The dysfunctionality of Ireland’s accommodation market has hit a new milestone: The building of tent villages. I thought things were bad when I threw in the towel but at the time I never thought about how much worse it could possibly get.
Naturally they are supposedly only for use as “a last resort” but Ireland is already at the last resort stage and has been for some time. Tents were a common sight within Dublin years ago but with the government itself building tent villages the state has now officially chalked up third-world status.
This crisis is the result of an unwritten policy of the government: Bail out those people who overpaid for Celtic Tiger era properties by reinflating the property market. And the only way this was going to happen was to squish supply down to zero. As a result prices are now only 19% below what they peaked at back in the 2000’s. And that is assuming the average price quoted by Daft.ie is accurate.
So you have this crazy situation where the vast majority of new-builds are never offered on the open market, and for what properties are actually on the market you have private buyers competing with deep-pocketed councils who are happy to bid well over what is claimed to be asking prices.
This is not a government failure. This outcome is entirely government’s intention. And as a result will never be fixed.