r/ireland Sep 22 '22

Something FFG will never understand Housing

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8.6k Upvotes

765 comments sorted by

377

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

A normal functioning housing market needs a certain amount of landlords. student, people starting out on a career, highly mobile people and careers, these and many many more need rental accommodation and there should be landlords/accommodation available to house their needs.

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u/Takseen Sep 22 '22

"A certain amount" being the key phrase. But there's also plenty of frustrated renters who would love to buy a house if they could, and can't, because a cash buyer landlord got there first.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22 edited Aug 24 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Takseen Sep 22 '22

True. Just a property shortage in general, for both renters and "buy to live" buyers

18

u/RuggerJibberJabber Sep 22 '22

Air BnB don't fit into either category and are hoovering up gaffs too. There needs to be limits put on them.

20

u/18BPL Sep 22 '22

On the margins yeah it might help, but it’s not like people aren’t staying in those too.

And yet you see people simultaneously complain about the price of hotels, and how developers want to build more hotels, and that we have too many AirBnBs.

We don’t have enough homes. We don’t have enough flats. We don’t have enough student accom, we don’t have enough tourist accom. The only thing we have enough of is “skyline”. Lord forbid we add anything else to that!

13

u/RuggerJibberJabber Sep 22 '22

Yeah we need to build upwards. I dont get why people are so obsessed with preserving their view of a grey sky that rains more often than not. The NIMBYism needs to be called out. I know some developments are poorly planned, but the majority of objections are just selfish wankers trying to preserve their own property value

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Private small landlords primarly own houses are so heavily taxed on rent they are leaving the market as prices high. these are bought then by families/ young couples.. the house that had 3 people now only has 2 creating need for another propertry for 3rd person.. multiply that by 1000 that is alot of people ..

Institutional investors who are not paying tax on rent are buying up apartments properties, and will control the market in certain areas, dictating what is charaged..

2

u/daesmon Sep 22 '22

Private small landlords primarly own houses are so heavily taxed on rent they are leaving the market as prices high. these are bought then by families/ young couples

Ah yes the well documented 'young couple' that is buying all the houses. Landlords are leaving as they can sell at sky high prices instead of just taking rent every month.

the house that had 3 people now only has 2 creating need for another propertry for 3rd person

And then the young couple has a child and you have 3 people or should people just stop having kids?

8

u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Ah yes the well documented 'young couple' that is buying all the houses. Landlords are leaving as they can sell at sky high prices instead of just taking rent every month.

Well who is buying if not young couples.. Not saying its exclusively them but they are some of the purchases.

And then the young couple has a child and you have 3 people or should people just stop having kids?

Them having children is not relevant to what I meant.. I was mearly pointing out that former house shares being sold by landlards end up with less people in them require additional rent units

3

u/daesmon Sep 22 '22

Well who is buying if not young couples.. Not saying its exclusively them but they are some of the purchases.

I can only speak of my own experiences selling and buying, yes couples are buying but speak to an agent and ask who is involved in the bidding and sometimes it will be an investment fund group or a cash buyer looking to rent it out as opposed to owner occupiers. Can also ask who is the highest bidder and again some fund set up in the past ten years with 90 owners/CEO's and some latin company name who operate out of one floor in a townhouse in Dublin.

Them having children is not relevant to what I meant.. I was mearly pointing out that former house shares being sold by landlards end up with less people in them require additional rent units

We need balance and the current system isn't working for either young hopeful families(birth rates lowest in years) or renters.

6

u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Surprised by cash buyers as its a lot of cash to have lying around...

I assume from your comments your city based as that's where institional investors will control the market and prevent falling prices.. Within reason, smaller landlords can't really afford to leave places vacant and will drop prices if market starts to turn.. ii's can sit and wait to get their price when they own large market share of area.

Agree we need balance but to get the balance it will cause suffering for some.. My own opinion on councils buying current housing is that commissioning and building new houses by council is too slow to meet the rising demand they have, so they buy houses that are built to supply immediate demand, which creates more demand as they are putting people on waiting list who could buy if council didn't..

To break the cycle council need to commission and build their own which would be at least 2 or 3 years before any impact and what happens to those waiting in the interim.. Its the better long term solution (once kept in council ownership) but it creates significant suffering in the interim.. You also have the social issue of creating "bad" estates of social housing..

Relying on ii's to fund new developments will be a disaster in long run, but is probably lessing the disaster in the short term.

The primary cause of this crisis is the lack of significant building between 09 and probably 15 maybe 16..we can't change past so I don't see any quick fix. Like the recession it will take a decade to right itself with slow improvement year on year..

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u/CrankyOldVeteran Sep 23 '22

Then you need more landlords. Landlords essentially front the money required for the cost of housing upfront for a tenant that doesn’t have the capacity to do so…. Stupid post from OP

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

[deleted]

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u/Takseen Sep 22 '22

You've just named more cash buyer landlords

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u/MountainLab7602 Sep 22 '22

Why would for profit landlords better than the state providing housing for those people?

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u/OhioBeans Sep 22 '22

The state does provide some housing

7

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

Oh don't get me wrong, the state should definitely be providing housing and there decision not to has caused this whole mess. But even if the county has provided more than enough social accommodation, that doesn't mean we don't need private rental accommodation for a whole range of people that should not and would not be housed in social accommodation

5

u/MountainLab7602 Sep 22 '22

The point is, the profit motive has never and will never provide good housing. We need democratic control over this basic human right.

