value (site value tax), increase competition in the the building materials sector (create more competition, challenge CRH, for example), stop delaying electricity projects, get water & wastewater problems sorted ASAP.

2) Bring in construction workers from low-wage countries on 12-month visas.

3) Find the balance between landlord / tenant rights:
– Tenants should enjoy more certainty around tenure, minimum accommodation standards should be high, lots of notice required before tenancies can end, etc.
– Speed up evictions in situations where rent has not been paid. The single biggest reason landlords prefer short-term lets to long term tenants is because the eviction process can take anything between 9-18 months. That is 9+ months of mortgage repayments etc without any income on the property, and it will never be recouped.

4) Sort out the fucking planning system. 6 months decision time for planning with no recourse to courts. Simplify it.

That is it.

Remove the limiting factors around site availability, reduce the land costs, challenge monopolies in the construction sector, bring in temporary labour, and create balanced tenant & landlord rights. International capital would be drawn to this environment.

Counterintuitively, I actually think international finance is part of the problem

Too much capital is flowing into an at-capacity construction sector and a constrained housing market as an asset investment expecting the same returns as if invested in productive enterprise and competing with bonds, etc

It also directs labour and supplies into luxury developments (highest return)

What we actually need is a Government with some balls that will front up the cost in the form of public debt, which is far cheaper than international finance, and which will stop frivolous developments (hotels, luxury apartments) for a time in favour of forcing labour supply into things we actually need (basic housing and essential infrastructure)

Isn’t is miraculous how smoothly they shift from “This is a complex problem that can’t be solved by throwing money at it” during years of 0.00% ECB rates to “We can solve this problem but we’ll need money to throw at it” now that cash is scarce on the ground. Absolute scum run this country, just covering their backs until the pension fills up.

Minster then puts briefcase of cash into his car

60k homes …. Just build up and use the apartments that save space for more green areas.

The only way you’re gonna make this happen is to build over 8 stories and tell them it’s this or keep crying for housing with no infrastructure in the commuter towns

The really depressing thing is that people will actually think the government has the will or ability to deliver on this.

[They couldn’t even build 30,000 last year ](https://m.independent.ie/business/fewer-than-30000-houses-were-built-last-year/a74798677.html)

When you look at the cost of building apartments to the standard required in mid rise building with the planning process in Ireland, there is no way that the government could afford to do that each year. Also the cost of buying the same apartment puts it out of reach of a large percentage of the population. The higher density of people is needed, quite badly in fact. It makes easier to deliver public services (like transport) and stop the car centric nature of towns and cities.

So somewhere in this equation something is going to have to change. The external finance is a given, not just because the government lacks the skills, finance and knowledge to build housing at scale but the level of oversight would cripple the project.

It also means that buying is off table so that means renting/leasing and will take a long time for the return on investment to materialise. That means the government will need to maintain the policies to attract investment for a very long time over 10 years, even 20 years.

It also means getting local authorities to agree to let mid rise buildings to be built, changing the urban design mindset especially in the cities. This will not be popular with a lot of voters.

The housing policies of successive government and local authorities decisions have fucked housing in Ireland to a degree that is actually astonishing. Tough and unpopular decisions are going to be required to repair it. Long term thinking and planning will be needed.

But ultimately I think it is destroyed, I actually advise younger relatives to leave Ireland and I think Ireland is a great place to live, way better than a lot of other places. But housing and urban planning is so key to so many aspects of life and it is so god awful here, it is just not worth bothering with.

Let’s also focus on reducing the number of people who come to this country (that are not tourists or filling critical roles).

Just an FYI – We’ll hit in the region of 25k closings this year.

Maybe 13 billion would help?

If you can’t think yourself through a problem, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll be able to buy your way out of it.

What’s the children’s hospital bill up to these days?