How Ireland & Scotland are ruining their housing markets

The experience of rent controls in Ireland & Scotland
#scotland #ireland #renters #rentcontrol #housing #dublin #glasgow #cork #edinburgh #politics
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[@happyflea]

Rent control doesn't work when the supply side is also ignored. If the state mass produces housing, bans second homes and short term leases (like Singapore, some of the lowest cost housing in the developed world) this policy works. Lazy politicians only want to implement the popular & cheap part of the policy set, ignoring that it is part of a wholistic set of policies.

[@wicklowpatster]

Singapore doesn't have any land. Ireland does. Why would you ban second homes? There has to be a balance between radical and much needed social policies and private ownership rights. That's the way forward.

[@stephcollins9346]

Agreed totally. Good piece of research by CATU, community action tenants union on the topic of public housing which illustrates this point exactly: catuireland.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Public-Housing-Pamphlet-final.pdf

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@wicklowpatster awwwww the the pwoor widdle rwich peowple. Why can't dey have multiple hwomes duwring a sevewre housing cwrisis. No faaaaaiwre

[@wicklowpatster]

@@hhhieronymusbotch way to miss the entire point of the video. Supply is the problem. There's no shortage of land, just issues with planning and building, and political leadership. The population is growing and we need more houses, it's quite simple. Penalizing private ownership will be counter productive for all

[@krombopulos_michael]

Those things also all work without rent control. Rent control doesn't help anything, all you're arguing is that if we make it so that it's unnecessary, then it won't do any harm

[@niallkinsella2687]

The problem in Ireland isn't rent control. It's lack of supply. There's been as many new homes built in the past decade as there was built in 2007 alone. There's been no incentive from government to allow an increase in supply, and nothing done to reduce the instances of people opposing every new development. The arrival of vulture funds buying up what new developments there is and keeping rent artificially high doesn't help in any way.

[@goncaloaraujo6644]

rent control contributes to not building new houses

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@goncaloaraujo6644 [citation needed]

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@goncaloaraujo6644 [citation needed] * Also this is the second time I'm posting this comment, because since posting it originally all of a minute or two ago, its 'mysteriously' disappeared. I wonder how that happened 🤔 Ah well, if it happens again, I guess I'll have to come back here and spam the comment hundreds of times to make it more difficult for it to 'mysteriously' vanish again

[@rhubarb2301]

@@goncaloaraujo6644 as a housebuilder, housebuilding is still incredibly profitable, even in areas with rent control. But local governments simply dont allow us to build

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

I agree for the most part except for one - we shouldn't be "incentivising" developers anymore because when they finally do decide to build something, they rent it out at extortionate rates which just drives up the price of the few remaining "affordable" properties. We need PUBLIC housing, preferably built by a nation-wide public construction company rather than these inefficient councils that are trying to manage a million things at once. I deal with the council all the time and letting them handle construction of buildings is an awful idea in a housing crisis.

[@TankEnMate]

Each local council should have both a planning and building goal (in line with shortage / population growth), and a lien on their funding if they don't achieve it. Empty / second homes should have to pay more tax (which is ring fenced for building more social housing).

[@talideon]

That would require that the government return these powers to local authorities. Local government barely exists these days.

[@TankEnMate]

@@talideon Well on the planning side they have a say, but yes, on the development side they have been gutted.

[@kennethsilver5978]

I saw a comment I can't find mention Vienna as a clear counterexample, and discussing any salient differences would be nice. It's also odd not to acknowledge that this housing supply problem seems to be widespread across many different cities with different renting policies. Many cities don't have these controls but do have even worse homelessness crises as well as many more unrentable luxury apartments.

[@hausmeisterbanane]

Vienna is not a great counter example, there is no rent control for new builds so supply is increasing. BUT since there is rent control on pre-war buildings there is a huge incentive to tear down old beautiful buildings and but a new building there (without increasing the supply of flats on this particular plot).

[@freedomcontrolled6190]

It's the out of control cost that's mainly causing the rental problem not lack of rent controls!!! I can speak for Ireland only as I live there housing is over priced by about 50% and the main reasons for that is government policy to benefit there friends in the financial sector and all the other reasons basically fall under that case closed!! Rent control is basically vote gouging to appease all the people they've hurt to the benefit there palls in the financial sector and the landlord class. Sorry but really no need for a documentary on rent controls!

[@Art-is-craft]

Austria is in demographic collapse. How is their market controls working?

[@lynb1022]

@@hausmeisterbanane Stop lying. Vienna's social housing (not only for 'the poor' but for everyone) not only maintains their old beautiful buildings to preserve cultural heritage but also modernizes them. If developers won't build without demanding rent-controls be abolished they are not fit for purpose. The state can hire their own architects and contractors, and find qualified construction labourers to replace those parasitic developers.

[@geordieinjapan]

Vienna isn't a great counter example because of these factors that are part of it being a great counter example and this other factor which doesn't really happen due to heritage laws?@@hausmeisterbanane

[@han090]

Disappointed with this limited analysis. The housing market was destroyed BEFORE rent controls. That's why they introduced the controls to begin with. Because they don't want to actually address the problems that made rents too high in the first place. Targeting rent control as the issue suggets an ideological or self interested short sightedness.

[@rockintoes]

I didn't get that sense at all from this video. The premise was clear, rent control will not fix the housing issue, it's rather a much for complex issue (usually driven by supply shortages)

[@graemebarriball303]

Do you think rents rose due to too many homes being in the market to rent? If you do then I’d suggest you read some basic economic text books, if you don’t then the only cure is more house building to increase supply to meet demand, sate or private building or better still both. Nothing else will work, look at the experience of Finland in the second half of the last century, their rent controls destroyed their private housing completely with the state unable to fill the gap. They ended up abandoning all property controls in the mid 1990’s.

[@Enhancedlies]

mirror much?

[@voice.of.reason]

Rent control only makes the problem worse

[@geordieinjapan]

Yep. Way too many quick to kick rent controls as being responsible for broken markets that they were always introduced in reaction to as a way to dull the pain until a real solution can be created.

[@cathalferry5301]

Don't forget that a lot of our politicians in Ireland are landlords. Also lots of landlords exited the market due to high taxes and not much incentive. The government actively deincentivises new house builds with such nonsense as a recent 10% tax on concrete products.

[@benm8214]

Supply of housing should NEVER be up to the market. We don't have our fire brigade on a for profit model for a damn good reason. Why should shelter, a basic human right, be the same? Edit: grammer

[@toyotaprius79]

Bingo

[@graemebarriball303]

Why should the state control all the wealth? If they own your home they own your thought, disagree with them and you’re out. Having grew up in social housing in the. 1970’s the state made terrible landlords, they never updated homes, leaving tenants in damp draughty homes with a growing list of repairs.

[@benm8214]

@graemebarriball303 I ain't saying that you shouldn't have the right to buy your own home. I also grew up in a council house, which my parents eventually bought at a fair price in relation to other non-council houses in our area. All because profit was not the main concern of the council. People were. The problem is we stopped building affordable council houses where people like my parents could have a secure home early on and work their way to buying it. I don't have that option. Now it's all market and profit driven. House prices have NEVER been higher, they're seen as investments for horded wealth and any move to incease supply would only bring down prices, meaning the investment becomes sour. It's in the better interest of investment groups, like pension funds, to keep prices going up up up.