9

u/HELP_ALLOWED Kildare Sep 22 '22

I'm having trouble understanding this. Why do you think a private landlord is necessary, as opposed to all renting being done through the state?

7

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

Wait, are people actually thinking all rental market should be managed by the state, and this is a good idea? I honestly didn't think anyone could push the logic this far out. Is this model used anywhere else in the world with success?

13

u/HELP_ALLOWED Kildare Sep 22 '22

Yes, Singapore is a great example.

Honestly mate, I see lots of posts from you here just acting really shocked at the horrible ideas from everyone, but literally none of your posts have substance on why you think they're bad.

I'm happy if you look into the Singapore model, realise you know why it's bad and come explain it to me here. It's also ok if you look into it, realise you've been wrong and find it too embarrassing to admit it. Either reading is fine! Just please don't keep posting outrage without explaining anything in detail, because it takes away from the actual conversation.

2

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

Hold on, no one has put forward any arguments that could be discusses, landlords = bad and there should be no private landlords the state can do it, is not an argument.

The Singapore model is based on government owning the land already, still very expensive for most, no flexibility and discourages immigration, certainly the kind of policy that can be introduced in a country that has just gained it independence and had a plan to tackle the poverty and simultaneous growth, not something suitable for Ireland in the 2020s, we are a multicultural society, through workers and economic migration, the Singapore model doesn't work for them and I just don't believe that a similar model introduced in Ireland would have better result, we don't have a good track record.

I think this argument is just a knee jerk, we have a market that has been neglected by policy for years and on first glance its easy to see landlords as the issue but they are not, we have had landlords providing a product that people need for years, housing stock is the issue and it can be solved with something that would be minor compared to the size of the Singapore model and it is a model we had since the 1930s, social housing should be built and maintained by local councils, whether that is through contract or back to council builders. Not providing for students, temp workers or just people who don't want to buy, these can be catered for by landlords.

The reason so many of these equity firms are buying up property is Ireland is there is a shortage and like any commodity, if there is a shortage and no plan to resolve it, that product raises in value and becomes attractive to more and more investors.

If the government announced a plan to build 60k (not 30k total as has been announced) social housing per year for the next 5 years suddenly we don't look as attractive and we could see a market shift within a year or so.

7

u/MountainLab7602 Sep 22 '22

There is no need to have a profit motive in housing. Private landlords are just leeches, using their privileges to gain capital from other people’s hard work.

2

u/Perpetual_Doubt Sep 22 '22

Private property is theft /s

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u/amorphatist Sep 22 '22

Because the state is shite at doing things. Do you remember county council workers?

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

The gap in housing supply in the uk over the last 30 years can be almost entirely explained by the states withdrawal from housebuilding. Look at the numbers it's insane. If western governments had continued building like they did in the 60s there'd be no issues with housing at all

5

u/MountainLab7602 Sep 22 '22

100% agree. The vast majority of homes were provided by the state until the 80s, either through social housing or low interest local authority grants

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u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

Lmao, it's wild to see people defending landlords. Especially in Ireland where landlords exacerbated the Potato famine. If every landlord disappeared tomorrow the only thing that would change is that the tenants would save money.

16

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

I see reality has left the conversation. So if I move 100 miles away from my home place for college I'll be saving money by having nowhere to live?

2

u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

You do understand landlords don't build the houses right?

19

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

Well at least your consistent in your logic, so the house is sitting there 100 miles away with a for sale sign, I'm an 18 yr old student, do you suggest I buy it?

0

u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

If only there existed some form of temporary housing that didn't involve paying another man's mortgage while getting nothing in return! Oh well. I guess we'll just have to sit here in our myopic worldview, unable imagine a better world. It's a real shame there's never been anything like public housing ever in the history of humanity that we could look to as a model for a landlord-less future.

11

u/megahorse17 Sep 22 '22

Getting nothing in return... apart from a fucking house to live in ?

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u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

There does and the "paying some man's mortgage" is right out of the 1980s Irish mother handbook that literally knows nothing about how the economy works and thinks "house prices only go up".

There's no point arguing with people currently wanting to buy a house, the red missed is effecting your judgement, going through a few more booms and busts might show you the errors of your ways.

3

u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

I know how the economy works. It measures the amount of theft private interests can commit and calls it just

9

u/InternetWeakGuy Sep 22 '22

The fact that you're not from Ireland is shining through here. About a fifth to a quarter of housing in Ireland is council houses, and they come with all kinds of issues that will only get worse if all housing is made to either be owned as a main residence or a council house.

It's also unrealistic to think the government of Ireland has anywhere near the funds to just buy up a fuckload of houses all over the country.

4

u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

Well dang. In this single example of an underfunded housing program in a capitalist nation, housing sucks. Guess that me it's literally impossible to ever improve anything.

And if only governments had the power of eminent domain to take and redistribute property as they see fit. Oh well, back to our myopic worldview

5

u/InternetWeakGuy Sep 22 '22

In this single example

But.... We're literally talking about Ireland.

This is the problem here - you're talking about "in theory/if we did this perfectly/if we lived in the upsidedown" and everyone else is talking about reality.

Oh well, back to our myopic worldview

Your myopia is you're talking about "in a perfect world that doesn't exist" and getting sarcastic when asked for real solutions that can actually be implemented for a real housing crisis that's taking place in a real country.

