Funny how the locals pay for all of the upkeep or historical sites, and I get to see it for free or nearly free.
We also have a lot of voters for whom rising house prices are a good thing. Homeownership rates in Ireland are high compared to the rest of Europe and plenty of people were underwater from the mid-2000's until recently.
Dublin needs to get rid of height maximums in the core of the city, build a transport network not suited to the 1950's (it's shockingly car-dependent and sprawling for Europe), and maybe not trap every project in planning hell. It suffers more generally from a labrynthine complex web of agencies and politicians - how can a city this small have sixty-freakin-three councilors? We're only 1.2 million people. And yet we wind up with things like the city council drawing up plans for a bus lane without realizing someone's already got permission to put an apartment building on the same land. https://www.dublininquirer.com/2015/06/30/for-favoured-liffe...
Of course, our agency tasked with bringing in foreign investment is just pretending none of this is a problem https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ida-chief-denies-c...
Those reading this - keep in mind that yeah, it's cheaper than SF, but wages are substantially lower too.
I actually really like Dublin, and I am grateful to the Dubs for making me feel welcome (I'm from California) but I got INCREDIBLY lucky moving here in 2013 and walking in to a flat (the economy was on its knees then). I am aware that as a tech worker who lives in a prime spot in Dublin with rent control I am part of the problem. However, I'm also moving to the midlands in a few months, so that should free up at least one flat.
There needs to be regulation that makes it easier for the tenant to also be the owner.
Two straightforward treatments I’d want to see tested:
1. A significant “hotel tax” or “vacancy tax” to make it very expensive to let housing sit idle. Reduce the profitability of tourist rental and units will shift back to local rent.
2. Significantly expand the supply of housing by removing barriers to development. This phenomenon is happening around the world as cities try to keep existing neighborhoods under glass and prevent any change, damning younger generations to have no place to live.
Another thing I would love to see is the development of new cities with robust transit connection to the nearby older ones. I don’t know enough about Dublin to be specific, but I do know that across the US one of the things that is happening is a generational trend toward wanting urban living, to the point that many people don’t even consider living in suburban or rural towns. However there’s no reason we can’t build new “urban” cities: places starting with a Main Street, compact walkable design, street grid, designed to organically scale up to a genuine large urban center over time. This was common practice in the 1800s, and we have plenty of models around the world to copy from, we just quit doing this in the car age. Why not bring this back?
Incidentally, this is part of why I'm moving to a house near Tullamore in a couple months. It's 53 minutes by train from Dublin (Heuston) - and yet off the radar of my friends, some of whom spend that much time commuting to work via bus from within Dublin city.
For what it's worth I made a site where you can see places for rent and sale and how far they are from job centers via rail (and the schedules)
That's quite broad. Barriers to development were lowered and ignored during the Celtic tiger era.
Really poor housing was built and funnily enough, it was still sold at obnoxiously high prices.
The only people pushing for this are property developers and thankfully so far, most of the country has remained strong on not falling for this spiel again.
*This doesn't exclude building higher in city center.
the second point you made is a well known issue across the world, it simply comes down to a politically correct version of red lining. the terms are changed to make it palatable but the effect is the same. those in need are forced out, their presence is only desired during work hours to perform work
A house that's empty most of the year really is making the problem worse, and if they don't want to change then they can pay some money to offset the harm.
The point of the vacancy tax is to prioritize the limited local space for the local population who live and work in the city. Vancouver is implementing a mild version of a vacancy tax to curb the issue with empty houses.
Well said. And the article makes a mess of it - discussing so many things without actually discussing the causes of homelessness - mental illness, lack of skills, the need for daycare, handicaps, and myriad others. Plus, the big one advocates like to pretend doesn’t exist - drug addiction.
Why? Because dealing with the root causes is really hard. So much easier to blame something else. E.g at one point it says there’s a total of 1,400 homeless in Dublin and earlier says “3,165 entire properties listed on Airbnb in Dublin, compared with only 1,329 available for long-term rent“.
Since only a small portion of long-term rentals are available at any point in time (the total number of long term rentals could be what - tens of thousands?) one might wonder why those numbers were used or if the guardian has vindetta against Airbnb...but reguardless...
If there’s 1,329 available for for long-term, why aren’t they putting the 1400 homeless in them? That would leave only 71 homeless! The rest could go to Airbnb...done. Problem solved.
But of course, it’s not solved.
And as for why homeless are placed in hotels rather than Airbnb or long-term rentals - its likely because its easier to contact a few large entities (hotels) to arrange lodging than it is to contact 1400 individuals. That and the neighbors might not be to happy.
supply, demand, not everything is broken down into your simplistic libertarian alegbra.
This would crash the property market but it would make flats available nearly to all who need it.
Flats can't be both affordable and good investment for superrich.
Top 500 richest folks got their money differnt ways but the most common source is real estate, usually 3rd generation of hoarders.
Bingo.
Actually, there's a stronger statement, here.
Housing can't both be affordable, and be a good investment.
Pick one.
>Taxes gathered this way should found basic income.
...which is going to turn off some people, while others will consider it an unnecessary political tangent.
Tax is so low right now that you can sit on whole lot of properties for years and not even bother to rent them and still not loose much money.
That seriously harms others and should be at least effectively discouraged.
What does it have to do with you and your wealth you've gotten from them for free without even lifting a finger?
The next time there's a recession, things like this will only worsen it because people will be foreclosing on large numbers of housing properties because they were used for investment.
While some of us might not believe this, there are enough people who see real estate as such a safe investment. Some of them are from other countries and they're looking for a place to park their money that's not a bank or volatile like the stock market.
Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. Affordable housing means existing homeowners lose equity.
https://toronto.listing.ca/condo-price-history.htm
Which means rich people end up hoarding property. You don't even have to rent it out. Just wait a little bit and make a bank.
"The new law allows short-term rentals to be offered only by owners who live in the properties they rent out. Owners of small multifamily buildings who live on premises may also rent out one of the other units in the building along with the unit they live in."
https://www.avalara.com/mylodgetax/en/blog/2018/06/boston-ci...
Vancouver just enacted a similar law to Boston's - AirBnbs only allowed in a secondary suite in a primary residence. In exchange for being allowed to continue operating in the city, AirBnb requires a city business license (which is only granted for secondary suites) from all Vancouver BnBs, and forwards the list of all BnBs to the city every month. Then if an address doesn't match up with a business license, the city fines the property owner. If you don't pay, the city takes you or your house to court and you get a nice fat lien on the property.
This doesn't seem to work as well with condos and apartments, though. I think the city has left enforcement up to strata orgs which is probably a mistake?
These apartment blocks are _homes_ for most people.
Great quote that applies worldwide. And agreed its dumb. Hotels should be most efficient, I dont know how houses can be cheaper.
Alone a 24h reception will cost you. 3 people around the clock? Weekends? How many rooms do you have?
Houses can be cheaper if we allow building more of them. Right now supply is heavily constrained by zoning and density limits.
Maybe that means massive taxes on the property if the owner isn't using it as a residence for at least 1/3rd of the year (to allow for snow-bird dual-home setups that are popular).
Ireland's culture seems to me a strange mix of great heart, fatalism, happy go lucky attitude, greed and complete inability to plan the future.
Check this: an Irish comedian around 2008, when the crisis hit Ireland and the properties prices crashed:
In Dublin, there have consistently been more complete units for short term let in any moment on AirBnB than there are units available to rent.
Introducing new supply won't solve the problem but it will significantly ease it.
from roughly 2000, to 2010, things got much better, it actually felt like a renters market at times. You could rent a whole house in the city for a reasonable amount, and tenancies could new be registered with the PRTB. So both parties had protection.
After that I found things gradually harder and harder. Harder to find a place, more crummy places for more money, landlords no longer registering with PRTB, doing whatever they want again, cus they know any tenant will have to put up with it and just feel lucky to have a place.
In 2016, I had had enough of it. I moved down to the country. It was a great move, I can go on great walks and cycles from my door, its quiet and peaceful, and I am avoiding all the noise, air pollution, scumbags, and issues of housing in Dublin.
People think by increasing regulations on house owners that this will be solved. This is false. Decreasing regulations allow more business men to invest in housing in the city. This increases competition in the long term, thereby bringing costs down.
Instead of increasing regulations on Airbnb letters, why not decrease regulations on renters and provide incentive?
The solution is for the government to behave if a countercyclical fashion: if the market isn't doing its job, the government has to compensate for the market failure.
The title of this submission mentions 30k EMPTY houses sitting idle, and the solution is build more?
Housing shortages are almost always a market failure due to regulation of some sort. They keep talking about it like the problem was existing landlords/AirBNB and to whom they're renting it out, etc. Instead of focusing on the real problem: lack of supply.
1) Tax based on property value (ad valorem); 2) Ad valorem deduction if owner lives on property (homestead exemption)
PLUS some tax distinction for "declared" - not sure if verifiable - long-term (6 - 12 month minimum) vs short-term (AirBnB) rental.
I think taxes might work better or at least sound less draconian than simply banning AirBnB or restrictions such as when rooms can be let (e.g. Jacksonville Beach FL had some kind of ordinance restricting lets to certain months of the year.)
Landlord spends that 12k on fun activities. They pay 23% VAT
The government is making an absolute fortune with this absurd rental market.
Let's not even get into the high cost of mortgages because the government has a non trivial share in banks after they went bust 10 years ago.
I guess we'll have to invite some guys from Poland. Oh, wait...
What makes it so undesirable that the article protagonists are willing to put their kids through the wait in what is basically a shoe box?! (10 sq.m. is not big enough for two people!)
The risk of having to look for another place to rent in a year is the same in most of US. They appear to be protected from the increases by the subsidy, so doesn’t feel so bad.
First, the journalist writes:
"The Greater Dublin area is reckoned to have more than 30,000 properties that are completely empty, many of which are owned by the local council."
However, they then don't get a quote from the council saying why their properties are empty.
That tells me they had a specific story they wanted to tell, without digging into why the systems the country has (state housing) to provide assistance aren't working.
It's a fine place to visit but no way I'd live there (again). Traffic woes, housing woes etc. I dunno how the Dubs do it tbh.
The country just build HOUSES for few people and nothing high or apartment blocks... Again, instead, we build offices.
Truth is Dublin is one of the most appalling cities in the world.
They should try Stockholm. It can't be worse than Stockholm, surely.
It is probably time for compulsory purchase orders at prices fair to the taxpayers. Hopefully this will scare off other predators as Ireland becomes known as a bad place to do dirty business in.
((I am dreaming... that will never happen... the Irish public by-and-large are neoliberal true believers... these are the fruits of their dearly held ideology))
I think that's important--letting experts or ideas be wrong. I don't see evidence of humanity having success solving difficult problems without competition and experimentation.
But this particular problem will continue to grow because it wont be addressed in this way. Committees, bureaucracies, academics and journalists will surely discuss it though.
Orwell speaks more eloquently about this concept in The Lion and the Unicorn.
