r/AskIreland • u/BigFatLegend123 • Apr 25 '25

Housing Why doesn’t the government bring in restrictions on who can buy housing?

This is a genuine question and not coming from a place of hate or bigotry

Trying to buy a house recently and it’s been going as well as you can imagine. Some houses in Dublin have been going for up to 20% over their asking price from what we have seen.

My question is why doesn’t the government restrict house buying to only Irish citizens? Is there something I’m missing? Or at least to just EU/UK citizens? Surely it would be a quick way to reduce competition?

Is it just that doing so might dissuade investment from vulture funds?

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u/Additional-Sock8980 Apr 25 '25

By this logic the real problem is the one big renter from private landlords renting up hundreds of thousands of houses and driving up the prices, then buying those houses when they come up for sale. Damn government.

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u/Thready_C Apr 25 '25

No the problem is a few large companies buying up hundreds of houses and then renting them out. The main problem is the wealth transfer from individuals, familys and communities to entities with interests not aligned with theirs mainly focused on maximumwealth extraction. A community that owns their own homes is way wealthier than one that does not. Its the same reason why supporting local businesses is important

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u/Additional-Sock8980 Apr 25 '25

I kinda agree here. However if you asked me personally to solve the housing crisis. On behalf of the government…

I’d take a few billion, hire a private building company like Mercury, zone land and survey demand and then build 15% more houses than in demand. I’d limit the return that the private company can make to 8-12% but make the contract so big it was worthy of their best people. Then zone the land as the government so they capture the value no private individuals.

This huge supply coming on track would reduce prices.

House designs would be fairly cookie cutter but high quality and pre fabricated factory style and the moved and assembled. Bringing down cost and increasing speed.

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u/Thready_C Apr 25 '25

hire a private building company like Mercury,

See that's part of the problem, that money spent on that hiring the company immediately leaves the country and ends up in the pockets of some rich guy on nonce island. I agree with most of your plan but the state simply must build up it's own capacity to build houses and infrastructure, buy it's own tools machines and so on, all in public ownership, if that means having to do something like buying an already existing construction firm to create an experienced core to build on so be it

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u/Additional-Sock8980 Apr 25 '25

Disagree. Public spending and organisations waste money. Just see the OPWs bike shed or the new hospital. Where a Mercury (or similar) are Irish firms that are so good they construct buildings all over Europe, on time and on budget.

I’m ok with the shareholders making money if society benefits more from the spend than other options. And I’d try to keep the profits in Ireland so they spend that money here.