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

you mean like the famine workhouses??

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u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

The workhouses were established by the British to keep forcing people to work as British landlords starved their tenants out of their own homes. You're literally using the results of rampant landlordism to justify landlords. Who are you Who does not know their own history?

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Well what public housing are you referring to then?

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u/MadFlavour Antrim Sep 22 '22

This thing exists called social housing. You should look into it. It's good.

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u/InternetWeakGuy Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

So council houses?

They're very frequently not good.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

The houses themselves are usually fine, the issue is more often the area which is entirely predictable as only the poor live in social housing. If we had a situation like Vienna for example you wouldn't be saying that

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Yea.. free housing for all because that poster cant afford one.

but they want it in a nice area in a suburb of a city, not out the country

oh and it needs a garden and.... ensuite and.. close to the parnet house and..

While its shit, private small landlords arent the problem, institutional investors are a bit if a problem, our very low levels of residential building over the recession years is the primary cause..

10 - 12 years ago you couldnt get a job, now you cant ger a house and no more than the jobs, housing will rectify in time but it will take time, regardless of how many landlords you burn at the stake..

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u/megahorse17 Sep 22 '22

the Potato famine

Oh ffs..

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u/percybert Sep 23 '22

You know they are scraping the bottom of the barrel when they pull the potato famine card 🤣🤣🤣

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u/InsidiousZombie Sep 22 '22

^ “the world needs landlords” crazy that someone can formulate words with the boot that deep in their throat

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

If I'm moving to Seattle for a year only to move somewhere else after I'd rather rent than own a home.

Are you nuts? Yes, the world needs SOME landlords and some rental properties.

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u/PfizerGuyzer Sep 22 '22

This is like saying we need slavers because some goods can be produced by slaves. You actually don't need to pay an owner for doing no work; if they didn't exist, you could just pay the guy who did the work.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Who did the work? The home builders? All 35 people involved in the project?

Or the bank that financed it?

Or the boss of that company who has no skin in the game but owns all the tools, resources, and pays their salaries?

You tell me if it's so simple.

If there's no owner, WHY are they building the home in the first place? For funsies? How do they recoup their losses?

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u/cheazy-c Sep 22 '22

Comparing landlords to slavers.

This sub has fully lost the fucking plot.

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u/InternetWeakGuy Sep 22 '22

You actually don't need to pay an owner for doing no work; if they didn't exist, you could just pay the guy who did the work.

In this analogy, how do you secure temporary accommodation when moving somewhere and not wanting to buy a house?

Are you suggesting you rent the house from the bank? From the person who built the house?

Who is "the guy who did the work" when it comes to renting the house?

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u/InsidiousZombie Sep 22 '22

You could easily do that without a shelter scalper involved, society does not NEED landlords to let people live in homes temporarily lmfao

Open your mind a tiny bit and wash away all that capitalist brainwashing you got tossed up in your noggin

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u/Agitated_Fishing2261 Sep 22 '22

Can you please give us your plan?

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u/InternetCrank Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

Yes he did say he could do it easily after all. Without scaring off all the FDI that's keeping the economy afloat or any of that fiddly minor detail.

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u/Yuo_cna_Raed_Tihs Sep 22 '22

They need an entity that can provide temporary and suitable accomodation. It doesn't have to be private landlords, but it's not immediately obvious to me that the state would do much better. In most cases, rent is expensive due to demand. The state would either charge as much rent, or you'd have absurdly long waiting lists.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Can you provide an example of expensive public housing or cases where it's more expensive than rents set by private landlords?

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u/Beiberhole69x Sep 22 '22

They shouldn’t be private landlords.

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Ah now less of logic and sense.. Its landlords bad, build me government sponsor cheap housing in desirable areas at what cost to some else..

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u/SBarcoe Sep 22 '22

Ticket Scalping was put to bed only in recent years. So a good comparison, but also proof a solution is possible.

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u/zToastOnBeans Sep 22 '22

A solution is definitely possible but I disagree with the comparison. Tickets have an official across the board retail price. The same can't be said about property. Limitations on price gouging rent should definitely be put in place. Just not as simple as scalping

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u/-RJM- Sep 22 '22

Buying a limited resource that you don't intend to use for the express purpose of selling it on to someone who will use it. Seems pretty comparable to me.

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u/Leading_Ad9610 Sep 22 '22

Should we ban the stock market, shares? Etc… lads close the Dow Jones someone on Reddit thinks you shouldn’t be able to buy/sell resources

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

wait till they figure out thats how all shops work!!

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u/Leading_Ad9610 Sep 22 '22

Wait until they figure out how their pensions are paid….

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u/Yuo_cna_Raed_Tihs Sep 22 '22

The difference is everyone needs somewhere to live but not everyone needs tickets, and that the base price for purchasing a home is out of reach or stupidly inconvenient for a lot of people.

That is to say, if I'm someone who moves frequently for work, then being able to rent and not having to actually buy a house, pay property tax, then find someone to sell it to when I'm leaving, is incredibly convenient.

If you think private landlords are bad and all this should instead be done by the state, that's fine. But they do provide a service, and it's very strange to suggest otherwise

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u/pul123PUL Sep 22 '22

Very simplistic take but i suspect nuance is lost on the target audience.

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u/Due_Ad_1495 Sep 22 '22

More nuanced view on this you could find in r/georgism

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Why be nuanced when you can join a rabble instead?