[@DanKac182]

Saying that something is a right doesn't make the resource abundant nor free. Good luck putting this job to the government and live in poverty forever

[@Housey1985]

Daft communist thinking

[@brugjam4044]

I'm glad to have seen other people pointing these issues out in the comments, but as an economics and politics student who has discussed these issues in my course I have a number of problems with this analysis of rent controls. I'm glad that an bord pleanala and issues with planning permission etc were brought up in this video, but there is nothing about rent controls which is inherently 'bad'. This entire critique of rent controls is predicated on a neoliberal private sector 'market' supply of housing. These 'warning signals' and supply effects of freezing rents do not have such a drastic impact when a significant portion of the housing supply is public. Also the proposed solution of the localisation of government is fine (I suppose) if we plan to indefinitely keep a housing market with a neoliberal housing supply, but what would actually act as an effective solution would be a large scale public supply of housing, and taking the housing supply 'power' away from individual landlords and into a body which does not treat rental housing as a commodity / income. A brief sidenote of "affordable social housing" is not enough. Also as a side note, what the IMF says is not to be taken as gospel. It has historically had a number of questionable policies. As a second side note I usually find your videos to be very well thought out and I enjoy them very much. Keep it up!

[@polysee]

Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. To be fair we said that (local) government should be investing in social and affordable housing, and one of the interviewees said the lack thereof is the problem. We also advocate for a localist, learn by doing approach, which is a concession that macro policy is messy

[@mattpotter8725]

​@@polyseeI think even devolving power (and a lot of money) to more regional or city governing bodies, whilst needed in Ireland, I think will run into exactly the same issues from powerful, wealthy players who can get their own way by bullying or even buying off officials. Decentralisation in Ireland is definitely very much needed, I don't think anyone disagrees with that, apart from those with the power in Dublin, but you didn't really offer any real solutions beyond this, apart from possibly total deregulation, and that's what we have here in England and we have the same problem, which is lack of supply and basically house builders not wanting to build affordable housing as they know they can build luxury flats to sell to foreign investors and make a lot more money. I also think that Scotland is a terrible comparison with Ireland because very few powers are devolved to Scotland by the British government and they are not allowed to raise their own tax revenue, so in effect they are limited in what they can do. I totally agree with you that rent controls aren't a good thing in the long term, but this with increased house and flat building whilst they are in place might be needed as a short term measure. You can, and did, argue that they are never removed but that's not an argument that they shouldn't actually be used in the short term, that's down to a different problem, mainly a lack of those in power communicating with their electorate why they are doing something and making brave decisions.

[@voyowee]

Government is the problem here, not markets. Lowering interest rates artificially in the aftermath of a criminal speculative boom only encouraged people to drive up prices even further. Pair that with heavy-handed regulation, slow approvals, and NIMBY-ism, and you get this disaster. Chanting "neoliberal" will not make your argument for more public housing persuasive. Governments can try to mimic the market and build supply, but they do it badly, more expensively, and it all ends in tears.

[@Purple_flower09]

​@@mattpotter8725 the Scottish Government does have tax raising powers with an ability to alter income tax. This has in recent times led to a difference with better off people in Scotland paying a bit more tax than they would in England on the same pay. No exodus across the border has resulted so far. The Scottish Government used some of the money to increase benefit income for poor families with small children. These represent a modest re-distribution that most people in Scotland support. But it's correct that the Scottish Government has limited powers and with regards to tax it couldn't diverge very much from England in any case.

[@alanmclean1399]

@@Purple_flower09 The tax income tax increase affects people on relatively low pay also. There may not have been an exodus, but recruitment in Scotland and attracting businesses is harder. The extra money raised has not improved Scotland's failing health and education standards. One of the many reasons why more people are seeing the SNP for what they really are.

[@curtainkane]

I'm disappointed Polysee. There's a lot missing from this analysis. The reason rent controls are so disastrous here and other places is not because they are inherently a terrible idea. It's because we're trying to have it both ways. Trying to go the neoliberal "market will provide" route, and then using interventions like rent control as a band-aid, when the market inevitably doesn't provide (or only provides for the wealthy). Why do you think people were calling for rent controls in the first place? We were already in dire straits back in 2016 before the controls were brought in. We need to look more holistically. It's not as simple as "rent control = bad." Look at Vienna, a *city without a housing crisis.* They have some of the most affordable housing in Europe, and also one of the most tightly rent controlled markets. Also, coincidentally, it's one of the only housing markets in Europe where the government didn't sit back and let private developers lead the way. I wonder...

[@polysee]

Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. To be fair we do make a point of saying the (local) government needs to invest in social and affordable housing, and one of the interviewees says this explicitly. And we don’t spare the planning system. Saying that macroeconomics is messy and we should learn by doing is also a concession, and a localist approach is probably best because we (or others) do not have the perfect answer

[@curtainkane]

​@@polyseeThank you for the reply! I will say, I think your analysis isn't incorrect - more just that it's incomplete. You're completely correct that rent controls have had unintended negative consequences in Ireland. However, I think many who advocate for more rent controls, and particularly also eviction bans, are well aware of these consequences, and yet they would still make the case - because there is a humanitarian crisis in the immediate term, and they would argue that we cannot leave our most vulnerable in the lurch. One could argue that these longer term complications are worth it for the short term gain, particularly seeing as the crisis won't be solved in any case until we have significant government intervention on the supply side. It's a question of - In the meantime, are we going to prioritise protecting landowners, or protecting the vulnerable? The other little issue I'd have is that your two interviewees are both of the landlord/landowner/seller class. It's not that what they have to say isn't worth listening to, but it's worth considering that they have business interests, and consequent biases in this game. This makes me lose a smidge of trust in your channel. There are many academics and social policy experts who you could turn to for soundbites, and who would offer a more nuanced, less biased take - and some of whom would disagree completely, such as Rory Ahearn. That said, I think your channel is doing great work in general! 🙌

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@polysee interesting that you didn't make THAT the main focus of the video, rather than shilling for the landlord sector. Also interesting that you argue that the burden for affordable housing should be put on government, rather than, oh I dunno, legislating that property developers create mixed income housing. It's almost as if your whole channel is somehow more concerned with being allowed to build as many luxury apartments as possible and charge as much rent as possible. 🤔 I must take some time to look into who owns, runs , and funds your channel

[@MarkWhiley]

@polysee It was nice to hear from the Conservative MSP and all those Real Estate Agents. It would be preferable if you start by defining rent controls and similar instruments and explaining the variety of different implementations (limiting increases by a %, limiting them based on average rents in a zone, ceilings, freezing rents, increases permitted between tenancies that are different to usual limits, prohibiting luxury improvements that necessitate increases). Regulation will of course push out some landlords from the sector and make people wary of becoming private landlords, but the goals of the sector should be to provide quality, affordability and supply - not just the latter, which it isn't doing enough of anyway.

[@NZH00]

@@polysee unfortunately leaving housing policy/delivery to local governments would lead to a further collapse in housing supply as local authorities are subject to their granular electorates’ interests to prevent new housing being built to further appreciate owners’ dwelling values (as well as other powerful local demands to prevent ‘changes in local character’ and ‘excess construction noise and inconvenience’). Thanks for the video and engaging with your audience nevertheless!

