TodayFM: The last Word features Irish Mortgage Brokers

Matt Cooper had Irish Mortgage Brokers on ‘The Last Word’ to discuss some changes announced by Simon Coveney regarding rent controls in Dublin and Cork.

The piece focused on some of the issues at hand with a commentator from the Dublin Tenants Association also taking part.

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Newstalk 106: Rents are out of control, 23rd August 2016

Tara Duggan was presenting the ‘Right Hook’ and spoke to Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers and Margaret McCormick of the Irish Property Owners Association about the issues around rents as news came out that they had reached boomtime levels.

The topics covered also reached into areas of taxation and new supply as well as the issues that currently exist due to past failures such as the ineffective rent control measures brought out in late 2015.

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Primetime RTE: features Irish Mortgage Brokers on ‘rent control’, 31st March 2015

Primetime did a large piece on the property market taking it from the angle of tenants and landlords. This was a very well balanced and well thought out show which gave the views of both sides fairly. Afterwards there was a studio debate about rent controls also referred to as ‘rent certainty’.

While it can be argued that ‘control’ and ‘certainty’ are two different things, they are ultimately closely related and can cause market distortions.

Labour Senator Aideen Hayden who is also the chairperson of Threshold was there as was Karl Deeter from Irish Mortgage Brokers, David McCullagh was the presenter.

Speaking time: Aideen Hayden – 5 minutes, Karl Deeter – 3 minutes.

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Rent control, a misguided policy that just won’t go away

The idea of rent control is always a compelling one, that by decree you simply say ‘the price can’t rise’ and then it doesn’t. That this is a proven myth rarely factors in, take cities in the USA with rent control and you’ll also see that these same cities have some of the highest rents (like San Francisco and New York) because all rent control does is confer a transfer onto the incumbent renters.

When it happens for long enough you eventually get a disproportionate cost being carried by some cohorts who become structurally less well off because they face vastly different cost bases in rents even though they may earn an identical wage to their neighbour. It’s no wonder there was even a Mayoral Candidate in New York who’s party was named ‘Rent is too damn high!‘. Check out his debating style which is memorable if nothing else.

If housing cost control was a good idea then why not enforce …

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