Ronan Lyons is Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, where his primary research areas are housing markets, urban economics, and economic history.
By any metric, Nepal is a poor country with limited public services. Yet, Ireland could take a leaf out of Nepal’s book and become literate in land values, writes Ronan Lyons in Kathmandu.
Nobody knows the break-even cost of a minimum standard home and how that relates to the local income distribution. Nor do we measure the number and size of homes people would choose, as opposed to the ones they currently live in.
Since 2020 in particular, the government has thrown a lot more money at the problem, in particular for social housing of various hues. It has done so while also effectively ignoring the growing deficit of rental homes around the country.
When you look at the data, two clear rental trends emerge. Rents in the open market have risen rapidly for a decade. Secondly, rents for "stayers" are also increasing but at a much slower pace than for those moving.
Ronan Lyons is an international expert on housing policy. Here, he argues that Sinn Féin’s policy document marks a continuation of current housing policy, rather than a radical shift.
Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford experienced no significant freeing up of rental stock at the height of lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. But the cities have seen a phenomenal resurgence in rental demand.
A constitutional right to housing could actually make things worse by giving the Government the opportunity to simply pay off those who make it to the Courts, rather than to make systemic fixes.
Net migration is volatile in Ireland and may well rise and fall over the coming years. But what seems far less likely to change is longer-run structural changes in society, all of which point to smaller households. This needs to be central in the housing discussion, not migration.
Dublin and its commuter counties have the lowest inflation in the housing market. But, given how tight second-hand supply is, and given how slowly fixed rate mortgages will unwind, upward pressure on prices will continue.
The Housing Commission disagreed over how to reform Ireland’s stringent system of rent controls. I was on the commission. These are the systems that we examined, and why different people took different stands.
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