[@DannyMcCarthy-vb7th]

Man this channel is so good

[@HomercleeseSimpson]

Rent controls weren't introduced as a solution to the housing crisis, they were introduced to prevent a surge in evictions due to runaway rental prices. And even then this move was only taken primarily because of pressure from the opposition parties and popular demand which forced the government to do it. In Dublin and the other major cities, most people are paying upwards of 50% of their disposable income on rent. There are little to no tenant rights - a renter may be a model tenant and still be evicted at a whim by their landlord, typically for the concocted excuse that they need the property for family... but this is generally a lie, and there is, in effect, no regulation or means to confirm this. Most tenants live in fear of upsetting their landlord and dread their yearly contract renewal (1 year is almost universally the maximum a tenant can obtain). Homeless numbers in ireland have surged since 2008, with nearly 14,000 people living in emergency accomodation. That number is comparable with other similarily sized european countries, like Denmark, but unlike Denmark it doesn't include "casual" homelessness - i.e. people who aren't on the streets but couch surf or are unable to move out of their parent's/family home. So in reality, that number is far higher. Rent controls were forced on this government because they refuse to intervene in the housing market and build social housing directly. This isn't a complicated problem. As others here have said, the problem is supply. Private developers are simply not building houses, and have switched from build-to-sell to build-to-rent. We're now at the stage where foreign investment firms are given an selection of, if not all of, the following and more "enticements": tax-free/charitable status, being contracted by the gov/local authorities to build developments (i.e. being paid full cost) after which they have to sell a small percentage back to the government for sale at "affordable prices (approx €300,000) whilst they get to sell the rest at full market prices (anywhere from €500,000 to €1,000,000), vulture funds are being given first choice to buy up huge chunks of new developments to rent without question for 25 years at which point the state will be contractually required to buy them... You really wouldn't believe the extent to which this government has gone to encourage developers and investment funds to make huge profits off our backs. And still the crisis gets worse. This crisis is as a result of fanatical devotion to neoliberal economics and a total refusal of the state to do anything itself except pay private companies rediculously above cost prices to build houses we should be building ourselves. The private housing market has clearly and unequivocally failed to provide for the needs of the majority of people in the nation. The answer is mindnumbingly obvious: the state needs to build housing. If a private market can exist on top of this (without huge state subsidies), fine. More power to them. But we need public housing.

[@IgnoresTrolls]

Absolutely spot on response to the Chicago Church of Economics viewpoint on offer in this video.

[@richiehoyt8487]

Build more council houses! Build _any_ council houses!! I mean, it worked for most of the 20th Century, at least since the foundation of the state. It didn't always work _well,_ to be sure, but at least it worked, better than what we have now, anyway! Also, I hate to say it, but the people campaigning for curbs on Jimmy Grants _do_ have a case, even if not necessarily for the reasons they have in mind. What might be arguably a good thing for the macro~economy is clearly not working too well at the local level, and what holds true for rents ( _actual_ rents, the off - the - book ones!) also goes for wages. Let me be clear, I'll happily work or live next to any (wo)man; religion or race is not the issue here - in fact, if I have an issue with anyone, like as not it's these smug 'digital nomad' hipster~types! ('Not all' 😉 of course!)

[@brianmathews2926]

A correction on your video - in Ireland, the cap on rent increases is no longer 4% annually. It was first changed to match the rate of inflation. Then, when inflation almost immediately went out of control, it was changed to "rate of inflation capped at 2%". So it is effectively 2% at current moment.

[@savinobodei4656]

An Bord Planeala are 90% of the problem behind the lack of housing supply, not rent controls. Ireland already has very high rents as a % of the average persons income, there is no need to dangle the prospect of further juicy rent increases in order to attract developers.

[@monkeykingeater]

There are 1000s of apartments in Dublin, approved by planning authorities, which aren't being built. The problem is 100% the government trying to nonintrusively tinker with market forces instead of just building housing themselves. That isn't a radical idea, it was one of the first things the state did after independence with the Million Pound Scheme. The state and local authorities continued to be a major source of Irish housing until the mid 80s.

[@nicob4115]

you’re absolutely right but the point of the video is that rent controls are not a long term solution, solving the supply issue is

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

This video is just info from Wikipedia page on 'rent regulation', but with all the positive counter-arguments FOR rent control removed. It's not just propaganda, it's lazy propaganda.

[@mk2gamer]

With a few logical fallacies for good measure. Calling rent controls a slippery slope, they are in my hole. Every propaganda piece like this pushes me further into thinking Mao was spot on on how to treat landlords.

[@krombopulos_michael]

​@@mk2gamerit sounds like you're already pretty extremist if you're siding with the guy who managed to out-murder Hitler by a significant margin

[@mk2gamer]

@krombopulos_michael I had friends and family go homeless because of the greed of landlords following market trends. No one ever held a gun to their heads and told them they had to deprive someone of a roof over their heads. Landlords need to go the way of the black and tans.

[@brugjam4044]

truth

[@AfroGaz71]

​@@krombopulos_michaelStrawman argument.

[@tonycallahan4488]

Absolutely excellent video I’m a tenant and I have been saying this for ages

[@dianethompson2458]

I live in Ontario Canada. I was fortunate enough to go from paying 1980.00 a month for a small one bedroom basement apartment to a rent controlled junior Bachelor ( a room the size of a standard principal bedroom in a single family home.} It contains 2 small closets, a kitchenette, bathroom and bed/living room for 1200.00 I am a single senior lady on 600.00 a month for pension. I am beyond grateful for this lovely little place. I am supplementing my income with my savings, so I am happy to have a few more years of life with a roof over my head. We need more affordable housing. It is a human right not a privilege. Young people are being denied what we all took for granted when we were young. It is a worldwide disgrace that so many people are not being adequately and affordably housed. I am ashamed of my government for not fixing this issue. It is within their power to do so. I hope they come to their senses in Ireland, Scotland, Canada and anywhere else where this problem exists. I feel so sorry for those people in this struggle.

[@thomasmcd81]

“Popular bad ideas tend to stick around” - like leaving the supply side to the private sector? rent controls are a response to a failed policy. A bad idea implemented to try and counter a failed neo liberal ideology

[@polysee]

Thanks for watching. We do say that (local) gov needs to be building more social and affordable housing. And one of the interviewees says this also. The point we try to make is that more supply is needed

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@polysee interesting that you didn't make THAT the main focus of the video, rather than shilling for the landlord sector. Also interesting that you argue that the burden for affordable housing should be put on government, rather than, oh I dunno, legislating that property developers create mixed income housing. It's almost as if your whole channel is somehow more concerned with being allowed to build as many luxury apartments as possible and charge as much rent as possible. 🤔 I must take some time to look into who owns, runs , and funds your channel.

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

@@polysee You don't make that point though...

[@AweSean-wv3xo]

@@polysee Lol where

[@voyowee]

Neoliberal? Naah, just markets, which work when you let them, as history has shown time and time again. Oppressive regulation, NIMBYism and slow approvals, plus a government-created speculative boom, caused this problem. Rent controls have a long history of not working, but are like crystal meth for short-termist politicians trying to pacify voters.

[@campbella2796]

The Scottish rent cap is being replaced by a system to allow rent increases to market value. Scotland has easily the best record of building affordable housing in the UK but demand still outstrips supply.

[@jigar1p]

Both the Irish and Scottish governments are bent on legalising perversions rather than helping their own populations. Rent controls lead to slums.

[@crazyashdenton15]

Yet there are no rent controls in any English cities and their rental markets are in a far worse position that Scottish cities? The rent control was an imperfect solution to an existing problem not the cause of the problem.

[@polysee]

Are English cities really in worse shape? Aside from London, which is supply constrained due to planning rules, green belt etc?

[@crazyashdenton15]

@@polysee they absolutely are, and it’s spreading to English towns, places like Swindon and small town in the midlands are becoming a nightmare for renting let alone the big cities or even medium cities like Brighton or Bristol. Where there is supply many people in said cities can’t afford to rent the properties on their salaries so rely on housing benefit to top up their rent however many landlords won’t accept housing benefit tenants resulting in working mothers who are in jobs such as nursing living in temporary bed sits aka 1 room with their children for years while waiting on housing. The situation is way more complex than just rent controls.

[@danieldevine]

The market can't be left alone either though, private companies must increase their value so they will squeeze until it bursts - and only those with enough ability get out of those situations intact, and that isnt going to be renters or single home owners. There clearly needs to be a deeper and longer term solution. I dont know who's had no rent increase in 5 years + that's wild - almost everyone i know who's rented over the last 15 years had had probably half a dozen or more increases.