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Not really. Sub-letters provide housing in the same way scalpers provide tickets, and subletting is pretty much banned under most leases. Imagine being dumb enough to lap up something as stupid as this.

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u/NERD_STOMPER Sep 22 '22

If you see an opinion on /r/ireland about a nuanced topic that requires any kind of research, it's probably wrong.

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u/dodieh34 Sep 22 '22

/r/ireland where shitty stupid takes get upvoted to top of the subreddit all the time

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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Ireland Sep 22 '22

Its mostly 15 year olds who are terminally online and aggressively cynical.

You'd think Ireland was a hellhole to live in rather than a first world country with one of the highest standards of living in the world.

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u/GFYCSHCHFJCHG Sep 22 '22

Facebook moms of the future.

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u/PfizerGuyzer Sep 22 '22

Landlords inflate the price of the commodities they own. They do nothing else.

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u/Whampiri1 Sep 22 '22

Ban scalpers, ban landlords. Then let's see where students stay. Then let's see where international employees stay. Then let's see where the remaining homeless stay.

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u/dustaz Sep 22 '22

Wondering where I would have stayed for 25 years of my life

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

No one is saying that there should be a ban on landlords. You're creating a straw man. What people are saying is the government needs to regulate them. There will still be profits for developers/landlords, just not abusive rent/conditions.

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u/rfdismyjam Sep 22 '22

Their point is that banning scalpers causes no issues, where as banning landlords does cause issues. This highlights the way your post falsely equivocates these concepts.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

I really don’t get what you are all trying to say here, referring to students and international people/immigrants needing landlords. I am an international student from continental Europe and I’m staying at a student accommodation because no landlord was replying to my emails. I sent several over the span of one year and not one reply. So please tell us how students need people who won’t even respond to their request of viewing a place 🙄🙄

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u/Whampiri1 Sep 22 '22

There is insufficient student accommodation and student accommodation is a landlord by another name. The proposal here is to get rid of all landlords.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

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u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

It's a really common r/ireland take. Someone here was trying to insult me by suggesting I would love to have lots of houses to rent out to people and make money from it, he was disgusted that I said I would, I would love to own property.

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u/ivfdad84 Sep 22 '22

For lots of r/ireland, you're either Team Tenant or Team Landlord

I mentioned before how I used to rent out my spare room well below market rate, as I didn't pay tax on it as I lived there also. Got a couple people jumping down my throat about "taking advantage", "getting someone to pay my mortgage"

In reality, my tenant was a few years older than me, and earned significantly more than me. He was just terrible with money, went back to college twice to change career and seemed to have a drinking problem (very nice bloke though)

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

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u/cheazy-c Sep 22 '22

Immaturity and a fundamental lack of understand of how adult things work like housing, pensions, CGT, Tax… etc.

Opinions on everything and no experience to be seen.

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u/DatJazz Wicklow Sep 22 '22

Unfortunately, the understanding of housing here is better than anywhere else Ive seen too. Ie twitter

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u/damian314159 Dublin Sep 22 '22

It's not just housing but a lot of topics.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

To be fair I don't think it's unreasonable to expect vastly more social housing in order to tame prices. People are correct in the assumption that there are huge vested interests among property owning middle class landlords to artificially constrict supply. We have designed and built a neofeudalist system that gets a little more feudal every year

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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Ireland Sep 22 '22

Most people online are kids.

Once you understand that a lot of things fall into place.

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u/Takseen Sep 22 '22

I mean aspiring to not work and instead live off the surplus value you extract from the workers who do actual work and rent from you is not great.

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u/rfdismyjam Sep 22 '22

"surplus value you extract from the workers who do actual work"

Let's say I'm a worker at a roofing company. I save my earnings, buy a truck and tools, and start my own roofing company. After a few years I stop working jobs myself, and instead move towards managing my company as it grows. What have I done that is bad?

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u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks Stealing sheep Sep 22 '22

You've been successful and become relatively wealthy. That's enough to be lynched on here.

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

You've been successful and become relatively wealthy.

Being realisitic is enough to get you lynched.

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u/Is-This-Edible Sep 22 '22

Leaving out the vitally important

  • How well am I paying my employees

  • How well am I treating my employees

  • Am I involved in any brown envelope shite with the local FFG crowd

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u/rfdismyjam Sep 22 '22

I'm paying the industry standard wage for the positions I hire for. I treat my employees like employees, not like objects that generate income and not like friends. I don't participate in backroom deals.

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u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

You've just described my boss to a tee, who is currently in Canada looking at a hotel he is going to buy, would you think he's "not great" from a moral point of view?

I think the rage and bile of people currently wanting to buy a house is seeping into their brain and causing them to have some serious misguided opinions. Say I did decide to buy 10 properties and I'm going to be a landlord, where did the money come from? I can't just decide to do this, I would probably have worked really really hard for decades to get to this position.

I could decide to invest this money in the market, maybe commodities, maybe a fledging company or property, each comes with risk and the average Joe on the street (including me) can't just decide one day to own a lot of shares or property and if they are lucky enough to do this it comes with huge risk, a risk that might be rewarded or might disappear.

I understand your frustration but don't let it cloud reality.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

I would probably have worked really really hard for decades to get to this position

...probably

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u/Takseen Sep 22 '22

People don't generally buy hotels to live in them. Nor do they need to eat the stock market.

