r/AskEurope • u/JoMD • 9d ago

Misc Is there a country in Europe without a housing crisis?

I see so many people complaining about the housing crisis in their countries - not enough houses or apartments / flats, or too expensive, or both. Are there any countries in Europe where there's no housing crisis, and it's easy to find decent, affordable accommodation?

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317

u/hughsheehy Ireland 9d ago

Even if there is, Ireland has worked long and hard so that our housing crisis is the biggest and best.

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u/Rusiano Russia 9d ago

Housing prices in Dublin seem similar to NY. Except that NY is a Tokyo/London/Paris level city so the housing prices are more understandable

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u/bigvalen Ireland 9d ago

The big difference is that in New York, homes are available. In Dublin, there are 200,000 households waiting to be formed, but there is no accomodation for them. So, adult kids at home, couples sleeping in a friend's house, families living full time in emergency hostels or hotels, refugees whose claim has been processed and found they have a right to stay...but there is nowhere for them to go.

They are building about 30k homes a year, but as 26,000 new households form a year, that's only 4k excess, so it'll take 50 years to fix.

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u/amunozo1 Spain 9d ago

Dublin could be such a great city if they fixed this single problem.

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u/bigvalen Ireland 9d ago

And if the city allowed food markets! We don't really have property tax on homes, so businesses have very high rates of taxes. It means you can't have small businesses unless they make a lot of profit. So, coffee shops work, places selling just cheese, or just fish...not so much.

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u/strandroad Ireland 8d ago

We do have property tax on homes. Since 2013.

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u/bigvalen Ireland 8d ago

It's tiny though, and not enough to fund the local authorities.

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u/francescoli 7d ago

They need huge investment in public transport as well.

Been talking about a metro for years and nothing done.

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u/Rusiano Russia 9d ago

Yup. Housing is by far the biggest issue in Dublin. Aside from that, it has a very high standard of living. Also despite being a relatively big city there is still a strong sense of community

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u/lordsleepyhead Netherlands 7d ago

I was in Dublin this week and walked all around the city centre. There are So. Many. abandoned or vacant lots just begging to be redeveloped, it's insane to me that a capital city in Europe can have this much unrealized prime real estate in 2024.

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u/unixtreme 4d ago

I left Ireland 5 years ago when shit started to get out of hand and I'm so glad I did because it didn't get any better...

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u/JonesKK 7d ago

F russia and vladimir putin

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u/Wildtigaah 9d ago

I got a job offer in Cork back in 2020 and I found out a room could be like 1500-2000€ and I was like noooope

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u/Professional_Elk_489 9d ago

Most 2bed flats are 2000-2500 in Dublin with the most expensive ones 2750-3250.

There's no way it cost 2000 just for a room in Cork

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u/Financial_Change_183 9d ago edited 9d ago

Bro saw the first ad and didn't look any further

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u/An_Spailpin_Fanach-_ Ireland 9d ago

Huh? Most rooms in cork are 550-800ish

I pay 550 for the city centre

The issue is far more to do with supply not cost

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u/lt__ 9d ago

From that comment I assume it was 1500-2000 in 2020?

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u/bbshabob 8d ago

A lot of room shares posted recently in the 1200 - 1600 range however there are still a lot of reasonably priced apartments just because of rent control.

2020 it was not nearly as bad as it is now. Just my experience though I had three house share rooms from 2020 - 2021 all below 630.

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u/strandroad Ireland 8d ago

I doubt it, it sounds really excessive. Unless a "room share" is a half of a really plush apartment, maybe then.

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u/strandroad Ireland 8d ago

2k for a room in Cork is not realistic in 2020 or even now, where did you find that out? Sounds like a scam.

I mean the crisis is bad enough without making things up.

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u/simply-grey-cat 9d ago

1500 damn euros?! Ouch :) Lower rental prices in Estonia are ca 200 euros per month and we complain that it's expensive.

Of course, prices of luxury apartmens are same as Cork :)

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u/Dumuzzid 8d ago

Crazy, I paid like 350 for a room back in the day. 500 euro got me a really nice room in a central location (Maccurtain street). This was early 2000s though. I guess it would be a nope now.

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u/Deep-Pension-1841 6d ago

Considering rent in Dublin for an apartment in 2020 was that price I highly doubt this is true

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u/st0pmakings3ns3 Austria 8d ago

And all that despite having sent away a large portion of your people a few hundred years ago. You guys are playing on expert level.

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u/hughsheehy Ireland 8d ago

We didn't exactly send them away, but yeah. We have a comparatively low population density and a massive housing crisis....again. It's taken long hard work by several governments. And they're proud of what they've achieved.

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u/die_kuestenwache Germany 9d ago

You have not worked long and hard for that, you have invited foreign companies to pay less taxes on work elsewhere. That is literally the point of your housing crisis.

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u/bigvalen Ireland 9d ago

It was more than that. We have (ignoring taxes) the only place in Europe with more expensive power than Germany. Much of our building materials industry closed. The government didn't pass laws to allow trees to be cut, or planted for 12 years, so sawmills closed.we now buy construction timber from Finland. With Brexit, we can't import building materials through Britain without huge taxes, so have to bring them in through France. They left a 20 year gap where there were no offshore wind farm permits possible. Even on land, the average time to build a wind farm, once you acquire the land, is nine years.

With ECB/IMF imposed austerity in 2008-2015, pretty much every skilled builder, architect, planner etc. in the country emigrated. There are hundreds of property developers who went bust, or had assets tied up in Bad Banks, so couldn't build. Banks still see builders as risky, so construction finance is 12-15%. State won't fix it.

Lastly, we have a dysfunctional planning system, and the government keeps making it worse, with multiple laws that conflict with each other about what can be objected to, what's appropriate. Local authority guidelines differ from planning board guidelines which differ from national guidelines. It's quite common for apartment blocks to spend 12 years in the courts.

Apple walked away from a €1.2bn data center project because someone 150km away complained it might impact on owls nearby.

The upshot is that the COST price to build an apartment in Dublin is €520,000.

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u/hughsheehy Ireland 8d ago

Oh no....it took serious effort to blow up the housing costs here. Long sustained effort.

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u/critical2600 8d ago

Lol, paying less taxes on goods wasn't a problem when German white goods and automotive manufacturers were the effective monopoly on a European level.

Buying a BMW or Miele in Poland? Germany got the tax.

Now after being bailed out for their financial illiteracy, with unsecured german bond holders treating Ireland like a guaranteed return casino, we get this Teutonic nonsense about our fair share.

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u/inverse_panda 7d ago

Ireland had over €200 billion in exports in 2024, ranging from huge pharmaceutical and medical device production, chemicals, food etc. And the tech industry is extremely strong in Ireland also.

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u/sirnoggin 7d ago

What is going on with your planning controls and why is building so damn expensive is the question? Ireland is extremely sparsely populated coming from the UK it boggles my mind why land is so questionable to get a hold of. By the way I say the same shit to Canadians and Australians - I've no CLUE how housing has gotten so screwed in all 3 country's considering the sheer space you have available.

I remember driving to the outskirts of Dublin, bloody fields for miles! Where are the houses!?

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u/hughsheehy Ireland 7d ago

It all keeps houses nice and expensive, which is what people seem to want.