[@samgrainger1554]

Rent prices are already ludicrously high. If there's so much money (totaling like half of income in some places) why isn't that enought already to get more houses built. It's clearly not rent caps that decrease supply.

[@a6703]

Stop non Irish citizens from buying any properties & stop vulture funds buying up properties as investments! Build tonnes more social housing for Irish citizens.

[@johnduncan9235]

Rent control of existing inhabited units incentivizes construction of new supply, because that is the route open to generating profits. Lack of rent control just enables the owning class and VCs to steal money from their tenants pockets without putting in any work themselves. And the twaddle about rent control meaning that new units are priced high… no, in the absence of rent control, landlords of existing buildings just raise everyone else’s rent to match the high prices of new construction.

[@michaelmulligan0]

It’s such a complex but yet simple concept The Government need to act as a developer of public land, why are they so unwilling to.

[@user-so9yn1jp8b]

NOOOOOOO YOU NEED TO LET THE MARKET DO WHATEVER IT WANTS YOU SEE, YOU CAN'T INTERVENE IN THE PRECIOUS BEAUTIFUL PERFECT MARKET, NOOOOO.

[@rbrbrbrbrbrb432]

Is the implication that the housing market in, for example, England, is not ruined? Fair enough to say rent controls can be deleterious but realistically the fact that rent controls are so popular is because of how ruined the housing market already is. And why is that? Because a roof over one's head, one of the most important things a person needs to survive, is largely at the whim of a predatory, privatised system that perpetuates wealth inequality.

[@polysee]

They ‘why’ is something we hope to return on this channel. Certainly there’s something going on in the Anglosphere / common law countries that makes housing less affordable than it should otherwise be. The discretionary planning system is likely part of it

[@campbella2796]

@@polysee The Independent ran an article last year which said that the majority of councils in England had failed to build a single council house in the last 5 years.

[@Jef_Laenen]

An analysis of the effectiveness of rent control in a society where real estate is an investment asset is disingeniously engaging with the totality that is the housing problem. A sufficient stock of social housing allows the 1% to play monopoly without worrying about revolts. The decimated current social housing supply means that the free-market supply demand fantasy reads as a dystopian sci-fi novel. The economy-101 crowd that assumes that an increase in price will always lead to an increase in production is wilfully ignoring the reality of modern real estate dynamics. The prices have never been higher and there's never been less building of new housing. If the the tightening of supply leads to more profit than the building of new houses why would the wealthy investor risk new construction? Any focus of the housing crisis discourse on rent control has a clear radical free market agenda and should not be taken seriously by anyone who cares about the actual victims of the current situation: poor people who can't afford to buy.

[@polysee]

Thanks for engaging with the channel. In this video we advocate for local government to get involved in housebuilding. One of the interviewees points to the shortage thereof as a real issue. We also make the point that the discretionary planning system is stopping supply from coming online - as per our shadow government episode. Objections are likely to be just as forceful for social housing as private, if not moreso

[@NZH00]

@@polyseethis recommendation would be disastrous for effective housing policy. Local governments are subject to powerful localised interests from their respective electorates to restrict dwelling supply for the local property owners desire to: - ‘preserve neighbourhood character’, - ‘prevent noisey/inconvenient construction activity’, and - escalate property values due to supply shortages (most important!)

[@Jef_Laenen]

@polysee Thanks for getting back to me! I think others here have also pointed out that a discussion of rent control has value and it has some real negative effects that should be discussed. But I think you do have to admit that the framing of this video does not lend one to come to the conclusion that there is an underlying problem with housing in the UK & Ireland (where I live) that can't be adressed by removing rent control. If the video was titled "unintened consequences of rent control" I think far fewer people would take issue with it. You are presenting a way out of the current crisis where we have to put our faith in the free market, reduce red tape and let the chips fall where they may. This solution is presented as common sense and obvious. In an economy in recession and a difficult post-brexit suplly chain of both materials and labour we can not wait around until investors see opportunity in affordable housing.

[@vmoses1979]

​@@Jef_LaenenExcellent comment at the top. This video just regurgitates failed neoliberal mantras without engaging in any different paradigms.

[@andrewmcnulty6815]

Why do irish people who have a home, oppose any new homes being built near them? 😢

[@GarthPhilpot]

Assholes?

[@timothyoreilly6675]

NIMBYISM and people don't want their property values to drop (supply and demand) - people who own houses are usually older and they vote more often.

[@johnmcdonald9295]

Probably coz they prefer to live next to Irish people

[@GarthPhilpot]

Definitely not because of bigotry though...

[@kdpunshon3073]

Its the same in Canada. Exactly. So not an 'Irish' thing. Its a human thing. Its called selfishness. Its also fear.

[@vmoses1979]

No definition of rent control is actually proffered before telling us that economists, those great sages that consistently get stuff right, have pronounced it bad.

[@tempcadoganenright]

What rubbish posing as Economics! Solution is obvious, more state built social and affordable housing is the solution. Not the private sector. The population of Iteland has grown 20% so there were bound to be problems.

[@rapnsee]

Nationalise fundamental human rights. Nationalise housing, healthcare & transport. Nationalise water, food, energy & internet. Nationalisation is the only solution.

[@SilentEire]

Nationalisation is a sure fire way to absolutely destroy the Irish economy. This governs barely able to run the health service and you think we should allow them to take on all those other issues? There is a place for government, and there is a place for private enterprise.

[@gpsfinancial6988]

Sex is well up there with needs and wants- will they Nationalise access to sex too?

[@user-ng2md3gg4z]

Remind me, how many died under communism in the 20th century? It did not work then and it will not work now. The richest countries by far, are the capitalist ones. People are leaving Venezuela (socialist) to go to the USA (Capitalist). The Irish economy depends on American multinational companies and European pharmaceutical companies. Without those the economy would collapse. It is the rather decadent approach to employment which has caused the housing crisis in Ireland. ie. Bringing in tens of thousands of Brazilians, Nigerians, and Asians. It is a new plantation and they all need homes. Roderic O'Gorman is a fool and should never have been allowed in government.

[@AfroGaz71]

We tried that already. We ended up in a piss poor state under a theocracy. Best you go peddle those bad ideas to the more gullible...comrade!

[@jonathanjonathan7386]

i lived in poland in the years immediately after the fall of communism. trust me, nationalistion is usually a very bad idea

[@lorcan1213]

Moved to dublin in 2016 from west of ireland. There were massive queues to view a property then - pre rent controls, viewed 12 places, got offered 1, and rent was expensive even at that. Dublin has a severe lack of housing due to issues originally stemming from the crisis - commercial landlords buying up vast amount of existing supply, causing empty land to be super expensive, making it unaffordable for gov/developers to buy land/build affordable homes See the flood of new homeless every year, rent controls was a measure to limit this flood. If you can solve the issue of commercial landlords owning too much of the housing stock - make a video on that, this video is ignorant neoliberal claptrap

[@polysee]

Thanks for the comment. We do call for councils to invest in social and affordable housing, and one interviewee points to the lack thereof as the problem

[@allocater2]

Tax second homes -> force them to sell -> increase supply

[@wicklowpatster]

What would this do to rents?

[@cianbrennan4477]

This wouldn’t increase supply by very much; it’s fine and worthwhile if it comes with a plan to increase supply in major cities, and in extremely tourist dominated, aging areas like Conamara or West Kerry it might even solve the issue. In Dublin or Cork city, it’ll provide you with significantly less than a year of required supply. The CSO counted 62k second homes in the last census; that’s about a year’s requirement for house building. But a much smaller than representative number of these second will be in the places we need supply desperately, simply because buying a second home somewhere nice for holidays is much more common than a second home in the city centre. This of course doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do this; only they it’s not a useful solution to the problem of housing shortages, just a very short term band aid.

