IRISH MEDIA AND COMMON NONSENSE
Nov 20th, 2007 by Conor McCabe
The reduction in available properties comes at a time of record demand due to a “demographic bulge” among people of renting age, as well as high levels of immigration.” (Irish Independent, 13 June 2007)
Rents, apparently, are up this year. It’s been repeated so many times - at least since June anyway - for it now to have become part of the normative consensus. Who know? It may even be true, but it aint supply that’s causing it. Below is taken from www.daftwatch.ie. the compilers of the following data are keen to stress that “This page is not connected with, or approved by, Daft.ie. It may not even be accurate, but I’ve tried my best!” However, unlike most soundings on Irish rents and Irish property, at least daftwatch is based on something resembling facts and research. And, to Daft’s credit, they haven’t blocked those who are using their figures for such snapshots, unlike the Irish Times and its myhome.ie site. The figures are for the last twelve months, in that the “01 Sep” refers to 1st September 2006, with “01 Nov” referring to 1st November 2007.
By the way, can anyone explain a “demographic bulge” to me, especially one between “”? Sounds like PR speak for “suitably vague while sounding scientific”.
I don’t know exactly what a “demographic bulge” is but a “democratic bulge” is a politician’s beer belly…:-)
Seriously though: one should approach the rise in rentable properties on daft.ie with one note of caution. It might just represent a huge rise in the use of Daft over the last year, due to its success as a website, and might not represent the total market increase. Which is all the more pity that bloggers cannot compile statistics from Myhome.ie for cross-comparison too!
thanks for the comment, Shazgood. The CSO reported a -0.2% drop in rents in September.
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?t=3887
This time last year, Daft.ie was already the most trafficked Irish site on the web.
http://www.iqcontent.com/blog/2006/10/word-of-mouth-marketing-and-irelands-biggest-property-website
and from ENN, Ireland’s IT Newswire, 7 November 2006: http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9842696.html
“Daft.ie was named in September [2006] as the most trafficked Irish website with over 38 million page impressions per month from 600,000 unique visitors by the independent website auditors ABCE.
In March 2007, that had risen to 760,113 unique visitors per month, an increase of 26% during a time when the amount of rental properties actually dropped, and the amount of houses for sale increased by over 200% It’s hard to see any correlation between increased usage of the site and the static figures for rental properties and the 200% increase in properties for sale. i’m going to say that it’s telling us something more about those who own property in Ireland, than Daft.ie.
From March ‘07 to now, the amount of rental properties jumped from 4,000 to 9,000, while the amount of houses for sale kept on rising, from 30,000 to 55,000 units.
Having said all that, of course you’re right about treating these figures with caution. Still, gets one thinking though, especially when those figures are put into context of the fact that 15% of all housing in Ireland lies empty, and that the Irish media has a vested interest in property - through advertising sales and, in the case of the Irish Times, as proprietors of a property website which they spent millions of Euro in acquiring.
Hi Conor - I’m impressed with your arguments. It seems that the rise in rentable properties since March must be taken at face value.
We can speculate why that is - perhaps a combination of immigrants fleeing the country because they no longer work on construction sites, or sellers deciding to abandon the attempt to sell their properties and instead rent them out. The second reason means the amount of overhang might be even greater than the “experts” have let on. And the first just spells a huge disaster for the Irish economy. Either way, it ain’t pretty.
thanks Shargood. I only went digging for the daft.ie stuff after you raised your point about the figures in your comment. I think that the same thing that’s going on with house prices is going on with rent prices - or at least was until fairly recently. I mean, lack of demand didn’t stop people demanding ridiculous money for their properties - for example, €500,000 for a house in a poorly-serviced estate in Meath. The other thing, of course, is that the price advertised and the price settled on are not the same. The rents are going up arguments seems to be anecdotal, while the statistical surveys point the other way.
Now, we have had an economy run by anecdotes for ten years, but the anecdotes are running out, along with the credit.
By the way, do you not think it’s absolutely fascinating about us Irish that we can completely ignore the international credit meltdown and argue that sour grapes on the part of mealy mouthers is “talking down” the economy? I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, how fucking nuts is that? That’s nuts that’s gone to nuts college and has gotten a PhD in being fucking nuts.
The thing here is, as fintan O’Toole argued in yesterday’s Times, we can still have a decent economy and strive for decent services, if only we recognise where the fault lines are, and fix them.
The problem is that some of the fault lines in the Irish economy are directly linked to the financial backers of Fianna Fáil, and they sure as hell don’t want the kind of changes needed in order to put us back on track.
