You add some excellent background and context. I was reading the article screaming "it's so much more complicated than this".
> Incidentally I'm probably selling my house an hour from Dublin a bike ride from the train with gigabit fibre on 3.5 acres soon if anyone's interested.
I'm curious how much you're listing it above your purchase price. Show me a vendor who doesn't succumb to estate agents whispering in their ear about what you can get for it or a belief they _have_ to participate in 'supply and demand' and I'll eat my hat. (Yes, I'm just as guilty of this)
How would I not participate in supply and demand? I'll sell to the highest bidder, whatever that is.
Though I suspect I'll take a loss when all is said and done. I was stupid enough to buy a protected structure and thanks to heritage's intransigence I now have a thatched cottage (recently rethatched!) with a beautiful 120 sqm extension with huge windows, high ceilings, engineered wood floors, heat pumps, insulated foundation.... and no insurance. Because of the thatched bit...
Removing or replacing the existing thatch with anything but the same material (oaten straw) is highly illegal and could land me in jail.
Of course, heritage's stubbornness is also why my own county lost 40% of thatched buildings in the last 20 years and will probably lose them all in the next 20.
In some cases buildings are worth literally less than nothing (the land would be worth more without them) because heritage is naive enough to think some rich eccentric wants to plow millions of Euro in to fixing some dump in the middle of nowhere.
The land would be worth more if the building were demolished (and it had planning permission to build homes). But heritage officers won't allow that, so nature will demolish slowly (and make the town ever uglier in the process) and THEN in 30 years or so it will finally be demolished.
? Ireland remains in the EU. And it's common to have stricter rules for historical buildings (fair enough, my cottage is over 200 years old) but normally it comes with provisions for supporting maintenance, insurance, etc. Ireland just half-asses it.
What I mean is that vendors/landlords can decide to sell/rent for less than the maximum being offered and collectively cool the market themselves, theoretically.
However it requires extreme coordination because if the vendor of my next property is trying to achieve maximum gains then it would be a financial double whammy for me if I take less than the maximum being offered.
The point is that by accepting the absolute maximum I can get for my property, I am playing a part in raising property prices, whatever the reason.
You said “I will sell”. It’s an active choice, not a law of nature. You make a decision. We all do
The problem is that the focus on "greedy landlords" or "greedy corporations" or "greedy homeowners" is that it suggests the solution is to make people stop being greedy. As a "greedy homeowner" that's very convenient for me because I know it'll never happen. No, don't increase my property taxes, don't ask for CGT on my primary residence, just keep imploring me to "stop being greedy".
Unfortunately "greed" is about the only thing you see in the discourse on the matter in Ireland, which really remains pretty unsophisticated and unable to comprehend second-order effects. I posted once or twice on one of "Ciaran's crazy house prices" rants about greed saying that we needed systemic change and the focus on "greed" was absurd - humans in Ireland are no more greedy than anywhere else - and was shouted down. Similarly, if you say "letting tenants remain in properties for months or years without paying rent might discourage people from renting out homes and make the problem worse" or "making it impossible to evict people will result in more places never being rented out in the first place" then you're some kind of heartless bastard.
Everyone is greedy! Do you go to your boss and ask for a pay cut? Do you put your car on donedeal and say "10,000 or lowest offer"? What we need is _systemic_ change that acknowledges people are greedy and produces good outcomes despite that greed.
Not to mention that the idea of selling to someone based on something besides price invites all sort of prejudice and bias. Should I choose to sell to a nice local family and tell the immigrants to go to hell? Should I sell to someone who shares my own political views? How would you have me decide?
Finally, a lot of people are selfless until faced with the reality of the situation. The next house I buy? It's going to the highest bidder. The best way for me to make sure that bidder is me is to get the best price I can now for my current house.
Greed is hardwired into the human condition and I think it would be absurd to try and persuade people into transactions that would not be in their best interest and think you can have success.
Especially where it is akin to a prisoner's dillema and a few bad actors can take advantage of your good intentions.
My point was if you really care about this issue you need to think about incentives and/or government regulation as a solution - not preaching.
Sure, but I'm not a charity and I need to move somewhere else so I'm going to sell it to whoever is willing to pay me the most. My personal choices will not effect the systemic change needed.
> Incidentally I'm probably selling my house an hour from Dublin a bike ride from the train with gigabit fibre on 3.5 acres soon if anyone's interested.
I'm curious how much you're listing it above your purchase price. Show me a vendor who doesn't succumb to estate agents whispering in their ear about what you can get for it or a belief they _have_ to participate in 'supply and demand' and I'll eat my hat. (Yes, I'm just as guilty of this)