[@jonathanjonathan7386]

great for buyers, shit for renters.

[@user-ng2md3gg4z]

As a nearly 70 year old man who owns properties in both islands. One rented out for last 8 years to one family at a very low rent. Other property for my family. From my perspective about 90% of the problem is immigration from beyond Europe into the UK and Ireland. Liberals are amazingly good at avoiding this when discussing housing. Basically we have had a non-military invasion of foreigners to our lands. This video fits into this category. This is not a stable situation and when the young people of the UK and Ireland discover this they will be forced to change their politics. All this talk of rent controls is just pussy-footing around the main issue. It is a question of changing demographics being forced on the native populations by globalists. That is one reason why the UK voted Brexit.

[@NorbertLinuxLord]

There's no such thing as "globalists", you've been reading too much Breitbart. The only thing needed is an ambitious programme of social housing. Ireland was able to support nearly twice its current population before the Famine. Talking about "population replacement" in this context is a bad faith divide and rule tactic that puts ordinary people against each other so that big property owners stay on top.

[@Purple_flower09]

I live in a part of the UK where white people are 98.2% of the population. There is a housing shortage here.

[@user-ng2md3gg4z]

@@Purple_flower09Yes of course. Migrants tend to cluster in certain areas and white people move out to other white areas so there is increased demand for property in those areas. This has happened in many areas and is a slowly developing Balkanization of the UK. I think that is probably why the advertising industry goes to great lengths to promote racial mixing in current TV ads. Though only of certain groups. I suppose it is an attempt to stop this process of separation. History would suggest that this won't work but it is a novel experiment in the West today.

[@monkeykingeater]

Auld lads should be banned from using Facebook

[@NZH00]

The problem with leaving planning policy to local councils is that they are often the level of government who are the most vehemently opposed to new supply due to the oversized influence of the NIMBY lobby. I’m afraid your policy suggestions leave out the political realities entrenched in town planning and localised populations leading to recommendations that may sound great in an economics paper but disastrous for housing supply in the real world. Great video nevertheless.

[@mattpotter8725]

I'd probably also say the lower you devolve the power developers and their backers will find it much easier to influence lesser paid politicians. Even though we all know NIMBYism goes on I do wonder how many projects that get rejected or scaled back, especially in fairly central Dublin, would have been for affordable housing and how many would have been for luxury flats (or at least those at the upper end of the market). That said it's insane how centralised Ireland is and with its growth over recent decades and Dublin being effectively the centre of everything in there country it was always going to overheat.

[@polysee]

Thanks for this and it’s a real concern with devolving powers. The devil is likely in the detail here. Right now NIMBY pressure is exerted on the councillors in that electoral area, and every county in Ireland has at least 3 electoral areas, so the councillors in the other areas outnumber them. Also planning and the rights of those trying to build vs objectors is a national debate that needs to be had

[@polysee]

Thanks, it’s an issue we’ll need to explore further. Localism comes with pitfalls if not done right. Devolving to the councils (ideally a directly elected mayor) would at least allow the counties to experiment. It’s also reasonable to expect that investment and jobs would flow to the more ‘YIMBY’ councils

[@toyotaprius79]

Not one memtion if institutional investor land lords (vulture funds) who make massive influence on the rental amd housing market.

[@OrphanAndy]

A massive POSITIVE influence. If they werent in the market financing new builds then we wouldn't have any new rental units in Ireland in the past 5-10 years.

[@dodgechance4564]

Lots of angry people in the comments trying to defend the indefensible with their fingers in their ears. The fact of the matter is that there is only one way to keep rent and home prices under control; build more housing. That's it. That is the only way. Rather than trying to control the rent of already existing properties, the correct thing to do is advocate for an increase in supply. This wouldn't even be so much of an issue if it wasn't for rampant NIMBYism...everyone loves the idea of more housing in principle, but suddenly when it's time to build in their area (potentially negatively impacting their home values) they change their tune. Which is a shame. Can't count the number of times a housing project has been killed in the cradle by a gaggle of homeowners who inexplicably seem to find their "community spirit" whenever affordable housing is proposed.

[@monkeykingeater]

Only comments I've seen denying a need to increase supply are the ones blaming immigration. The problem people have is with the video's framing of rent control as the cause of the problems in the Irish housing market. Rent controls are a reaction to the market already failing to meet demand. They're not a solution to the housing crisis, but neither is simply removing them.

[@jonathanjonathan7386]

or restrict demand by ending the insanity of mass immigration. But the kind of ppl who complain loudly about landlords tend to be the same types who should loudly for immigration.

[@monkeykingeater]

In the first 2 minutes of the video we already get a wonderful example of technocratic mindrot. Policies are either good, such as forcing people to work until their 70s, or bad, such as any form of rent control. How the public feel about these policies is irrelevant to judging their quality, and the job of "courageous" politicians is to implement unpopular legislation while staying elected. Populism, which in academic literature refers to a style of rhetoric pitting the broader populace against some class or classes of "elites", is actually just when politicians represent the will of the people against the advice of experts (in this instance, Paul Krugman, estate agents and a Scottish Tory). All of this creates a vision of democracy where the public have no place in setting a mandate for government. What it doesn't account for is why, if this is how political systems ought to operate, we've had politics work like this for my entire life and still ended up in the hole we're in. I hope your investors are pleased anyway

[@Paddy234]

Here in Australia its the same. In fact Australia has the lowest rental vacancy rate in the world and yet so many from Europe still come here not knowing this and then they realize they can't find somewhere to live. The lock-downs hurt the flow of supply and we are still suffering from this. Some want to introduce rental control. It would be a disaster

[@martingrefen7792]

Im lrish, own and rent a small appartement in Munich 31m2,rented for €500 to a young nurse,i have not increased the rent since 2018,i could easy get €700 for it today,but why should l,its not all about money so not all landlords are sharks,lm happy with my tennent she's correct, plus more rent means more tax for me

[@gomperhooblet]

Rather guarantee €500 forever than have a good chance at €700 for a while.

[@bloodspartan300]

So what are you saying their should keep raising rent indefinitely??

[@jamesmcgarry1229]

Nope. The vid points out the obvious: rising rents incentivise additional supply, that ends up calming rent levels. It’s that or have RPZs that incentivise small landlords to sell, and new build rentals that charge top €…. ie average rents go up.

[@timnick79]

It is not a lack of accommodation it is a well-organised system to put people in a permanent rent state. which I call it Mafia. There were 9,081 apts completed in Dublin in 2023 representing more than three-quarters (78.0%) of apartment completions nationally. In my opinion, the big problem is they are all almost for rent, and many new apts are empty because are not affordable e.g. 2 bed over 2500€/month. 130,469 houses and 32,964 flats/apartments (including bed-sits) were vacant on the night of the census in 2022. Databases supplied to The Irish Times by GeoDirectory identify more than 12,000 vacant properties across Dublin, more than one-quarter of which - just over 3,200 - are in the city centre. When you don't allow people to buy and let keep so many accommodations outside the market (Airbnb is more profitable), a rent increase is inevitable, as I said it is a well-organised system or you pay high rent or become homeless.

[@TheJackb45]

The argument that Landlords leaving the market effects the market is purposeful daft ....Landlords cannot take the house with them when they leave...

[@limerickman8512]

The daftness is yourself. You refuse to look at the whole picture. They sell the property, taking it out of the rental market. A housing market were new builds is poor also. I brought two years ago because my rental property was gone. The old property (includes travel costs) costs was also increasing due to bad government policies also. They way Gov policies was towards rentalals, I refuse to rent out a room.

