Majority Of Dublin Housing Estate Sold To A Vulture Landlord
It has been revealed that around 85% of homes in a housing estate in Dublin, which were originally advertised to be sold to individuals, have instead been snapped up by an unnamed vulture landlord.
A report released yesterday by the Business Post revealed that a vulture landlord recently acquired 46 out of the 54 homes in Belcamp Manor, a housing estate in Balgriffin, North Dublin.
The houses are now being advertised for rent by Occu, a ‘private rental company’ owned by a London based real estate investment manager called SW3 Capital. In a statement given to the Business Post today, Occu denied that it was the actual owner of the properties, instead saying that it “operates properties across the state on behalf of long-term institutional landlords such as pension funds and insurance companies”.
The home page of Occu’s website - “A landlord that’s on your side”
These 46 properties in Belcamp Manor, which was built by developer Greg Kavanagh, were sold to the unnamed vulture landlord in a deal worth an estimated €21.5 million (excluding VAT), and are now being advertised to be rented out at well over €3,000 a month.
The 46 homes were originally advertised for sale for between €560,000 for the three-bed homes and €625,000 for the four-bed ones by estate agents Knight Frank.
An artist’s impression of Belcamp Manor.
But the Twenty-Six County government said they would prevent such a scenario ever happening again in the aftermath of the Mullen Park affair, didn’t they? Well, not necessarily.
In the aftermath of the sale of 135 homes in the Mullen Park estate in County Kildare to US vulture landlord Round Hill Capital in 2021 there was huge public anger, anger which prompted the Twenty-Six County government to feign shock at the situation before then declaring their intention to introduce ‘strong measures’ to prevent such a scenario ever happening again.
But instead of strong measures they only made minimal changes to planning rules and stamp duty rates, including the introduction of a 10% stamp duty rate for any vulture landlord that purchased more than ten homes in a 12-month period, with this rule not being applied to the bulk purchasing of apartments.
These are measures that vulture landlords could easily overcome by charging higher rents and by directly building housing estates that will then be rented out to desperate tenants paying extortionate rents, and it is doubtful if even these weak measures are being properly implemented by the state.
Mullen Park in County Kildare.
Mullen Park wasn’t the first housing estate to fall to the vulture landlords, and as evidenced by the recent purchase of the majority of the Belcamp Manor estate, it won’t be the last.
Éirígí is the only political party in Ireland that is actively tracking the activities of the vulture landlords, including the sites where they have secured planning permission housing. You can see the scale of their Irish operation on our unique #TrackTheVultures map here.
Unlike the main opposition parties, Éirígí is calling for an outright ban on the corporate ownership of housing in Ireland! Beyond that we are campaigning for the creation of a new system of Universal Public Housing, UP Housing for short.
UP Housing is the only system of housing that can permanently end the housing crisis and transform Irish society for the better in the process. Find out more about UP Housing here.
Join the fight for housing justice and For A New Republic - Join Éirígí.
Update - It has been confirmed that Belcamp Manor was sold to DWS Group, the €800 billion German asset manager majority controlled by Deutsche Bank.