There has been some recent talk in the Dail and the media about the extent to which Ireland’s vacant housing stock could solve the social housing waiting list and save the state half-a-billion euros worth of rent supplement payments per annum. To what extent is this wishful thinking?
In principle it looks like vacant housing stock should be the answer to the social housing waiting list. There are 98,318 households on the waiting list and 230,056 housing units vacant in the country (excluding holiday homes) according to Census 2011. However, both figures are composed of a variety of types of household and housing units that deny a simple matching up.
The 98,318 households on the waiting list are composed of the following categories: 65,643 persons unable to reasonably meet the cost of the accommodation they are occupying; 9,548 persons in need of accommodation for medical or compassionate grounds; 8,534 persons sharing accommodation involuntarily; 4,594 persons living in overcrowded accommodation; 2,348 homeless persons; 2,226 older persons; 1,824 Travellers; 1,708 persons living in accommodation that is unfit or materially unsuitable; 1,315 persons with a disability; and 538 young people living in institutional care or without family accommodation.
The 230,056 vacant housing units consist of 18,638 unsold, vacant units on unfinished estates owned by developers or banks, a few thousand unsold, vacant one-off houses, and c.200,000 units in private ownership that consist of units presently for sale or available for rent, empty bereavement properties, vacant investment properties, units where owner is in long-term nursing care or retirement home, or empty due to short-term or long-term migration. In addition, there are another 8,794 nearly complete units and 9,078 under-construction units on unfinished estates.
On the one hand then, we have 65,643 people in suitable accommodation which they can’t afford, along with 13,129 people (medical condition, disabled persons, older persons) that need specialist or sheltered accommodation. On the other, we have a stock of vacant units that are universally in private hands (either owned by an individual or a company), are not designed for social or sheltered housing, and are often in places unsuitable for social housing tenants (they lack public transport, social facilities and access to employment). A small proportion of this vacant stock are in unfinished estates and these are owned by developers and banks, only a small proportion of whom are in NAMA (a large number of unfinished estates were funded by foreign-owned banks). The means for the state to presently access this unfinished estate stock is the Social Housing Leasing Initiative.
Put simply, vacant stock is privately-owned (even in cases where the loan is with a state bank or NAMA) meaning there are only two options with respect to moving people on the social housing waiting list – move them into other private accommodation reliant on rent supplement or into private accommodation reliant on the social housing leasing initiative. Neither is going to save the state much money as the state does not own the property and does not have any excess stock of its own. Moreover, the latter will leave empty private rental stock in its wake whose buy-to-let mortgages will start to default, placing more pressure on the state-guaranteed banking sector. In other words, vacant stock is not the answer to the social housing waiting list; it’s just moving people around privately owned stock.
Ultimately, the only solution to the social housing waiting list is for the state to build or buy social housing units, or to accept that the 65,643 private rental sector units that are presently unaffordable for tenants is de facto social housing stock held in private hands. The only solution to vacancy is household growth, so that supply and demand equalise.
Rob Kitchin (@robkitchin)
Ireland after NAMA 
July 9, 2012 at 9:27 am
When worked in housing policy in England I remember there being a similar debate. Social housing tenants usually have complex needs that cannot be addressed by simply opening up homes in private ownership. In the interest of a mixed community you would hardly want to fill a whole scheme with one type of tenant anyway.
I’m astounded that the private empty housing schemes in your words “lack public transport, social facilities and access to employment”. We all need that where we live, not just social tenants – so there seem to have been some serious planning failures.
Sorry for commenting using my crimepieces account. It seems too complicated to do anything else.
July 9, 2012 at 10:35 am
The point that Rob and Sarah make about “lack of public transport, social facilities and access to employment” is important. I seem to remember reading that when families were being relocated from inner city areas of Dublin that were being redeveloped out to places like Tallagh, there was little in the line of public transport and many of those relocated didn’t own cars, meaning that they often had to walk considerable distances for grocery shopping etc. It seems to me that if the Government really want to consider buying some of these units for social housing purposes they need to be very strategic about where to invest.
July 10, 2012 at 10:59 pm
[…] of the vacant houses are in private hands and most will not be sold. There are lots of useful facts here. Reply With […]
July 11, 2012 at 9:42 am
According to HL Mencken “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.” Sometimes it is also good to discover that arithmetic leads to the same conclusion. But then it would be a cold day in hell if politicians ever became untidy,implausible but right!
However leaving aside arithmetic, I would like to know if anyone, anywhere, is looking at the 230,056 with the intention of trying to discover why they are vacant.
Myself and the dog have only been able to look at the last 6 but our interim conclusion is that these houses are second homes, owned by foreign residents which will probably never find their way onto the housing market.
The problem of course is the other 230,050. Do they fall into the same category or are they something else?
July 11, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Richard, I am not sure if anyone is looking at them through any research. We speculate on what the 230,056 might consist of in this post – https://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/if-the-bulk-of-housing-vacancy-is-not-holiday-homes-or-unfinished-estates-what-is-it/
July 12, 2012 at 7:59 am
Nevertheless the tenure of such houses is important. The 2006 census was the first since 1946 (if memory serves) to count vacant houses. I think that the vacant proportion in 1946 was about 5%. A lot can happen in 60 years and it would be reckless to assume that the bulk of the 230,050 is attributable solely to the Celtic Tiger. Census field workers can only take their inquiries so far. It seems to me that there is definitely a masters thesis somewhere here if a suitable victim (sorry, student) could be found.
July 12, 2012 at 1:56 am
Squat the lot!