[@TheJackb45]

@@limerickman8512 unless they sell it to someone who demolishes it..... it will be rented out again or bought by someone who is currently renting....... what part of the picture am i not seeing?

[@limerickman8512]

@@TheJackb45 You are deluded. You must had your head in the ground like an ostrich not to see what is really going on.

[@MB-st7be]

@@TheJackb45People who rent generally can't afford or don't want to buy. So it will be bought by an existing owner/occupier, or will be abandoned. Rent supply goes down.

[@Prodrentjet]

@@MB-st7be But generally people want to eventually buy for themselves, so whats the problem?

[@willyhill7509]

The price of everything in the world depends on supply and demand, any attempt to artificially fix the price will and always has led to unforseen consequences.

[@chrisseas6725]

Why not build a housing system that isn't dependent on private landlords? Where the local councils and the state provide 100% of the social and affordable housing in their area.

[@MB-st7be]

Because you get mass housing shortages and concrete tower blocks. Worst of both worlds.

[@brettmeikle]

Stephen Kerr is a tory. Nuff said. Cheers

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

I live in a rent pressure zone in Cork that's not meant to exceed a 2% rent increase a year. RPZs are not common in Ireland but they exist - so the idea that they can be entirely responsible for anything is absurd. In the last 2 years a single room in the house has gone from 650 to 780 euros. This is because it's NOT ENFORCED. He is not registered with the RTB. I have lived in RTB registered houses with terrible conditions and illegal rents too. 1/5 TDs are landlords - does this not seem like part of the problem to you? I mean the chart at the very start of your video invalidated any upcoming political opinions but come on man. How can you live in Ireland and say rent control is the problem when you go on Daft and see 40 ads for rooms in Cork but 1400 on Air BnB? You are operating off of extremely neoliberal assumptions that housing is, should be, and always will be a commodity. You act like the demand and supply curve for it works like the price of a fucking chocolate bar. People don't simply decide against getting a room because it's gotten a bit pricey. Cop on and live in the real world.

[@vincenzocherubini2424]

Well said & how true. I went to work abroad 5 yrs ago. At the time, if i went on Daft, i could set limit to €650 (Leitrim) and get at least 50-60 props showing up. As i'm now retiring, recently went on Daft and set limit to €750, it showed about 3 props, and this was over the whole of Ireland, and not just 1 county. Bloody hell! Looking to receive less than 600pm pension, i'll just have to look at East Europe for my retirement. And to think that when i left, my neighbour sold his apt (original price €270k) for 96k. Go figure!

[@anonymousJAN2024]

We have rent controls/ceiling of 5% per year here in Abu Dhabi and it works very well. Still plenty of supply being built and offered. Gives residents stability and security. Might not be ideal for any market though.

[@Art-is-craft]

Abu Dhabi is a state sponsored economy funded via oil money. Rent control sounds great for a renter because it gives the impression that the price can actually be controlled. Governments do no know how to control rent anymore than they know how to make a car.

[@polysee]

Interesting. The ‘hardening’ effect is presumably not present in a monarchy like UAE, could be wrong there

[@Dubhfinna420]

Air bnb's are killing the wild alantic way for the locals

[@NOBODYNOSE1]

Irish household size hasn't seen a significant decrease. 'In 2022, there were on average 2.74 people per private household. This is a small decrease compared with the 2016 average, which stood at 2.75. In 2011, there were on average 2.73 people per private household.'(CSO)

[@CCLilja]

Would the housing crisis in England and Wales be less severe?

[@newg4515]

Wales has a massive second home problem but houses are generally cheaper while England varies a lot more due to the much higher amount of urban areas

[@SK-yb7bx]

If we had a good government, we wouldn't have to depend on a private market, which is only motivated by profits. Depending on a private property market results in smaller familiars and ultimately, demographics decline and replacement. It's not hyperbolic to describe it as genocidal. We need hoarding taxes and taxes on empty properties.

[@callum828]

Empty properties are a necessary part of any housing market, as the slack is needed to allow people to move. Plus, a market that can produce enough houses to allow a significant number of empty properties is one where prices are kept low by high supply. As it happens, the UK and Ireland have extremely LOW numbers of empty properties, precisely because our housing markets are soo poorly (over-) regulated and there is a housing shortage. Taxing empty properties would only reduce incentives to build houses, which would make the problem worse. Similarly, there's no benefit to taxing property 'hoarding'. If businesses are successful, they should be allowed to grow because their success demonstrates that they are able to do things more efficiently than their competitors. That is true of property businesses just as it is true for any other industry. It's better to have 100 properties owned by one efficient, professional, effective company than have those same 100 properties owned by 100 landlords, the average of whom provides a worse service than the big company would have done. You are right that high house prices contribute to lower birth rates though. Combine low housebuilding with high immigration and you have a recipe for disaster, as all the Anglophone countries have found.

[@SK-yb7bx]

@@callum828 Tell me one country where leaving property to the private sector didn't result in economic and demographic decline long term.

[@wicklowpatster]

What do you mean by "replacement", exactly?

[@krombopulos_michael]

That is one of the most hilariously hyperbolic things I have ever heard and it's even funnier that you then had to deny its hyperbolic. Absolute lunacy

[@SK-yb7bx]

@@wicklowpatster What do you think? Walk the main streets and the penny might drop.

[@g00dbyemisterA]

i think that this video leaves out a very large issue, one potential solution is to regulate those who can be landlords, conglomerates buying up huge swathes of property is happening all across the world, in australia and new zealand it has been very pronounced, when a corportaion is large enough to absorb losses, it can effectively dictate the market, similar things are happening in ireland, one may say that "rental controls created the conditions for such a thing to happen as it makes all locations not rental controlled much more lucrative and just sitting on them can even be profitable in the long term" however if we regulate that market so that individuals or corporations have a ceiling of ownership, it minimises the possibility of these large corporations that can absorb debt from sitting on rentals until they inevitably get occupied due to desperation. given how land and housing is a necessarily finite resource (we cant expand the physical boundaries of the country and we can only build so high), speculating on it is (i feel, given how shelter is a human right) an evil. For one example of where a heavily governmentally regulated system which takes charge of not just the lowest strata of housing is Vienna, private rentals are incentivised to compete with this. Yes, if one is inclined, you may claim "the private market will always do better and government is necessarily incompetent" however, we do have clear counterexamples. I would agree that a centralised government would be much more able to respond to these needs, as Leitrim is hardly to be compared to Dublin and the Orkneys are hardly comparable to Edinburgh. arguing against rent controls is pointing out that your method of getting the horses back in the barn isnt the most effective, but the horses bolted because opening the barn gates to private interests necessarily encourages speculation and that happened a long time ago. to put my cards on the table, i believe that the vast majority of housing out to be done by a government (yes, corruption happens in government but at least in government, corruption isnt the system working as intended.)

[@user-et4hp9sw3n]

Regards Ireland and Dublin in particular , it has a problem with snob locations, most folks are scared to buy in large parts of the city because its "Rough" and undesirable postal address, so they are forcing up prices in certain areas deemed better.

[@michaelmulligan0]

18 months would be nowhere near enough you’d need 5 years to allow time to build

[@yorkiesart]

Just control the percentage at which the landlord can raise their rents in alignment with inflation

[@johnmcdonald9295]

There were approximately 141,600 immigrants entering the Republic of Ireland in 2023, compared with 120,700 in the previous year. During the provided time period, the number of immigrants coming to Ireland peaked at 151,100 in 2007.12

[@jonathanjonathan7386]

ourselves alone eh?

[@SisterSunny]

An absolutely fascinating video on an underdiscussed topic, well done!

