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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure how many HN readers we have in Ireland, but as an American I'd be interested to hear their perspective on this article.

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I lived there at the time, and it may be foolhardy to argue with an Assistant Professor of Economics, but it seems that the author is willfully ignoring the distinction between 'Unfinished' and 'Empty' houses. The Central Statistics Office (which often has difficulty counting things) found around 230,000 empty houses at that time. So while he may have a point that some of the 'Unfinished' ones never made it past the plans, there were also completed and empty housing estates, some of which were bulldozed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-19/ireland-b...

Also, the author claims that he couldn't find empty estates near Dublin, but if he went as far as Celbridge he would have found some. Futhermore he seems to jump back and forth between rural Leitrim and Dublin to make his point, depending on what suits his argument. Rural areas had huge ghost estates.

https://www.housing.eolasmagazine.ie/cso-publishes-breakdown...

You can see a comment below from mandmandam below with a personal take too.

The point about there being a credit bubble stands, and the author leaves out the commercial side of the bubble, purely focusing on residential.

The wikipedia article is superior to this one, normally I would have more time and respect for Ronan Lyons than this linked instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_property_bubble

And as to there being a myth about the Irish property bubble refuting the laws of supply and demand, I don't think anyone has made this point in my earshot or viewing. This third myth is itself a myth of the author's own creation.

He covered the empty estates issue well enough I thought: by the mid-2010s they were mostly fully constructed and occupied, including in rural areas. That chimes with my experience, having lived in a few different parts of the country (urban and rural) over that time period. It was rare for completed housing estate to be bulldozed.

You will find that you are wrong about the occupation rates in rural areas, it's still at around 180000 unoccupied dwellings at the last count. Misleading not to make the distinction between Unfinished and Empty just to make a point, leaving out half the story in numbers terms. The article would have been more accurate if the titles of the 'Myths' were about Dublin and not Ireland.

I don't have figures for the amount of bulldozing that went on, but it was enough to make headlines for the years between 2008 to 2012, the bottom of the market.

> around 180000 unoccupied dwellings at the last count.

I spend a lot of time in rural Ireland (ok, in the eastern, wealthier, part). This figure doesn't really reflect what I see on the ground, which is scarcity of supply - you got sources for that figure, preferably with a breakdown by region?

It is rare for people in Ireland to consider the eastern part, Leinster, rural, even while parts of it might be. Connaught is where the unoccupied dwellings are most common.

In any case here's the link I was looking for earlier, which should source the breakdown you are looking for.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp...

Trying to tell a resident of rural Leinster what I should and shouldn't consider rural isn't going to get you very far.

To get back to your point...

> there were also completed and empty housing estates.... Rural areas had huge ghost estates

That's not accurate - an ambitious housing estate in a rural area would be usually a few tens of houses. Ten to fifteen would be much more usual. "Huge" is not the word.

> You will find that you are wrong about the occupation rates in rural areas, it's still at around 180000 unoccupied dwellings at the last count. Misleading not to make the distinction between Unfinished and Empty just to make a point, leaving out half the story in numbers terms.

The CSO figures don't allow us to see what proportion of the unoccupied buildings are ghost estates. Table 4.3 gives a breakdown but it's not particularly helpful. From my own experience I really don't think that they are a particularly large proportion any more.

Please accept my apologies for any offense caused.

compare and contrast

https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2021/05/15/meaths-last-ghost-e...

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2021/07/20/urgent-call-to-tackl...

we are now into an argument of semantics over huge.

Also I would like to point out the title of the myth was about 'Ireland built too many houses', not just ghost estates and so the distinction between unfinished and empty remains important and ignored by the author.

In addition the author refers initially to them as 'ghost towns' which is not common parlance, and then links to an article about 'ghost estates', and continues then to talk about 'ghost estates'.

Linked from the original article. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35112926.amp

A lot of the complete-but-unoccupied homes in rural areas are holiday homes I believe, but I can't give you a reference for where I read that. Another big chunk are basically barely-habitable hovels in probate.

You won't find many empty 3-bed semis with a BER above F outside of urban areas. I still think he was broadly right about the ghost estates nationwide.

Interesting and accurate (though he's the academic, not me, so that's not really my call to make).

Ronan Lyons is a fairly well known name for people who would read the Business section of the newspapers. He compiles a a quarterly report for Ireland's largest property website that gets pretty much guaranteed coverage upon release.

Almost certainly more than one reader...

Since the terms "transport", "landlord" and "highest mortgage interest rates in the eurozone" appear nowhere, I believe the article is a relatively shallow analysis, though some good points are made. This is probably the most important assertion, to my mind:

  Put another way, nobody worried about the cost of building a home rising from   
  €125,000 to €225,000 when credit had pushed prices up from €150,000 to €350,000. 
  But when prices crashed back down to €175,000, the system had a real problem on 
  its hands – one that policymakers have been loath to touch.

It's long been my opinion (I have no economic background) that the last decade or so has seen successive governments sit out the problem: stalling until the indebted inflate their way out of debt. Attempts to stimulate supply have been wrong footed, attempts to reduce demand have resulted in grants and tax relief being withdrawn from the renter/owner (in stark contrast to the ever increasing reliefs granted to the investor, but I understand supply and demand). The lower end of the market is particularly competitive as a result. The Central Bank borrowing limits referenced have kept price growth partly in check, but favours foreign investment (pension funds in particular get bad press).

Small scale private landlords are exiting the market, there's general unease with large scale commercial operations (a novelty here) given tight supply and not so ancient Irish history. A particular issue in Dublin city is the scale of privatised student accommodation to avail of various tax reliefs (recently some 18k units, in over 50 individual developments).

I have a reluctance to take on personal debt, I was able to save and needed only a small mortgage for a house in Dublin city (and more importantly, within cycling distance of work). I consider myself one of the lucky ones. My mortgage repayments are approximately my previous rent, I rented for more years than my mortgage term (but ability to move according to work was my preference for a long time).

It's no small irony that the house I live in was built in the 1950s, local authority housing designed by Dublin corporation architect HG Simms - back in the original Dublin housing crisis ...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/hugh-lineh...

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