'Irish Housing Market Getting More Like A Pyramid Scheme With Every Passing Day" - Brian Leeson
The Irish housing market is “getting more like a pyramid scheme with every passing day” according to Brian Leeson. The Éirígí Chairperson made the comment in response to the latest reports from the property websites Daft.ie and Myhome.ie. Speaking from Ballinteer in Dublin, Leeson said,
“This week’s reports from Daft and Myhome echo the most recent data from the Residential Property Price Index in the Twenty-Six Counties and the Quarterly House Price Index in the Six Counties. On an all-Ireland basis house prices have skyrocketed over the last twelve months, with the average house price climbing by more than 9%.
The price increases in some rural towns has been even more dramatic. In New Ross, Skibbereen and Chair, for example, house prices have risen by more than 20% in just one year. If the current trajectory continues, we will be soon be back to Celtic Tiger era house prices. Those prices were unsustainable in 2006 and they are unsustainable in 2021.
As was the case during the Celtic Tiger, we are now seeing a rapid widening between the artificially inflated price of housing and the actual cost of housing.
Cathaoirleach Éirígí Brian Leeson outside the ‘Walled Garden’ development in Ballinteer
It is no exaggeration to state that the entire Irish housing market is getting more like a pyramid scheme with every passing day - a pyramid scheme which is fundamentally unstable and inherently unpredictable - a pyramid scheme that desperate young people are piling into for fear of missing out on their one shot at a secure home - a pyramid scheme that is being hyped up by politicians, estate agents, developers and the corporate media - a pyramid scheme that is being fueled by excessive credit and the transfer of wealth from a generation of parents to their children.
Like any pyramid scheme, the Irish housing market, can only sustain itself through constant aggressive expansion. It needs an endless, steady flow of new members who are willing to pay ever greater amounts of money to join the scheme. Without that steady flow of new members at the bottom of the pyramid, the entire scheme will collapse under the weight of its own debts and contradictions.
We may not yet be at the tipping point where the housing pyramid scheme collapses, but it is absolutely inevitable that we will reach that point at some date in the future. And quite possibly not that far into the future.
The only way to break the boom / bust cycle is through the a fundamental restructuring of the entire housing sector. Central to that restructuring is the creation of a new system of Universal Public Housing.
A failure to make those meaningful structural changes - a failure to develop UP Housing - will condemn this and future generations to a never-ending housing crisis”
If you’re ready to join the fight for housing justice and a New Republic, join Éirígí today.
Did you find this article interesting? Here’s the links to three other recent housing-themed articles:
Berliners Just Voted For A Housing Revolution - If You Want The Same In Ireland You Need To Read This
Ó Dálaigh Slams An Bord Pleanála For Green-Lighting 345 Vulture Homes In Galway
'Housing For All' Will Not Solve The Housing Crisis And Will Actually Make Things Worse. Here's Why.