[@mrfunkyboogaloo224]

How many years/decades must people wait for the housing supply to make prices to stabilise and/or fall? Action is needed NOW! Rent controls will take care of that in the short term. It's either that or deflation. Take your pick!

[@MB-st7be]

wat?

[@liamschweppe]

Mmm I'm not sure about your argument..... I think the flaw in your argument is one of that aspect viewing from .... If you consider the market not from the rental property but from the point of the. Renter you would see there are different types of renters who have need different rental contracts.

[@Housey1985]

You sound very very confused. Maybe an economics primer is best place to start.

[@AweSean-wv3xo]

Arguably the most misleading video you guys have ever produced. Not even trying to hide the neoliberal nonsense

[@polysee]

In our defence here we do mention that (local) gov should be building social and affordable housing, and one interviewee explicitly points to the shortage thereof as the problem

[@AweSean-wv3xo]

@@polysee Which is great, but I don't understand why that wasn't the *focus* of the video and why you guys are framing rent control as the *central cause* of the issues with the housing market instead of it really being an ill suited bureaucratic response. It makes it very easy for someone watching the video to recontextualise the housing crisis as something almost entirely of government design instead of it being a market failure amplified by poor policy response, and that reducing interference is going to magically make things better

[@Galaxies91]

@@polysee rent control bad because landlord can't squeeze the tenant oh nooo ;(

[@milohrnic2023]

​@@Galaxies91 Landlords aren't charity. It's a service business.

[@Galaxies91]

@@milohrnic2023 landlords are leeches who horde wealth and use it to make more profit they're not providing any services nor it's a business

[@dglogan11]

Great video as always, but a couple of points didn't quite land with me. Given the timelines highlighted in the video (eg 18 months of notice before even beginning to decentralise), I would have liked to have seen more discussion about shorter term policies and potential scale of impact eg a more effective crack down on short term lets - is that really less feasible politically than a wholesale decentralisation strategy? What's the scale of the supply being held out of the long term let market? I was also surprised to see "rental support for those with the least means to pay" added in almost as an afterthought at the end, given the focus on price point within the supply/demand framework. I would intuitively expect rental support to artificially inflate the market price, and would have liked to see the evidence behind this policy suggestion.

[@polysee]

Thanks for the comment. The broad point here is that there are a wide range of tools available to tackle the supply and affordability issue that are preferable to rent controls, and that localism allows for some learning by doing and fitting of policies to different areas’ needs. As for rental supports, that’s another tool that’s available, but might not be deployed by every locale - the level of targeting will determine its inflationary effects. There are issues we would’ve liked to expand upon, but this is our longest video so far by some distance and we didn’t want to push it

[@magma440]

In my view there are 2 main flaws with this video. Firstly is that it only gets the perspective of the landlord and those opposed to rent controls. It fails to get the perspective of renters or those who support rent controls. The second flaw is that it presents an oversimplified and frankly incorrect view of how prices are set. Supply and demand only sufficiently explains price when the bargaining power (political power) of buyer and seller are equal. When bargaining power is divergent, as it always is in the sale of land, then supply and demand stops predicting price.

[@hyper7354]

This looks at both sides. It’s a very clear economic fact that rent controls negatively affect tenants and landlords and this has been known for decades

[@nicob4115]

you clearly have a very limited understanding of economics. You say that bargaining power affects supply/demand price signals yet provide no explanation whatsoever. As always it’s always about class warfare tropes instead of looking at reality. You’re right that renters who enjoy the privilege of controlled rent have it great. The point the video tries to make is that those who can’t get a rent controlled property (due to being a family/having a pet etc.) are fucked. The shitty incentives it creates also means that when those lucky renters are inevitably evicted for whatever reason, as the landord has no benefit/cannot afford to maintain he property, they go into the “fucked” category as well. Rent control creates winners and losers through discrimination and worsens the symptoms of chronic undersupply due to poor planning and housing policy as well as lack of investment in social housing.

[@magma440]

@@nicob4115 >You say that bargaining power affects supply/demand price signals yet provide no explanation whatsoever. That price is determined by bargaining power should be intuitive to anyone who has studied the price of things like oil or labour. However if you want academic sources, then "Capital in the 21st Century" by Thomas Piketty, or [this video](kzbin.info/www/bejne/gGq7gGhrhNGfeZI) by doctor of behavioural economics Cahal Moran are good starting points. In regards to rent controls, I wasn't making an argument about their effectiveness. I was making the point that in failing to get the perspective of proponents of rent controls, the video became paternalistic and condescending. You can make an effective argument against rent controls without being paternalistic or condescending.

[@nua1234]

I have talked to a landlord who is selling because of the threat of eviction bans for selling properties and the chance that the opposition party will get into power at the next election (due to their calls for stronger restrictions on landlords).

[@jonathanjonathan7386]

I am one too and if Labour get it and start talking about eviction bans i am getting out fast. There will be a mad rush for the exits amongst landlords. Brilliant for buyers but a nightmare for renters.

[@lukeskirenko]

I'm not sure that this analysis covers all angles. Perhaps rent control would work well if it was used as a measure to optimise the ratio between rental and owner-occupied. In the South East of the UK owner-occupiers are significantly priced-out, and this means that buy-to-let is a safe bet, a self-perpetuating cycle. The more people can't afford a deposit and mortgage, the more are forced to rent, which means more profits for buy-to-let. Is it obviously the case that building more houses would intervene in this cycle? If more houses are built, prices go down, but does this make buy-to-let unrprofitable enough that the ratio will rebalance to favour owner-occupiers? Rent controls, it seems to me, does put a ceiling on buy-to-let profitability, and if that leaves more housing stock available for owner occupiers, i.e. those who are stuck in a rent-trap, that would be a fantastic policy decision in the south east.

[@ThomasBoyd-w6f]

Awesome thanks. Brilliant content. Keith woods Age 29 super rich he a friend Thomas. Better off with Italy as Italian nurse Bargi Italy. 125 Boreland Drive Knightswood good place to Live Thomas Scotland Britain. State pension Austria Vienna high yes compared to Ireland and Britain yes.

[@markfla]

Simon Coveny is some genius isn’t he.

[@biulaimh3097]

The Irish government will allow the 110% mortgage to return before house prices finally go into a market correction that the government will not be able to stop. In fact, the government may even allow people to borrow 150% mortgages, such will be their determination to postpone the inevitable. Of course, if defaults rise before that happens, the banks will be cautious about taking on axtra risk unless another round of bank bailouts are guaranteed. Obviously the bail ins would have to be exhausted before the bailouts happen.

[@anonymousJAN2024]

Any channel that cites Paul Krugman is a “don’t recommend channel” selection for me…

[@DanielKyne]

The comments on this video are a great example of why Ireland is in this mess in the first place, with every armchair expert frothing at a moment's notice to shout down someone's research on about a topic they know so little about in comparison. The video makes a compelling case, with plenty of evidence, that rent controls reduce incentive for housing supply and it identifies a number of potential solutions to implement *alongside* a reduction in legislative interventions, like limiting the current bottleneck at An Bord Pleanála caused by a centralized one-size-fits-all system that overly appeases a tiny group of NIMBY objectioners. Thanks for adding thoughtful ideas and opinions to the conversation @polysee 👏

[@scottwales9178]

Scotland and Ireland needs to look at England. No rent controls there and look how great the rental market is there!

[@opiotain]

I wonder if rent cost were equivalent to the mortgage price would that change things. Especially for conglomerate investors.

