Central Bank warns of New Home shortage

House prices have been surging in Ireland lately, and the new home market has been hit especially hard. The rise in house prices has been caused by a number of factors, and significantly accelerated due to the economic strains of the Covid-19 pandemic. Two recent reports from property websites myhome.ie and daft.ie have suggested that home prices are currently inflating at a 13 percent annual rate. Now, the Central Bank has warned that the pandemic will have a significant affect on the housing supply for the foreseeable future. The Central Bank projects that approximately 25,000 fewer new homes will be built between 2020 and 2023 when compared to pre-pandemic projections.

Among the many factors already driving an increase in pricing has been pent up savings. Consumers have had significantly less things to spend money on since March of last year, especially during those times when the country was under level 5 lockdowns-the strictest possible measure. People have not been able to shop at non-essential retail stores, eat or drink at their favorite pubs, or commute to work, leading to a …

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Dublin’s Airbnb market faces increasing regulations

As mentioned in previous articles, Dublin and its surrounding areas has been struggling to accommodate every person who is willing and able to purchase a home. Demand has stayed at levels significantly higher than that of supply, causing people all over the area to rethink their current living situations.

Local authorities are looking for possible causes and solutions to this shortage. The first possible factor that the government has decided to more heavily regulate in hopes of amending their housing issue is Airbnb.

Starting July 1, Airbnb lenders will be faced with increased water, insurance and commercial rate charges. Additionally, in areas where there is a high demand for housing there may be a temporary ban on the ability to do short term let outs of a property.

In the future, landlords will be restricted to renting out their properties for only 90 days of the year and will still require the acquisition of commercial planning permission. Furthermore, the bookings will only be allowed to extend up to 2 weeks before termination of stay, and these weeks …

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The Help to Buy Scheme

The Help to Buy (HTB) scheme is an incentive for first time property buyers. The scheme helps individuals with deposits needed to buy or build a house or apartment. The incentive is that the scheme will give individuals an income tax and deposit interest retention tax (DIRT) refund. This refund extends up to four years of income tax and DIRT tax paid in Ireland in arrears. The incentive has a limitation to a maximum of 5 percent of the purchase value of a home up to a value of €500,000.

To qualify for the scheme, individuals must be first time buyers. The property bought or going to built must be newly built with the construction subject to the value added tax (VAT) in Ireland. The requirements of the Help to Buy scheme also involves taking out a mortgage on the property with a qualifying lender. The loan to value ratio must be at least 70%. This loan to value ratio denotes the percent of the loan that covers the purchase value of the property.

The scheme is estimated to contribute about …

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Ireland is Searching for Additional Construction Workers to Solve Housing Shortage

Ireland has a population growth of more than five times compared to the EU average. In the year 2017, Ireland’s population rose by 1.1% per annum, a lot larger than the average for the EU of .2%. Additionally, Ireland had the highest birth rate of any EU member with 12.9 births per 1000 people.

A growing population is great for the economy; however, it causes additional problems as well. One of these problems is a major housing shortage, especially within the more densely populated cities, like Dublin.

One of the roadblocks that Ireland faces with improving the housing shortage is the lack of construction workers. At the current rate, it will be nearly impossible to keep up with the growing population in densely populated Irish cities. Attracting construction workers from abroad could be a short-term fix and become long-term. Additionally, an increase in construction workers would stabilize pay and lower costs for construction companies. Professor Alan Ahearne, Director of Whitaker Institute and Professor of Economics at the National University of Ireland, is worried that a large influx of workers would …

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The Slow Fall of Housing Prices

With the rising prices in the Ireland housing market continuing on their steep journey up, buyers in the market are slowly being priced out.

That is, they simply cannot afford to purchase homes anymore and are becoming less and less driven to continue their search.

With unrealistic prices seen all around the board and most steeply in the Dublin area, where housing demand is the highest, buyers are beginning to call off their hunt for homes.

What about the future?

How long will these buyers that choose to wait, be waiting, until they can comfortably afford their dream home?

With housing prices being upwards of 11.4 times more than the typical buyer’s disposable income in 2017, with an expected increase to be reported in 2018, it is likely it will be years before homebuyers are able to comfortably afford homes in the Dublin market.

It is likely that they will begin to look in the neighboring areas where prices are less competitive and there is less demand.