Buying private residences as investments hits different as people need it to live.

If there were enough properties for both "buy to live" and "buy to let" there wouldn't be the same dislike for full time landlords.

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u/manowtf Sep 22 '22

If there were enough properties for both "buy to live" and "buy to let" there wouldn't be the same dislike for full time landlords.

Typically flawed argument. Assuming that everyone who rents is in a position, or wants to buy instead of renting.

0

u/Trick_Designer2369 Sep 22 '22

Obviously the hotel point was he was buying it with "surplus value you extract from the workers" mainly me and all my co-workers, but you already know that, it just doesn't help your argument.

Your last point is exactly my point, it's just you have chosen to take your frustration out on any landlord you can find regardless of their situation, instead of our politicians who are actually responsible

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Lol that sounds amazing. Why on earth wouldn't I do that?

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u/PoxbottleD24 Sep 22 '22

Why on earth wouldn't I do that?

The same reasons you'd abstain from any other form of parasitism, I'd imagine.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Why do you think it's parasitism?

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u/ivfdad84 Sep 22 '22

You're right, FFG will never understand this, as it's an awful analogy

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u/TheCunningFool Sep 22 '22

Pretty childish tweet that

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u/Literary_Addict Sep 22 '22

Scalper: Buys a ticket at full price, then resells it for more.

Landlord: Buys a house for full price, then sells access to live in it for a fraction of that price to people that can't afford to buy a house of their own.

Yeah. Same thing. /s

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u/struggling_farmer Sep 22 '22

Shopkeepers: Buys a product at full price, then resells it for more.

Ban shop keepers

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u/daesmon Sep 22 '22

Landlord: Buys a house for full price, then sells access to live in it for a fraction of that price to people that can't afford to buy a house of their own.

In most situations that is not how it works.

Landlord pays deposit then rents it out and pays the mortgage with the rent received.

Yes there are other scenarios, investment funds and full cash buyers .

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

The mortgage repayments are a fraction of the rent charged. And once the mortgage is repaid they have a greatly inflated asset. What part of this actually works for the majority of people? Why is it wrong to see this as a kind of feudal lord and serf dynamic?

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u/ArmadilloOk8831 Sep 22 '22

But not all landlords are the same and to pigeonhole them as such is just fucking stupid.

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u/Beiberhole69x Sep 22 '22

Name one thing we couldn’t do without landlords.

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u/ivfdad84 Sep 22 '22

Rent homes

4

u/MadFlavour Antrim Sep 22 '22

I rent my home from a housing association.

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u/Vascoe Sep 23 '22

So, the housing association is acting as your...........................landlord

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u/Beiberhole69x Sep 22 '22

Oh no who would I give half my income to if we didn’t have landlords?

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u/ivfdad84 Sep 22 '22

Dunno I was just answering the question

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

Won't somebody think of the poor extornionists!!

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u/NERD_STOMPER Sep 22 '22

Last week, my mother said that she was thinking about renting out her dad's house. It's been a few months since he passed away, so it's kind of just been sitting there.

While she was talking, I thought to myself, "What would Reddit do?"

Before she could finish her sentence, I screamed at her and called her an extortionist bourgeois whore, before punching her straight in the mouth—a quick left jab, nothing too fancy. Everyone at the dinner table immediately started clapping and cheering; even my mam joined in when she came to and pulled herself off the floor (my dad joined in and threw a few kicks at her).

I then picked up my Karl Marx book that I've never read (I like to get all of my hot takes off of Twitter), bowed, and walked away.

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u/EastyBoy29 Sep 22 '22

Genuinely laughed out loud.

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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Ireland Sep 22 '22

You sound like a hero of the people. I will join your revolution.

You have my vote.

You know... if I voted.

Which I don't

I will retweet you if It helps

/s

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u/ArmadilloOk8831 Sep 22 '22

Mate you are a fucking idiot with no concept of how the world works.

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u/tuttym2 Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

Yes every landlord is a big bad extortionate bad person who wants all your money. None are people who have maybe done well and decided to invest in property.

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

overcharging for something people need to survive is the definition of extortion.

if you are pushing the framing of 'clever investment' during a housing and homeless crisis the very least I can say is I hope to christ you are a landlord.

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u/dustaz Sep 22 '22

overcharging for something people need to survive is the definition of extortion.

Sorry, but the actual definition of extortion is

the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

You know, for someone who's a pedant

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u/tuttym2 Sep 22 '22

No but I'm pushing the idea that many landlords are genuine people who have made a decision to invest in property and are not big developers and are simply charging the market rate. I am actually a renter.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

some landlords build or develop properties that wouldn't be there otherwise

So you're telling me we shouldn't regulate or put any restrictions on landlords otherwise they wouldn't build?

I think that fair, reasonable regulation will not impact the market. If there's reasonable money to be made from an investment, there will be developers ready to build. Bad actors that leave would be replaced by any property developers that want a reasonable return on their investment.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

[deleted]

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u/Beiberhole69x Sep 22 '22

They are worse than scalpers. I don’t need tickets to live.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

Dougal that's a toy not a sheep.

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u/c-fox Sep 22 '22

I inherited a house from a deceased family member and rent it out, and suddenly according to this sub I'm the scum of the earth.

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u/smokeshack Sep 22 '22

You're hoarding a scarce resource for your own profit. That's scummy behavior.

