Homes for People, not for Vultures
By Conall McCallig
Earlier this month it was revealed that a vulture fund had purchased 46 of the 54 homes built in a new housing estate in Belcamp Manor, Balgriffin, Dublin.
This was mere weeks after the number of homeless in Ireland surged past 13,000 people for the first time¹. Yet 85% of the total property stock was sold to a DWS group (owned by Deutsche Bank), for a total of €21,585,904². These properties have since been put up for rent, at a cost of €3,175 a month³. This will see the renters covering the purchase price of the house in under 13 years - but coming no closer to actually owning it. These corporate landlords will see an income from each property well in excess of the total annual income of a full time minimum wage worker. In fact, if one wanted to live here whilst applying the “30% of income on rent” rule, they would require an annual salary of €127,000!
This is not an isolated incident. As per the Central Statistics Office, “investment funds” are spending up to €30 million each month buying up properties⁴. The government have rolled out various bills beneficial to thes ‘funds’ over the years – for example, cuckoo funds are no longer required to pay stamp duty on homes leased to councils⁵. Not to mention the various tax loopholes which were already in place⁶. This comes as no surprise – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar himself is on the record praising vulture funds⁷.
Sinn Fein: 7% to the left of FF & FG?
The response from Sinn Féin to this has not been much better, though perhaps this is not surprising of a party which also counts landlords amongst its elected representatives⁸. The party brought a motion before the Dáil last week, calling for the increase on stamp duty for bulk buying of homes from 10% to 17%⁹. This may be a minor inconvenience to the vultures, but will by no means prevent them from doing similar again in the future. It appears the party are willing to allow cuckoo funds to retain their position in the housing market, as long as they pay a little more tax to show for it. They continue their drift towards the centre of the political spectrum, and are keen to let developers know that a Sinn Féin government is no threat to them. Their recent actions suggest that a Sinn Féin government, left to their own devices, will not lead change in the area of housing, but will largely look to keep the status quo.
Homelessness and housing inequality will persist under the current neoliberal system, whether it's Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil, or Sinn Féin at the wheel unless we have real systemic change. This starts with the banning of vulture funds from the Irish housing market. This is not an unprecedented move. In 2012, the Isle of Man introduced legislation to ban the operation of vulture funds¹⁰, following a similar move by Jersey that same year¹¹. 6,000 homes were purchased by vulture funds in Ireland in 2022¹² - a number far in excess of those made homeless over the same time period.
There is an alternative
We need to stress the possibility of an alternative. A housing system which, to be frank, puts people before profit. The private sector needs to be drastically shrunk, with a massive increase in the number of publicly-owned homes made available – both as a result of these acquisitions, and the construction of many thousand more through a state-owned construction company. From this we can build a new housing model – in which tenants will have security of tenure and proper protections. In which tenure can be seen as a permanent state, not temporary. A system in which rent will be determined by the occupant’s income, and may adjust over time as this increases/decreases. Such a system of universal public housing would allow for the creation of more permanent and tight-knit communities, whose members could live comfortably without the constant fear of eviction. If housing truly is a human right, it is not something we can leave to the market to decide.
We can’t wait for a Sinn Féin-led government that may never deliver an answer to the housing crisis. We cannot settle for ‘slight improvements’ through reformist measures, or a SF-FF coalition that manages the current capitalist system. We must begin the fight on housing now. We must look to build mass movements around this, bringing tens of thousands on to the streets to demand change, to put pressure on the government from below. Whilst we have seen several impressive demonstrations in Dublin over the past few years, we have yet to see a national protest on the scale of the recent Palestine demo, or the Ireland4All event back in February. Or further back again, to the successful actions against the water charges. The potential is there to build to this level, as the housing crisis continues to worsen.
Conall McCallig is a member of PBP Galway and part of the RISE network.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/1124/1418344-homeless-figures/
https://www.propertypriceregister.ie/Website/npsra/PPR/npsra-ppr.nsf/eStampUNID/UNID-89ED4775E0D7274380258A9200603534?OpenDocument
https://occu.ie/locations/belcamp-manor-dublin-17/
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/cuckoo-funds-and-the-state-snap-up-42pc-of-new-homes-as-first-time-buyers-feel-the-squeeze/42388816.html
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/dail-passes-amendment-exempting-funds-from-duty-on-homes-leased-to-councils-1.4614003
https://rupture.ie/articles/tax-haven-ireland
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/leo-varadkar-defends-vulture-funds-and-criticises-practices-of-irish-banks-1.3742477
http://tdlandlords.com/
https://www.thejournal.ie/bulk-buying-houses-sinn-fein-motion-6273879-Jan2024/
https://www.funds-europe.com/latest-news/isle-of-man-outlaws-vulture-funds
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/20/jersey-vulture-funds-courts
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/01/24/vulture-funds-bought-6000-homes-in-2022-despite-regulations-to-halt-bulk-buying-mary-lou-mcdonald/