irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0119/breaking59.htm
Uh Oh! Someone isn’t on message. I look forward to the blanket coverage this will get on the evening news shows. In the same way Austin’s every utterance is given coverage.
irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0119/breaking59.htm
2pack? Is that you?
Interestingly they also intentionally pointed out that this doesnt inlcude holiday homes.
Around the time of the 2006 census online property bulls, back when there WERE property bulls, all clamoured that the empties were holiday homes.
Professor 2Pack to you sunshine 
NIRSA used the Geodirectory which logs a building as ‘built’ when the walls are built to wall plate level ( I understand) rather than the mysterious ‘ESB definition’ as used by Department of the Environment statistics and records a premises as such when a meter is present in a premises.
Reality is somewhere in between but certainly well over 300,000 empties.
Professor Rob has confirmed Professor 2Packs long held assertion of 330-350k empties including holiday homes and habitable units owned by Country Toms membership. I was always confident as to the accuracy of my figures. Prof Rob said
My definitive estimate of up to 350,000 ( including holiday homes as normally or habitually empty) and is here
With supporting links. It predates the NIRSA research by well over a year. Prof Rob is welcome to PM me
DKM consultants look like stooges for the Dept of the Environment.
This is a very significant report, and has a good solid academic pedigree. Bank shares should be impacted by it.
DKM consultants could not possibly have come up with that figure were they to look at any known fundamental.
Every single possible calculation method had to come up with a figure of 250,000 minimum or 200,000 excluding holiday homes.
If DKM *genuinely told the department of housing * that the number of habitually empty but habitable homes in the state was only 100-140k then DKM consultants are fraudsters and should be arrested for fraud if they invoice the taxpayer for this work. Nothing more and nothing less than fraud and I will stand over that with my prediction record !!!
It is more likely that Finneran cannot count or simply lied outright to the cabinet but either way this gross distortion of reality should be investigated as a matter of urgency.
+1
At least you said if… But to be honest consultants are paid to tell you whatever you want to be told…
Awseome job 2Pack. I well remember your repeated insistence on this figure and it’s becoming clear you were right.
I recall Bof I used to produce a quarterly report on housing, including demographics, supply, afforadability, etc. Not very glossy, but looked like it had a good deal of solid info, statistics on population, referencing to source material.
In hindsight, what a load of shite. I recall all the conclusions were for justifying higher and higher house prices. I wonder just what they were using to produce such reports, and could they be used be developers to sue the bank now.
It was easy to work out ( see the link above for a primary workthrough)
It was easy to check by subtracting households from houses . The average household (on trend) is about 2.6 or 2.7 persons TODAY and we have 4,459,300 people so that is 1.6-1.65m households for 1.95m known esb connected houses ( + finished houses but with no esb yet ) . Housing stats are here as always and show we had 1.934m at end 2008 for asmaller population in larger households. None of this is rocket science.
I had not even thought of Geodirectory / An Post / OSI
We had long natters on the PIN about checking ESB USAGE data rather than CONNECTION data like the DoE/DoH does but never got that data.
was this press release timed to counteract postive market spin on businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2540537
Isn’t it just wonderful the way these people wander out of the groves academe to inform us of things that for years were blindingly obvious to those with their eyes open.
It conjurs up a figure who looks a bit like Robert Donat’s Mr Chips - in a tatty academic gown -whereas its more likely to be some 25 year old wunderkind who will of course now be taken seriously and interviewed ad nauseum.
Pass the sick bag Alice ! (I’m sure Mr Kitchen or Mr Sideboard or Mr Wotnot is a terribly nice and bright fellow)
Edit : Neglected to acknowledge the very sound reasoning and logical approach of 2pack in being way ahead -and done of course without the funding or long and winding journey of the academics in finally catching up
Finfacts were the only reputable news site that carried the original estimate …in a long article covering the bubble in 2008
finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews … 5142.shtml
As was pointed out correctly then …and this PROBABLY true even today although it may have changed.
“Ireland has in effect more empty housing units than rented homes of all kinds.”
It’s nice to see it being acknowledged in the media that there are plenty of empty houses in Ireland. But the report seems to be drawing the wrong conclusion. 300,000 empties in Ireland won’t make a whit of difference to the housing market if nobody is willing to sell them. And that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in. There are a lot of very wealthy people who own a lot of houses, and would rather see them empty rather than sell or rent them at a market clearing price. Many of these are developers, who are being supported in their actions by the banks and their close friends and colleagues in government.
Given the huge demand among wealthy people to own empty houses, the logical conclusion is not the we should stop building houses. The logical conclusion is that we should build more houses. Probably a lot more.
If we built more houses, then the very wealthy of Ireland would probably be a lot happier. They would then be able to afford even more empty houses, which they could sit on forever, refusing to rent or sell. If we built enough, they could perhaps sit on twice or three times as many empties, making themselves even happier.
The other advantage of building more is that some of them might be built for sale. In this case, ordinary people might be able to buy a house. In fact, if we built enough, ordinary simple Irish people might even be able to ape the lifestyle of their masters in the FF/landlord class, and have an empty house or two of their own. 
BG.
Isn’t the M in DKM Colm McCarthy
On a monthly basis they also spout their affordability index based on scandalous assumptions. The EBS pay them off for that one.
see thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27621&p=344396&hilit=dkm#p344396
The same vested interest model as Green Property – just providing a service
Anyone any figures on vacancy rates in cities in EU/UK/US. I seem to recall some figures on here somewhere before, probably provided by Prof 2pack. Thanks
you’re nuts
rich people with empty houses are feeling the pain to
while their houses were appreciating they were getting richewr
now they’re getting poorer
and many of those rich people are being hit by other factors so could do with a few quid,
and that’s excluding those who were never rich just had borrowed buckets to by badly priced bubble assetts.
The point is that there is now an excess of supply over demand so prices will keep falling.
People die often those houses will be sold by relatives who could do with any cash in.
that’s just the way it is.
building more houses is completely bonkers.
If you’re really concerned about empties, tax the hell out of em
BG.
Swich on your sarcasm detector.
USA
census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ … 9tab1.html
Off the top of my head
NI An annual estimate is made by the DSDNI and the last one is here for 2009.
The stock is now 737000 with 6.3% Vacant ( P14)
HOWEVER about 2% are vacant rentals and 4% are vacant as in rightly empty.
Holiday homes are separate to the 6.3% figure…being owner occupied and are not enumerated.
This pre census estimate for ALL of the UK HERE estimates 1% of all UK homes are second homes and half of those holidday homes or 0.5% .
Therefore c.7% Vacant maybe more second homes .
England about 3-4%+1% second
Wales about 5%+1% second