Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 January 2024
342. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will instruct his Department to intervene in the case of the 28 houses completed in an estate (details supplied) to ensure the properties are not sold to investment funds. [4180/24]
View answerAn adequate supply and mix of housing across all tenures is critical to balancing supply and demand in the housing market, including for home ownership, social housing and private rental.
Under Housing Policy Objective 1.10 of Housing for All, Government committed to introducing an ‘owner-occupier' guarantee to enable local authorities specify the proportion of houses and duplexes in a development for owner-occupiers. To this end, measures were introduced by Government in May 2021 to disincentivise and prohibit the bulk buying of such properties.
The measures included a higher 10% stamp duty levy on cumulative purchase of 10 or more residential properties, excluding apartments, in a 12-month period to disincentivise the bulk purchase of homes by institutional investors.
At the same time, Section 28 Guidelines for Planning Authorities 'Regulation of Commercial Institutional Investment in Housing' effectively introduced an ‘owner-occupier’ guarantee by ensuring new ‘own-door’ houses and duplex units in housing developments could no longer be bulk-purchased by institutional investors in a manner that displaces individual purchasers or social and affordable housing.
The guidelines provide for a form of condition to be inserted in applicable new planning permissions requiring all houses to be made available for sale and first occupation by separate, individual households for a period of years after completion (only applicable to houses and duplex units in mixed developments and not apartments).
Complementary measures were also introduced via the Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Act 2021, which provides that local authorities must ensure home ownership as a tenure type is provided for and estimated in their respective housing strategies. To this end, the Act introduces the principle of home ownership as a specific tenure type in a local authority housing strategy, with particular regard to developments of houses and duplexes, and gives further legislative effect to the Section 28 Guidelines issued in 2021.
Some 39,900 homes have been granted planning permission with conditions prohibiting the bulk purchase by, or multiple sale to, a single purchaser between May 2021 and December 2023.
The suggestion that institutional investors are crowding out prospective owner-occupiers are not borne out by official data, which show institutional investors still comprise a relatively small proportion of residential properties purchased annually. In this context, and given the scale of new residential properties ring-fenced for owner-occupiers, I am satisfied that the actions which this Government have put in place have been effective and further intervention is not necessary at this time.
Planning permission for this development was granted by Fingal County Council on 30 November 2018. Permission was subsequently granted by An Bord Pleanála on 8 May 2019 following a third party appeal. Therefore, the restrictions introduced in May 2021 on bulk purchasing through the Section 28 Guidelines for Planning Authorities “Regulation of Commercial Institutional Investment in Housing” would not apply in this case.
