http://www.cso.ie/statistics/planperm1992to2006.htm

The figures for demand being the cause of price just don’t add up. not by a long shot. The banks have screwed us, undermining the economy in the process. Now we have Brian Cowen calling for wage restraint in the public sector as demands may have an effect on the competitiveness! After giving the banks a free hand for ten years to push prices up as far as they could, now he wants to blame civil servants for inflation. what a cunt!

Just for the record, I never suggested there were 200,000 empty standalone holidays home, nor that they were all one off houses. I was merely pointing out that not all dwellings were built in areas of demand for the purposes of sale. There are many multiple holiday home developments up and down the west coast, one planning application could mean 20 holiday homes.

And you don’t actually include links yourself to the DOE figures. It is also worth remembering that not all planning permissions result in actually building happening.

Can we just SEE THE FACTS PLEASE? Really.

I’m sorry, Dan, but it’s a fucking ridiculous argument. you’ve got to give me figures.

Planning permission is needed for each and every one of those standalone holiday homes in Ireland. In 2006, 22,774 planning permission applications were approved for 93,419 dwellings. In 2005, 25,334 were received and approved for 80,957 dwellings. In order for holiday homes to be the cause of the surplus, each and every one of these planning permissions must have been for a holiday home – in other words, every single piece of household construction approved under planning permission must have been a holiday home in order for the figures to have an impact on the surplus. Every single household built in Ireland must have been a holiday home!

And that is a nuts argument.

There is a shortage of houses that people can afford to buy in Dublin – that’s why there’s been a slowdown in the mortgage market.

From the Daft.ie annual report:
“The core issue here is affordability. Basic estimates suggest that the median per capita disposable income in the country today stands at around €31,300 per annum. Factoring in the savings rates and using a 4.5:1 ratio of disposable income to loan value, a median household entering the market today can afford a mortgage of between €380,000 and €400,000. The stamp duty, legal fees and costs of moving the household and upgrading properties cut roughly 15 percent from the affordability threshold.
This is a far cry from the latest asking prices – according to Daft’s statistics, the average family dwelling in Dublin city ranges from €485,000 to €518,000 for a three bed and from €671,000 to €734,000 for a four bed property.”
The slowdown in the market happened when asking prices in Dublin broke the €400,000 mark – and not because of bloody stamp duty or little surplus.
Quite simply, demand for houses at over €400,000 is what has dropped off. So. What you’re seeing now is houses empty for six months or more as sellers can’t find buyers for their prices.

I suppose what I’m saying is there isn’t just one housing market. There are lots of separate markets after all a house in Monaghan isn’t much good to you if you work in Wexford.

These figures just blow away whatever tattered shreds of credibility that the PDs had to their claim that – whatever else – at least they were a free market party. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could be further from the truth. What cunts. Protecting land speculators and fucking banks.

If one more estate agent type appears on RTfuckingE television telling me that we’re currently in a buyers market I might have to do something stupid with a carving knife, like cutting the power cable on my TV.

thing is, the media, the PDs, Fianna Fáil, etc, all told us that it was supply and demand that was causing the rise in property prices.

The census figures show that that is a fucking lie.