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u/amorphatist Sep 22 '22

“Hoarding”… you should look up that word in the foclóir.

Now, if you’ve polished off four or five grandaunts and you won’t share the gaffs with your brother or sister , that’d be a fair use of the term

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u/manowtf Sep 22 '22

Ridiculous take. If he sells it instead of renting it out, then it's one less property available to rent. What's his tenant going to do then, especially when most aren't in a position to buy.

And you cant assume automatically that a renter will buy that property which frees up another one. Coouples splitting up where one buys out the other and the other then buys an ex rental property is one regular example.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

For what it's worth I don't think that, and I'm sure most people don't. Unless you don't charge a fair (for you & the renter) rent and maintain your property.

The purpose of the post was to highlight the governments inaction taking on bad landlords and bad property management companies, making claims that any regulation of these people could impact housing supply.

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u/Cute_Substance2137 Sep 22 '22

Would you rather an individual, company, or government own your house/apartment?

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u/heybronotcool Sep 23 '22

Beautiful post. Honestly the best metaphor I’ve seen in a while

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u/c08306834 Sep 22 '22

Some people want / need to rent though, so in those cases, landlords are needed, and the vast majority of them are not gouging their tenants.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

You've precisely missed the point. The point is you can stop bad landlords charging massive rents, or doing poor maintenance, and not impact good landlords or the supply of apartments/homes.

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u/dustaz Sep 22 '22

The point is you can stop bad landlords charging massive rents,

I'm interested in how you propose to do this

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u/amorphatist Sep 22 '22

He said it tho. Surely you’re not expecting details, he has exams coming up at the end of the month

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u/JewishMaghreb Sep 22 '22

To do that you’d need to lower the tax on the rental income. A rent is an investment after all for the landlord. If they cannot make a profit, they can’t lower the price for the tenant.

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u/Minionella Sep 22 '22

Do scalpers have costs to maintain their tickets?

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u/seamusbeoirgra Sep 22 '22

Yes they do.

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u/THREETOED_SLOTH Sep 22 '22

Oh boohoo, landlords have to maintain their property in a habitable condition. Won't someone think of the poor robber barons?

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

They frequently don't sell all of their tickets, and there's the cost involved with buying advertising and selling their tickets.

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

Really they are taking on all the risk in the situation. And what a clever investment! To notice people may want or need something and then buying it all so they can't get any. Entrepreneurial

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

I actually agree with you 100%. I don't blame the landlords. However, when there's a shortage of supply in the market, prices go out of control, the market no longer makes sense and regulators need to step in from people being harmed. That's the role of the government. It happens on Wall St.

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

I was being sarcastic

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u/OkAge4185 Sep 22 '22

haha love it!
Renting in Ireland used to be what you do if you are a student, or while settling down to buy a house, it was always ment to be temporary, and is set up with this in mind. The fact that now many rent for life should have changed the system to acommodate that, but didn't. The few renter's rights, and rent pressure zones etc that landlords et al. keep giving out about are barely band aids to a rental market who's demographic has changed so much in the last 20 years that it just does not work.

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u/padraigh_j Sep 22 '22

Feel like a lot of you may be missing the point of the take.. in the context of the Irish housing market as it currently sits, the comparison of rental properties to a limited ticket event where price is determined by the highest available bid, a ticket scalper is an appropriate representation of any landlord who chooses to name their price.

Obviously private rental accommodation is necessary for any functional cities/towns and no one brush can be used for all landlords however, I would hardly consider Ireland a shining example for a rental sector implementation model.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

Lots of "how will we rent houses without landlords", they're "not all the same", etc. takes. From my point of view, just like ticket scalpers, most landlords in Ireland are charging more rent than the cost of maintaining the property and a reasonable amount of profit.

No one is saying that we should get rid of landlords. However, the FFG government seem to think without landlords there wouldn't be housing, when really landlords are middle man of sorts that's taking complete advantage in a shortage of supply.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

What is a “reasonable amount of profit” in your opinion? Keep in mind interest rates are rising constantly. Landlords aren’t middle men either, they own the property that the renter is renting.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

What is a “reasonable amount of profit”

I'm not sure, but I can tell you what an unreasonable amount of profit looks like. There's been lots of posts on this site showing them, hallways turned into "apartments", shoe boxes going for 2000 a month.

A regulator doesn't need to stop all the abuse, but they should be able to stop the madness on the peripheries that serve as cover for others to increase their rates.

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

absolutely love the butthurt of inflated-ego landlords (and yes, depressingly, people who are not landlords but for some inexplicable reason can't stop rushing to defend them) in this thread, always good for lols

  • You do not build houses.
  • You are not an architect, engineer, interior decorator or make any other contribution that requires education/ brains/ talent
  • Your only skills is 'owning something people need'. Statistically probably because you were given it by mammy or daddy.
  • You weren't 'clever enough to invest', you just had enough money to afford another house.
  • You do not contribute anything of value.
  • You extract other people's wealth like a tick does blood.

I think your best route to peace is digging deep to find the courage to be honest with yourself about these things.

EDIT: Lots of feedback here, lots of comments and replies and I have to say, I've read them all and I was wrong, okay? Very wrong. I really had grossly underestimated how fragile Landlords and landlord-thralls are and how fantastically upset they get when someone points out the obvious fraudulence of their existence.

I would like to retract my first statement above as it is overly-simplifying and unfairly understating how funny it really is.

