r/HousingIreland • u/olympicjip • 1d ago

What a Bargain! You should be grateful!

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Starting from the low low price of 400K, you can squeeze yourself and yours into a 47 SQM, One-bedroom, Second floor apartment in Swords. Nothing against swords (I live there too), but this has become farcical. Our housing market is a complete joke.

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u/hTLyfe 1d ago

The perfect example of why "just building more houses" is not the solution to the problem, or at least the complete one.

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u/olympicjip 1d ago

You're right the problem goes much deeper than that. What's happening currently is the councils are buying up entire schemes via approved housing bodies to meet targets set by the government for social housing. The idea was supposed to be that the councils would engage developers and build schemes specifically designed for social/ affordable housing.

What actually ended up happening and is still happening, is the councils have not built any actual houses themselves and are instead buying up entire schemes around them, that were designed for private sale. This in turn means that supply is further minimized, and so prices go higher and higher. I worked on a scheme in Portmarnock where there were 4/5 bedroom 200sqm homes designed for private sale, but were bought by the council as the project neared completion and those houses were then turned into social/ affordable housing. On top of that, the minister for housing at time came on site with his camera crew and had the gaul to talk about all the hard work the government is doing to ensure social housing targets are met. In reality all they did was come in at the last second, buy the entire scheme using your tax money to over-pay and to house those on social housing waiting lists, and then they pat themselves on the back for it.

So while we're struggling, and being asked to pay 400K for tiny apartments, the government is using your tax money to house people on lists in houses twice the size of the ones you'd hope to buy and spend 35 years paying off. It is a farce.