That’s why Brian Cowen’s talk is all about us cutting back, and not say tackling land speculation or the implementation of a true meritocracy-based system for the awarding of government contracts. I’m thinking of the truly staggering cash injection into the Irish construction industry that FF has promised, JUST as the boom winds down! I mean, where the fuck were these projects for the past ten years? Isn’t it funny how when our ability to borrow to finance the lifestyles of the construction bloc in Ireland runs low, the government steps in and uses our tax money to do exactly the same? and billions of it as well. As Tom Parlon made very clear last week, there’s a lot of money still to be made in construction in Ireland. It’s going to happen through government contracts, so, you know, if you know people who know people, it might do you some good.
Hi Conor -
yeah, this whole debate could lead us on to a whole series of related debates - about why we’ve adopted a car-based living style (a la the US) and ignored public transport for so long. It’s because we all want the 3-bed semi-d with a large garden! And why our C02 emissions are soaring and the government doesn’t have any plan to tackle it. And why stamp duty rates are punitive. And why the banking system gets molly-coddled when they’re found with their fingers in the till (DIRT tax evasion). And why two solicitors can get away (so far) with incredible bouts of fraud and dodgy practices without the Law Society batting an eyelid (although they’re now scrambling to change that perception).
I read the same Fintan O’Toole article and thought it was excellent - but utopian. The problem is, the Irish people decided last May to stick with the status quo. They decided that they wanted more of the same crapology we’ve had for the last 20 years. FF were basically told by the electorate: we endorse your ideas and general direction, just keep the party rolling. When it comes to voting, people think: nevermind the quality, look at the thickness (pun intended).
So the debate is huge and spreads its tentacles into every layer of Irish society, in the health system, the transport system, the economy, the environment. All of it links back to the fundamental choice we made as a nation to find growth and prosperity through an unsustainable property splurge. Now that the bubble is bursting, there is this frantic attempt to talk it up again.
One general rule about bubbles is that the bigger they were, the harder the come down. Since our bubble was enormous, the comedown will be equally catastrophic. And I am not a naysayer (I hope), just being realistic.
you’re right. This is not just about politics, it’s about Irish society. But I dont think Fintan O’Toole’s article was utopian. He highlighted the fault lines, along with the positives, and showed that it’s still possible to get out of this without finding ourselves back in the 1980s again. I’m in two minds about the idea that the Irish people simply voted for FF. I think they saw the alternative - Enda Kenny - and enough went ‘no’ to keep FF in power. And as for Labour…. At least FG made gains, where the hell was Labour in all of this? The fact that FF is not challenged in any way over the economy by FG or Labour is again a problem, for it gives the impression that the irish economy suffers from a mis-allocation of funds (health, roads, education, etc) instead of the serious fault-lines it obviously has. That was FG and Labour’s position before the election, and, rather bizarrly, it still holds today. In fact, Eamonn Gilmore keeps on telling us that the economy is ok, it’s just run badly. And that is simply wrong. It’s so fucking wrong. It’s patronising as well, and it’s counter-productive as it ties Labour to the policies of FF.
To misquote Yeats, In Ireland, the best lack ambition, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Just read the O’Toole piece now. He didn’t have scope to explain how -and this is true in all western societies, but is most pronounced in America, Britain and the US - we arrived at a situation where people genuinely value certain public goods - cancer services, schools, efficient trains - but have have been persuaded to buy in to a low tax economy. Low tax means, don’t pool your money to buy big things for the collective, just buy relatively small things for the individual. The right managed to articulate its agenda in a way people bought in to. Yes, there are vested interests which bought political power and cleverly promoted their agenda. But why is the left failing to articulate an alternative vision. Why can the left not get more people around to the view that says “yes, you are right, I would prefer better community care for my granny than have the latest ipod the day it is released”. And thereby persuade people of the value of public investment and if necessary extra taxation (within reason, and fairly distributed, not the 80s madness).
There also the issue of our culture of preferring positional goods over public goods which I briefly discuss in my latest post on my own blog. (ahem, plug plug).
great post, but a better illustration of the Irish situation might be the one where the coyote has bought plastic wings and a helmet. He jumps off the cliff, and sails towards his demise, all the while thinking he is actually flying.
[…] reported here on Tuesday that according the the CSO, rents in Dublin dropped by 0.2% in September. At the same time, […]
[…] reported here on Tuesday that according the the CSO, rents in Ireland dropped by 0.2% in September. At the same time, […]