2021 Ireland

There's quite a lot of narrative going around at the moment about house prices, much of it pub talk, so worth talking about my experiences as an FTB in the current market. The background is that I've wanted to buy for years, but with values climbing above 200k for a 1 bed after 2019 and about 225k and up for a 2 bed at that time, I realised that I needed at least 22k for a 2 bed (with a subsequent mortgage of 200k) or 40k for a 1 bed (because at the time, there was a 20% deposit demanding for 1 beds). So I think I started seriously saving in 2018, and by mid 2019 had around 25k saved. The bank wouldn't even let me apply, telling me I needed more cash on hand to cover legal costs. This put me off the process, so I decided to save another 6-7k as prices were rising at such a pace even then, that I would also have needed another 2-4k to cover the higher property costs there would be within even 6 months. And then there was a by-election, Christmas, and then a general election....

 PBP introduced a rent reduction bill which was defeated on 14th July 2022, but unfortunately the media narrative around it focused on the politics and ideology rather than the bill itself. This bill was defeated on that debate, but frankly, the bill itself was both the cause and victim of the kind of partisan narrative that fails renters. The bill does 2 things: it sets up a body that will determine rents, and then designates what criteria will be used to determine rents. The body will be made up of "tenants" and "employee representatives." Tenants of what? We have at least 6 different kind of tenant in Ireland: local authority, approved housing body, cost rental/affordable, private rented sector (whole unit), student, and private rented sector (living with landlord). The bill does not say which tenants should be represented. I can only assume "employee representatives" means trade unions but what trade unions? What about representation for non union work...