Thanks James, that's interesting. In all of the debate about building in Ireland the focus is on the volume of housing being built. Credit gets a mention of course, but most of the talk is about how there is apparently too much building going on. If you have the time, there's a chapter in 'Land Matters: Power Struggles in Rural Ireland' by Ethel Crowley that deals with the anti (rural) housebuilding mood. (I can send you a review of it if you like. For my money Crowley is wrong and exhibits snobbery, but that's neither here nor there).
Anyway, how would one go about trying to bring house prices down, if one were in a position to do so? There is a lot of talk about so-called affordable housing here but what it means is slightly cheaper (and vastly inferior) housing.
Doug wrote:
> I just happened to read in The Economist that housebuilding accounts
> for 15%
> of national income and 12% of employment in Ireland. That's nuts.
Yes, indeed it is. Lacking much in the way of industrial development during much of the last century Ireland has finally got rich by building. Perhaps it's like purgatory - the priests used to describe it as being like digging holes and filling them up again. On the other hand, there is a clear need for more housebuilding and the mood does seem to be changing. There is a lot of talk of 'conspicuous consumption' and Ireland losing its 'spiritual values', as if fifty-plus years of spiritual values wasn't the prefect example of the carnival of reaction.
British commentators regularly deride Ireland's economy saying that it's a result of EU grants. EU monies have been important, particularly in the farming sector (and the North, though that's a different matter) but the reality is most of the money appears to have come from completely irrational construction - I would write development but that word is pregnant with meaning. Actual need has been very poorly served. There is a uniform recognition that housing is too expensive and yet so many people have money tied up in it (and the economy as a whole is so dependent on it) that everyone also fears a crash. It does look like a no-win situation.
I seem to recall that you made a comment a while back about rentiers not being all that common in the US. They are here. The model is still the British one of individual landlords owning a few houses, not the continental European system where finance compaies and trade unions invest in housing in the long term. I'll be at a conference on housebuilding on Monday so it'll be interesting to see what the various parties have to say. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that one consequence of this is living in rented accommodation becomes less attractive. For a start, much less maintenance and structural repair work is performed under the predominant model here. Then there's the issue of rights.
And, yes, I've broken the three posts a day rule so I'll shut up now. In my defence, it's after midnight here.
Jason.
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