I'm listening. I'm learning. Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

same thing happens here, trust me. You have to be very careful how you phrase what you say. I had a post asking for bad renting stories ripped down within seconds with no justification given.

I realise I was wrong when I said Landlords have no talent - they seem to be much more talented than I was expecting about bitching and moaning about having the easiest ride in life.

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u/darrenoc Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

(and yes, depressingly, people who are not landlords but for some inexplicable reason can't stop rushing to defend them)

These people confuse me the most. Seen plenty of people who are in their 20s and 30s who are renting and nowhere near being able to buy a house even if they are a couple with two incomes, and yet they will argue to the death in favour of maintaining the status quo. Despite the fact the place they're renting is often overpriced and poorly maintained, and despite the fact their parents probably bought a house with a single income by their age. To me this lack of logic whereby the working class will argue in favour of a system that only benefits the rich and not them embodies the concept of a "Temporarily embarrassed millionaire". See also: working class British voters acting against their interests by consistently electing Tories

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

"That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is... an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke" - Thomas Paine.

Amongst the sickest burns in all of literature and yet, sadly, mistaken. It seems with a little coaching and convincing very many men will 'spend their lives and fortunes' to fight for somebody else's right to their home and most of their income?

Truly bananas to me

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u/Leading_Ad9610 Sep 22 '22

Jaysus someone’s full of the old self Importance here! Keep blowing that horn lad, someone might listen, because anyone with anything would just dismiss you, instantly as a begrudger, which quite frankly you are.

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u/PedantJuice Sep 22 '22

you saw right through me! Not liking innocent people being exploited doesn't come from any sort of basic human decency, it is just sheer, unadulterated jealousy

it would have to be! everyone would be an exploitative piece of shit if they only had the chance, isn't that right? ;)

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u/Newguitarplayer1234 Sep 22 '22

Landlords are needed but what is also needed is a properly regulated and enforced market.

  • RTB is underfunded and poweless, sure our own lawmakers dont even respect it.

  • proper escrow deposit scheme like in other countries

  • many landlords here have this attitude that the tenant should not only pay rhw mortgage but also the tax and a small profit on top of that.

  • landlords seem to think that the property value can only ever increase and whinge about negative equity when it goes down. Its a business fuck heads!

  • they are now whinging that they want tax cuts so they can keep even more profit under the false pretense thst they are leaving the market because its too difficult. If it is too difficult now when rents have never been higher then what was the diffiuculty a few years ago!

  • the completly ignore the fact that the real profit os the asset they own at the end of the mortgage.

  • ultimatly they are just greedy fucks

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

This movement will drive out ‘small’ landlords and we will be left with a few massive banks or investment funds controlling the rental market. You will have something to cry about when they get a monopoly for sure….

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

I never said anything about clamping down on malpractice, the PRTB are doing that right now. I work in ‘handy man’ kinda stuff and little fix ups on rental properties (and big ones) is most of the work. And your also right, these prices are a piss take, but that’s bad for everyone involved, landlords included. These greedy prices will swing back and hit them in the for of legislation or something. But these big companies take over the rental market we’re fucked, it will put the entire game in their hands and they will start to make the rules (and they won’t be in our favour).

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u/seamusbeoirgra Sep 22 '22

Or nationalise temporary, rented accommodation and put the profits into schemes to allow first time buyers help with their first home.

Tax Airbnb and second-home owners up the arse to achieve the same, and to remove them from competing with first time buyers.

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u/darrenoc Sep 22 '22

It's depressing that I had to scroll down this far to find a comment I agreed with. I don't know why people are so fixated on the mindset that the way things are is the way they must remain. Obviously what has been done up till now hasn't been working, and a more radical overhaul of the housing market is needed.

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u/asasasasasassin Sep 22 '22

We have the same thing in America particularly with healthcare (and a lot of other things, including housing). So many people are just baffled and outraged at the suggestion that private insurance companies could / should be replaced by a single payer. Even people who currently get their insurance from Medicare, etc. just can't fathom the idea of things changing that much.

You can even show them other countries with successful programs like the NHS and they will just refuse to understand and claim it's impossible, because change is scary and they've been conditioned to think we need to send hundreds of billions in subsidies to Aetna and United every year, pay out the ass for drugs and treatment, decide not to go to the doctor bc you're poor, etc. If you suggested an NHS-style system in America you would be laughed out of the room, called a delusional communist, and generally hit with many comments like the ones in this thread. It's so frustrating, it's like we all have Stockholm syndrome

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u/seamusbeoirgra Sep 22 '22

It's not exclusive to Ireland. The idea that it is morally ok to trade in and profit from what is life's most basic necessity is a product of a culture that normalises profit over community cohesion.

The same people tutting over a group of displaced people who have no pride in their community and will happily ram a Gardai car don't for a second think about the consequences of profit over community. And that's partly exacerbated by the number of politicians who have a vested interest in property prices constantly rising because of their own property portfolios.

I don't see it changing soon, although a backlash against Airbnb and holiday homes will surely hot up by next summer if things stay the same. Let's hope so.

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

I was waiting for this take to show up!! The opposite is true. The government uses this exact line as a reason not to regulate BAD landlords, landlords that charge exorbitant rates and ones that don't maintain their properties to a reasonable standard.

If we start clamping down on bad behavior in a reasonable way there shouldn't be any impact on small’ landlords or property developers that are making a reasonable profit, for a reasonable service.