[@michaelbunswick2218]

From the states here, so I accept that I am uninformed on the nuances here. But here wages are essentially stagnant while rent jumps quarterly. We rented a 3 bedroom 900sqft for $675- for three years, now 3 years later it’s asking price is $1300- while my wages have only increased by $2.00 an hr in that same time. And I’m considered lower middle class here. I can’t imagine what the working poor deal with… and we have no rent control

[@DanKac182]

Not to mention that some places charges extreme high taxes of the landlords. Guess who is going to pay this taxes

[@dipro001]

In Yes, Minister sir Humphrey explained eloquently why local government would not or rather cannot be allowed to function or be formed in the UK.

[@polysee]

Yes it was a brilliant clip, one of many from that great show

[@dipro001]

The greatest of shows. Not just a show but reality itself.@@polysee

[@juan_salvador_gaviota]

Solution is to not artificially diminish supply. Let them build for Christ sake, and give the middle finger to the nimbys.

[@pedrosabino6441]

Tell me you are Right Wing, without telling me you’re Right Wing at 0:54… “Courageous”….jesus…

[@cianog]

You can’t just build yourself out of this. If all the jobs are in a few regions then you’ll always have more people moving there.

[@SeanHynes-nc3qy]

A great list of experts whom all have an interest in rents rising. Great impartial work.

[@leeobreisleain6492]

The Question is WHY? 🏘💩

[@afgor1088]

except there isn't a supply shortage... there are more houses per person in Scotland than there have ever been. since the lifting of rent controls in Scotland homes have gotten smaller faster, not larger. your ideology does not match reality, real world evidence shows rent controls can be successful when implemented correctly.

[@jimwoods9551]

A child could tell you rent control is a con. But when most media including right on young influencers are in thrall to the political establishment then rent control is used to increase the pressure on home seekers.

[@voyowee]

Are there a set of recommended liberalization policies that could be introduced? I've heard about forcing municipalities to streamline approvals and reduce costs of building, among other things.

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

Brother, our market is the most fucking liberal in Europe. Any regulations we have are not enforced. Renter's rights are words on paper, rent pressure zones are not enforced, what are you talking about? We need more supply (preferably public), better renter's rights that are enforced, and a rent freeze NOW.

[@EUCHE161]

The Government/ state must mass build housing!

[@Draccoblade]

Seeing €850 as the *expensive* rent example is laughable when that's genuinely *less than half* of the average rent price for a one bed apartment in Dublin these days. Just look up places to rent in dublin on daft and you'll see plenty of one bed apartments over 2 grand.

[@einerus]

Go and see what people outside of Dublin bubble earn. Even in Dublin no one on minimum wage is able to live there.

[@suzannnne734]

Most people want to own and can afford a mortgage, in fact many pay way more in rent than they would with a mortgage. The problem is lack of supply and that banks do not want to give mortgages to normal people anymore.

[@gomperhooblet]

There are many houses in the UK worth between £100-150k. You would only need around £15k saved to have the deposit and legals. £300 per month aside means you can save that in under 5 years. It's not impossible to do, especially if you have a partner and don't have kids in your tenns/early 20's.

[@suzannnne734]

@@gomperhoobletYes, but many of us are forced to live in the large cities because of jobs where housing is way more expensive. Never mind that most office jobs can be done from home and could partly fix the housing crisis but of course they won't let us do that.

[@gomperhooblet]

@@suzannnne734 Agreed on that, good point well made, the office is about lack of trust and desire for control. CEO's want to see the inhabitants of their petty fiefdoms in the flesh

[@footlongschlong2000]

This is so full of shit

[@jackbowden5061]

It has a lot of interesting facts.

[@vinniechan]

Being a small.landlord is the worst place to be

[@smithdavid3420]

I know 3 lads who own land and can build there own home but aren't allowed being regretting so many times they now can't afford to build.

[@calumcrotch1906]

Where does this channel get it's funding from and who is it owned by? I see you have a patreon but is funding obtained by any other means? Please be transparent.

[@polysee]

I gave an interview with Dublin Enquirer a while back that explains this. Google Polysee Dublin Enquirer and you’ll find it. Thanks

[@MichalSedlak]

Are you saying that out of the rent pressure zones there are no problems with rents and supply just boomed?

[@biulaimh3097]

Ireland`s existing housing stock has been diliberately inflated by 200 billion euro which the government borrowed since 2008. They are also trying to inflate the cost of new housing, hence the cement levy. The way to solve the housing crisis is to take a pin to the house price bubble. This can be done proactively, by imposing punitive monthly taxes on existing housing stock and advertising the sale of any house in tax arrears on a government website. More likely however, it will happen despite the governments desperate efforts to prevent it. Specifically, it will happen when market forces overwhelm the government`s ability to keep the market rigged to the upside. A sharp recession, spurred on by global events will reduce sales in the multinational sector. Trump will entice multinationals to return their activities to the US. The ECB will face a dilemma trying to balance more QE with rising inflation. Without stimulus and a declining multinational sector, true price discovery in the housing market may be something the Irish government may not be able to prevent. Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize because what he was saying was music to the ears of those in power. But was he right? That depends on whether or not you think communism is a good idea. QE ultimately transfers everything to government ownership.

[@fabolvaskarika7940]

Actually you failed follow logically your own presentation start at 3:50… and it’s badly presented anyway in the intend to make a bad look on Ireland and Scotland. The logic what you should follow is that the rented accommodations are getting sold, that’s would increase the supply on the house market and theoretically would make more affordable to buy a house, which means there is less demand for rented property and as a law of market, the prices would go down. I say it’s only in theory, because if your logic would work and the extra profit what they generate from rent would increase the supply by incentives the market to build home and then rent them would work, then for a long time (at least ten years) new build homes number would been much higher, as the market was hot and prices (profits) went up, but that didn’t happened… did it? Why? Because landlord/ house owners (many from the government or in the COUNCILS) are not interested to actually supply more, as they can max out from the existing properties. You must be either really delusional or xenophobere to suggest that it is only the problem of the Irish and the Scot as they introduce this policies. England and other part of the world has the same problem, especially those countries who build the housing market model based on private investment and interest and not for common good and on the base to make sure that the people who live in the country (whether native or immigrant) can have a basic human rights: live safely and healthy in their homes. Why you didn’t mention the Wienna model, where people REGARDLESS on class can rent AFFORDABLE, social housing? Well, I guess that would not fit your narrative.

[@CD-pm9kc]

Edinburgh is outrageous.

[@lorcan1213]

Is scotland housing situation as bad as ireland? Genuine question

[@Housey1985]

It’s getting there. Idiotic Greens seeing to that

[@evelynwilson1566]

In Scotland we are currently seeing our beautiful countryside in the Central Belt disappearing, for expensive housing, with no consideration as to the pressure on local infrastructure. We are seeing houses on new estates where they can't get insurance as the land floods. A plan to build 1000 houses which was rejected by the council was overturned by the Scottish Executive. Our doctor's lists are already full, mental health and social services barely coping and we are losing our open spaces- the only people benefitting are landowners and housebuilders. It's not just about houses. And before anyone asks, yes I am waiting on social housing but these estates are not about the small amounts of social housing included, they are about expensive boxes. Why not build up? Learn the lessons of the past and do it better? Why not spread the burden and have people encouraged to relocate to more remote areas?

[@EpicAelflaed]

And England too sadly 👍 it’s everywhere in Britain and Ireland now

[@AlexPacker]

Devolving the issue to local authorities won't do anything. They're as much at the whim of NIMBYism and populism as national government. Moreso in fact. Where is the evidence to suggest a local authority would drop rent controls to encourage an increase in housing supply? There would be no popular incentive to do so

[@MB-st7be]

The evidence is literally provided at 4:30

[@jigar1p]

Note the video does not mention uncontrolled mass immigration that means a huge increase in demand when the supply of housing is limited. The Irish government has been paying Ukrainian refugees €800/month EACH to stay in hotels and private accommodation. There is no affordable accommodation as a direct result.😢