If, and when, housing price inflation regulates, it is possible there will be …

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Second Quarter Predictions

With the Ireland housing crisis still well underway, there are little signs of recovery for a long while, making the current state of the housing market to become the new normal.

The Irish population has begun to accept what it is and proceeding with their life as with an “oh well” attitude. The new normal is here and taking over the Irish community.

With signs of the housing prices to possibly be slowing on their steep upward journey, consumers may begin to come back into the housing market as more active buyers than the market has seen in recent trends.

The second quarter of 2018 brought on some surprising numbers as the overall rates were finally evaluated and ready for assessment.

House prices rose nationally by 2.7pc with an average house price of 254,000 euro, or, 5.6 pc higher than the previous year.

These prices and statistics representing the nation as a whole. However, Dublin alone typically has a large impact on these reports.

In just Dublin, prices rose 1.8pc from March to June….an insignificant rise in just a four-month …

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The Housing Markets most Pressing Issue

Ireland’s “most pressing issue”…

The lack of housing.

Economist Philip O’Sullivan is reported as saying that tens of thousands more houses need to be completed annually to meet current demand. Why is it that there’s such a shortage of homes?

It is on schedule right now that 21,500 homes were built this year and 24,000 for next year. Though, a good number in the race to meet demand needs, it is nothing near the needed 30-50,000 homes being built to sufficiently meet the demand.

The society of chartered survey of Ireland has predicted that this housing crisis could continue for another 10 years. Paul O’donoghue, a writer for Fora sad that drastic measures need to be taken immediately to push for the development of homes.

With too little of homes available to meet demand, it is the law of supply and demand that says the price of the homes will increase as well. Equilibrium is expected to be reached by 2026.

This, falling in line with the prediction of the housing crisis to continue for nearly …

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Government spending more than planned to help the housing crisis

With the government paying about €260 million in the first half of 2017 above the previous first half of 2016, it means the government is trying to throw money at helping the housing crisis.

The Department of Housing has spent around €312 million during this time. The rapid increase is said to be in main part because of the Government’s housing programme.

The Minister of State from the Department of Finance, Patrick O’Donovan has responded that the impact from the increased government spending has already been seen through the amount of commencement notices being filed. Since a commencement notice has to be filed when someone has begun construction of a new home it is a good indicator of the health of the housing market. The previous 12 months from May, commencement notices have amounted to 15,579. This is up 42 percent of the previous twelve month period.

Recently there has been a housing shortage in Ireland that has taken over the housing market. It is making it harder to obtain a house and a mortgage.

The amount of total pre-approved …

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Dublin puts blame on Airbnb… again

The new protocol is whatever the issue is blame it on Airbnb.

Airbnb is being blamed for causing the housing crisis in Dublin. Critics are saying that the up and coming ‘hip’ way to travel site is causing apartments and houses that would be long-term let into short-time let. The site apparently contributing to Ireland’s housing shortage by taking housing off the market.

Policymakers and businesses has started a trend worldwide of blaming this short-term rental site for economic and societal problems with little evidence to back it up, claims Mark Paul from the Irish Times.

Ireland is not the only blaming Airbnb, New York has hotels (Airbnb’s competition) lobbying politicians left and right. Italy accused Airbnb of turning the country into a theme park.

Such problems are linked to issues in Venice from Airbnb, supposedly. With landlords making more money in a week from travelers compared to long-term lets in a month; therefore, the landlords are increasingly turning their properties into Airbnb listings. Venice being such a small city, there is not many places to rent in the first …

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A loan may be offered to vacant-home owners

In reference to Loan scheme aims to bring vacant homes into use by Paul Melia on 29 June 2017 in Independent.

A possible solution to the shortage of housing in Ireland: a local authority loan could be offered to property owners of vacant housing. This solution came about when it was heard that 80,000 vacant housing was available in high demand urban areas from the 2016 Census. About 100,000 units are vacant in non-urban areas, excluding holiday homes. Data shows Ireland’s vacancy rate is at 9 percent while UK is only at 2.5 percent.

Chairman of the Housing Agency Conor Skehan worries about the impact on Ireland’s competitiveness if the housing shortage issue is not addressed. Affordability is essential to Ireland’s competitiveness and the housing costs drives wage costs so if housing is imbalanced Ireland’s competitiveness may be in trouble.

The one stipulation of this loan is it has to be affordable housing. This could raise the issue to some houses in areas not usually affordable.

This loan, however, can be just what an owner needs to get a …

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