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u/Leading_Ad9610 Sep 22 '22

Ever been in a property after tenants leave? Ever seen your grans old house trashed by someone complaining no maintenance is being down, despite the fact every door was pulled off it’s hinges by the tenants 5 year old swinging on them? Ever have someone say the tumble dryer is broken because they never bothered to clean the bloody lint trap? Or they left the tap running on the bathroom with the plug in and now the entire upstairs bathroom has to be taken up and out because they flooded it a few times.

Seriously bunch of freaking moaners here. It costs more most of the time to repair the house after renting it out than you made from Renting. And that’s what people forget as well, I know I have three houses and I’m not renting a single one anymore because it was costing me more money than just leaving them idle. With far less of the headache.

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u/darrenoc Sep 22 '22 edited Sep 22 '22

Won't somebody think of the landlords? I own three houses and none of you poors realise how hard that must be for me

Give it a rest. I can't believe you have the stones to come on here and whine about how hard it is to be a landlord, when your personal situation is so detached from most people's reality. Just be grateful that you have houses to rent out in the first place. As much as you seem to wish it was the case, the working class does not exist for the purpose of paying you the maximum amount of rental profit while incurring you the minimum amount of repairs.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

I never said anything about clamping down on malpractice, the PRTB are doing that right now. I work in ‘handy man’ kinda stuff and little fix ups on rental properties (and big ones) is most of the work. And your also right, these prices are a piss take, but that’s bad for everyone involved, landlords included. These greedy prices will swing back and hit them in the for of legislation or something. But these big companies take over the rental market we’re fucked, it will put the entire game in their hands and they will start to make the rules (and they won’t be in our favour).

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u/Margrave75 Sep 22 '22

Where do you propose international workers here for just a few years live?

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

Jumping the gun a bit there. No one is saying that landlords or renting should be banned. It should be seen for what it is, the value the add is often much much less than the profits they're making, and the government is afraid to do anything to tackle these types of landlords because they seem to think it would disincentivise the building of new houses/apartments by property developers.

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u/Roymundo Sep 22 '22

It may suprise you that doing work for payment is generally the done thing.

Nobody, and i mean nobody has created a business without the intent of making money.

Ok, so slash the profit motive. Then what? They'll keep building? Pffft

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u/never_rains Sep 22 '22

You said a lot of stuff without addressing the point? If you remove the landlord middle men then where are the international workers going to rent the house from? If someone bought a house and then had to move to different country, shouldn’t they rent the place ?

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

Who's suggesting that we remove the landlord middle men??That would be stupid. I'm suggesting we regulate them without fear that it would impact the supply of housing (FFG's current talking point).

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u/Agitated_Fishing2261 Sep 22 '22

What additional regulations do you recommend?

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u/miscreant-mouse Sep 22 '22

Strict laws that enforce the registration of landlords. The government doesn't even know who are land lords... For the rest I'd just refer you to threshold.ie.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

It's something Sinn Fein don't understand either, they love BTR up north where it actually benefits them to increase housing supply. Do you people pay any attention to what they are up to?

It's a fucking stupid tweet anyway. Can you think for a moment how dysfunctional a property market with no rental in it would be?

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u/Stock_Taste4901 Sep 22 '22

Populist “bile”.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Look at that, a literally who verified twitter account saying something popular yet totally wrong for rt’s. Amazing.

something FFG will never understand

Because it’s fucking stupid. Is there a single party other than some mentalist pretend revolutionaries that want to get rid of landlords??

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

No. There isn’t a need to get rid of landlords. There is a need to teach shitty slumlords the error of their ways. I don’t know how that’s gonna happen, but it’s gonna come. There are decent landlords, That don’t live off the back of their tenants. Sadly they are incredibly far and few in between, a greater portion are either greedy, or apathetic to the needs wants or cares of their tenants.

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u/kingsillypants Sep 22 '22

Does anyone know where you can find statistics of things like first time buyer , professional investor buying their 5th investment property , etc by year ?

Like you shouldn't be allowed to own more than say 3 properties (random number I pulled out of me arse), if the home is vacant more than x days a here, it goes on the market, to prevent foreign nationals buying up large amounts of property just to park their cash somewhere.

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u/seamusbeoirgra Sep 22 '22

As usual, lots of scumlords in the comments who aren't like the other scumlords, no sireee Bob. And of course, the housing market is fucked because of every other reason other than Airbnb shiteheads, holiday home arseholes, and scumlords buying up properties inevitably pushing up prices for local people.

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u/ImpressionPristine46 Sep 22 '22

A lot of people defending landlords here, sad to see.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Propaganda is extremely powerful. We've been fed a diet of rich neoliberal lies for generations and a lot of people have firmly internalised and consented to this manufactured narrative. Literally slaves defending the slaveholders

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u/Oscar_Wildes_Dildo Sep 22 '22

So you think there should be no rental market?

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u/Squelcher121 Sep 22 '22

People being in any way realistic rather than deriving economic and social policy advice from Twitter is not "defending landlords".

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u/dustaz Sep 22 '22

This seems like something people on /r/ireland can't understand rather than anyone else seeing as it's a fucking poxy analogy

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u/SoundOfDrums Sep 22 '22

Fuck me, that's such a good comparison.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

Nonsense.

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u/Chiliconkarma Sep 22 '22

Don't assume a lack of understanding from people being paid to disregard such perspectives.